31 replies to this topic

[jjm66smokey]

Type of fish: DECEASED in LAST 2 HOURS ... 1 Red tail black shark (Carp), 1 whiptail cat, 2 glass cats, 1 guppy; 1 glass cat+ 1 Whiptail + 2 kuhliis + 2 guppies nearly dead
Symptoms: All panting, listless, near surface
Other tank mates: 3 large angels, 15 guppies, couple more kuhliis, 1? whiptail, 4 yoyo loach, 5 platys, 6 corys, 4 med BN's
Tank size / capacity: 200lr
Type of Food fed: Sera Flora + Algae wafers
Feeding frequency/amount: daily
Substrate: Amazonia
Type of filtration: Powerhead PLUS Fluval 305
Frequency of filter cleans: powerhead Fortnightly and Fluval 1-2 monthly
Frequency and % volume of water changes: 10% week
Last water change: last week and now doing a 20%
PH: 6.8
NH3 / NH4 0.25 ppm
NO2- about 1ppm
NO3- has suddenly jumped to about 60ppm
KH and GH both about 80ppm

Added 5ml of API CO2 Booster on Friday.
Added 2 Whiptails from City Farmers yesterday
No tank dramas apart from the 3 angels roughing it up with each other as usual.

Was out for a couple of hours today.
Silver angel had gone almost white.
1 glass cat dead
Sharkey panting and dying;
Others in top corner panting;
Kuhliis hanging on bottom at odd angles;

0412 035 

Edited by jjm66smokey, 25 November 2013 - 06:18 PM.

[Anka]

Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all high.

50% water change

Double dose of prime

Gravel vac to remove all dead plants, debris and fish crap.

Sorry for your loss

Edit: 50% might be a bit much. I'll let someone else confirm.

[Buccal]

I always oppose water changes in ammonia spike emergencies,,, this is a ammo spike emergency to.
First thing tomorrow get some Ammo lock and double dose it.
Also double dose with seachem prime.
Have maximum surface agitation till your locking/binding chemicals are added.
Best action,,, find someone from the pcs closest to you with prime and drive there and pick It up.
Your ammonia levels are needed to complete the nitrogen cycle ASAP,,, if you reduce ammonia by water changes then you will prolong the process.
Your cause of problem is cleaning your filter to often.
Clean filter media In a bucket of tank water and never water change on a filter clean day.
30% water changes are most safe.
Good filtration systems are needed to do 50% water changes.

[Anka]

I have some Prime and some stability (stability adds bacteria to your filters).

If you can pick up within 30 minutes I can spare you what is left of my stability (maybe 100mls?) and enough prime for several doses.

Txt me on 0411452580.

I'm probably a 15 minute drive from you - near Mullaloo Beach Hotel.

[STEVEGREEN]

50% water change now if you enter anything to survive

What chemicals do you have NOW?

[Mr_docfish]

At this point - the fish are suffering from the nitrite - anything other than 0 is too much (the low pH is covering the slight ammonia for now)
Considering the nitrates are also high, Id do a half water change now and 30% water changes every day to get both nitrite and nitrate down - and push your GH up a bit more to help reduce the impact of any more nitrite.

Halve your feeding until the filter catches up - test the water daily if you have to... Water change the excess waste out if you gave to...

Considering the number if fish and the size of the tank, Id water change at least 20% every week or more in order to keep the nitrates down.

If you are using acidic aquasoils, keepan eye on the pH - if it goes below 6.0, yoi might find the bacteria in the filter may drop out, this may be the reason behind the sudden increase in the ammonia and nitrite - but the effects of thise may not be obvious if the pH is low enough rendering the ammonia as ammonium, and no nitrite being produced until after a water change, where the pH will increase a bit allowing the remaining bacteria to produce nitrite - which is when you see the effects.... By now, I cant prove the theory, but it is a common situation - with the combination of aquasoil, high nitrate and a relatively low KH, it is a recipe for disaster... You have to keep an eye on the water parameters or cut down on the number of fish in this tank and cut doen on the amount of food.... Aquasoils are generally for planted tanks - this many fish may be too much for a planted situation, so you may have to decide on a planted rank or a fish tank (without aquasoil - try using a more neutral pH soil)

For now, I hope you can rescue your fish...

[bigjohnnofish]

remove live fish to a stable tank... and acclimatise them as if you just got them from a shop first.... but its prob too late for a lot of your fish as they'll be damaged and may well die anyway now....

[jjm66smokey]

Thanks guys
Have taken out about 50% of water, transplanted and acclimatised those of the surviving guys I could catch into breeding tank.
Guppy fry for tea for them tonight that's left alive to eat.
Thanks for offer of Prime, Anka; only just noticed so a bit late to call / visit.

All the Chems I have at hand now are:

API Stress Coat
API Tap water conditioner
API CO2 booster

API Aquarium Salt
Seachem Neutral Regulator
Seacham Acid Regulator

Will get Ammo Lock and Seachem Prime in the morning

[bigjohnnofish]

in dire emergency you could remove fish to a bucket/esky and do 100% water change.... then acclimatise them as if you just got them from a shop....

[jjm66smokey]

Thanks Bigjohnno and everyone else for your advices;
Thanks Anka for your offer which I didn't see until well after 10.00...
and HUGE THANKS to Kleinz for Ammo Lock and Prime at such a late hour!
You have some awesome looking fish mate!

Have done a 50% water change
Keeping tank surface well aerated / agitated
Have put all those easily caught into the breeding tank
Will do 30% change daily's for next couple of days with Ammo/Prime for each 40lr change.
Will ensure I ALWAYS do 20% weekly in future.
Previously it was

The 3 big Angels still in the main Ammo spiked tank (looking a bit rough balance wise, and bloodshot fins/gills)
All still in there are the 6 corys (all seem ok), 2 yoyos, 1 whiptail, 2 kuhlii and 2 platys and the three gourami I couldn't catch. Plus the 4 big BN Boys!
The guppy's breeding tank is now invaded by the one surviving glass catfish (seems to be recovering), 3 gouramis (all seem ok), several platys, 2 kuhliis (both recovering) and 1 yoyo (recovering).

Death toll - nothing since about 10pm... stands at 4 glass cats, 2 whiptails, 1 yoyo, 2 guppies, 1 redtail shark.

[Buccal]

Hmm, surprised to see the glass cats survive

[Anka]

30% daily might be a bit much.

I'd do 30% every second day

[jjm66smokey]

5th and final (transplanted) glass cat died.
Plus one kuhli.
the 3 XL angels still at surface for air along with the couple of platys I couldn't catch, 1 pearl gourami staying near surface (missing his mate in the other tank?)
the 2 blue gouramis seem to be ignoring the whole drama; cory's and BN Boys all seem non-phased.

Couldn't get the seals in the Fluval 305 to sitproper last night so finally gave up at 2.15am with a slight drip and tried again this morning; waiting to check;

Any thoughts for changing filter media... have been running
Fluval 305 with 4x 1-inch thick black sponges (bought from Veba's to cut your own to shape);
1- lower level with Aqua One bio-noodles
2- with Aqua One carbon in bags ... no longer activated as it's been in too long
3- SeaChem de-nitrate (after removing water softening pillow about 6 weeks back);

Should I get new carbon or get something else in there, or just leave it to settle for a bit?

Water still very cloudy after yesterday's 50% change.
Will go out to local pet store later in get extra Ammo-Lock and Prime for when Kleinz's saving contribution runs out;
Just done an ammonia test: still between 0.25 and 0.50ppm
Nitrite looks clear and nitrate down to just under 40ppm
PH still 6.8-ish; KH and GH as always around 8-ppm.

Perhaps just 3 buckets (about 15%) today.

THOUGHTS on WATER CHANGE and FILTER MEDIA please folks?

Cheers
James
0412 035 377

[werdna]

Ammonia shouldn't be up still?

Are you sure there isn't a dead fish somewhere in the tank?
Only other cause is your filter crashing, either from overstocking, insufficient media, or washing out all the beneficial bacteria.

I don't know canister filters very well, I don't like them, but ditch the carbon and get something with surface area, aqua clay maybe?
Also, Seachem denitrate can be ditched as well and replaced.

The most efficient and cheapest nitrate removal tool is a water change.

I would change 30-50% weekly. I have done weekly 50% changes on all my tanks for over 10 years and never had issues from it.

[Alex Hill]

I am far from an expert, but I have read somewhere that once the carbon absorbs too much junk it releases it back into the tank en masse, which could be causing some of the issues.

I would recommend not using carbon unless you are trying to strip the water of medication, and put something like SeaChem Matrix in there instead.

Perhaps someone with a tad more experience can either back me up or dispel a myth regarding the carbon issue.

[Kleinz]

Yep. Hook out the carbon, look for dead stuff that might be pushing ammonia higher. Not sure on the nitrate pad.

If you used ammo lock or Prime, then the ammonia and nitrites should be rendered harmless, but will still show up when testing.

[RanchuJeff]

I'm not an expert with your specific breeds but would like to add something for consideration. Generally maintaining good water chemistry are vital for all breeds to survive.

Your ammonia (0.5ppm is a killer) and nitrate( 40ppm, will knock down your PH) level are far too high. It probably came about from your dead fish and your filter may need a throughout cleaning too.
Yes, as pointed out, the carbon should be chucked out. If it has been there for more than 3 weeks, chances are they are fully loaded by now.

I would do all the necessary water changes as suggested by others to bring the ammonia to zero and nitrate to >10ppm. No feeding for a few days should be ok. Have you consider putting in a heater when everything is under control? Autumn temps are here.

Good luck

[Buccal]

Yes carbon releases what it has collected once it's capacity is used up,,, this makes things unstable.
Carbon should only be used to serve a task very short term,,, then removed.
Even worse again and as good as it is,,, is the use of Zeolite rock,, this absorbs ammonia unbelievably well.
But Zeolite once fully saturated with ammonia will dump it back back into the water in massive amounts.
Zeolite can also be recharged in a heavy salted water solution.
Zeolite is great stuff,, but let your guard down,, and your stuffed.
In fact I'd bet a bucket of Zeolite rock with water passing through at 500 liters a hour from this effected tank to the bucket then back into tank would clear up the ammo and cloudy effects almost within hours.
I've trailed Zeolite with cichlid fry growth and works noticeably as a way of growth exceleration.

When I was in my Teens I use to send my display tank into a ammo spike all the time from always doing the don'ts.
The advice I always got was do a 50% water change,,, I always did and most of the time, the next day I'd wake up to a cloudy tank again and even more cloudy.
I know my advice goes against the grain of the normal advice for ammo spikes,, but sometimes excepting a few losses and letting the tank rebalance with out intervening let's things rebalance to normal faster.

Usually when a spike re occurs after a 50% water change means that your bio-filter is to small for your water volume,,, or the media is set wrongly inside of filter,,, or incorrect maintenance is carried out on that filter not allowing a healthy strong population of beneficial bacteria to exist.

[werdna]

Seen as everyone else is throwing their opinions into the mix.
Ammonia should be 0, however it is not toxic at this stage as Oli mentioned


Adding aquarium salt (he already has some on hand) will stop the effects of nitrite poisoning.
Do a google search before arguing with this, it has been used in aquaculture for years and there are plenty of studies on it.

Water change will fix the high nitrates.

The cause appears to be a filter crash due to lack of proper filtration or overfeeding IMO.
Hence the reason for my suggestion to ditch the useless carbon and useless denitrate, and as mentioned via pm, one basket first then the other 2 weeks later.
The other suggestion of Oli's to reduce feeding will reduce fish poop, reducing bioload on the filter, reducing ammonia, reducing nitrite, reducing nitrate.
Not to mention sick fish generally don't like to eat much, so food will probably just fall to the bottom and cause more bioload for the filter anyway.

A water change may not fix the initial problem, but if other corrective measures are taken then it will definitely help.

However most people believe 40-80ppm of nitrate is too high, so why not do a water change?

So, in summary, cause and affect.
A water change and the addition of salt would have fixed the affect at no cost and without the need to drive around collecting treatments off people (although an extremely generous offer that's what a club is supposed to be about)
Increasing filter media and reducing feed will fix the cause.

Problem solvered

Andrew

[Cawdor]

I always oppose water changes in ammonia spike emergencies,,, this is a ammo spike emergency to.

I would like to ask why you oppose water changes when ammonia is too high?

As the old saying goes, "the solution to pollution is dilution" - so why not do a 50% water change and halve the amount of ammonia in the water? Everyone should have water conditioner, so the bacteria in the filter are not affected by the water change.

I've been taught that the first step to any issue you have in your tank that is health related (apart from aggression of course) is to do a big water change.