Not sure what happened...

[shoggoth43]

Yesterday I did a big cleaning of the filters. Got out a whole pile of gunk and such. I wiped down the glass and did a fairly big water change, maybe 75%. I finally pulled out some bioballs that were floating around and got rid of the airstone since I figured I had enough surface movement.

I suspect I got a little complacent overall and didn't pay enough attention to the tank this morning as I just put in a little food and left. I got an email this afternoon that two fish were dead and my wife was trying to figure out how to do a water change. She did the change ~50%, but didn't add any prime to the water, so the fish were in a half and half mix for a little while until I told her how much to add so that may have done the filter in.

I lost the biggest discus of the group and one sterbai cat. When I got home I did a major water change. Probably 35-40 gallons out of a 45 gallon tank. I've added back the airstone for the moment and moved the outflow of the eheim 2028 to use the spraybar across the top. I also moved the sheet of plexi I had on top up onto some blocks. I didn't have it all the way across the top before, but it seemed a prudent change given the working theory I've come up with.

Right now I have 5 remaining juvies. 3 are swimming out in the water column and 1 is eating off the sponge prefilter and the remaining one is very dark and sulking next to the prefilter. The dark one commonly does this during a water change. I suspect the O2 content drops a bit during the water changes due to using some hot water to bring the temps closer to final temp. Usually I go a touch warmer than tank water and let it drop down to the final tank temp. I suspect I'll be seeing a new power struggle for a bit and I hope I won't be losing any more in the process. I've also removed a small school of black neons I was using as dither fish on the theory that perhaps the bioload may be too great overall, but with an eheim 2028 I would think it should be more than capable. I usually change 35-50% of the water daily anyway.

So, what happened? Did I collapse the bacteria in the filter when I cleaned? There's little point in testing for ammonia at this point as I'll be seeing plenty after using Prime and dealing with the chloramine. Did I just have a buildup of CO2? This makes sense as it was the biggest of the group that died and he would probably be the one with the biggest O2 needs. Should I be worried about the filter now since my wife used tap water without conditioner?

-
S

[Chad Hughes]

Assuming that you treated your tap water with conditioner (like prime) when you performed your water change, I wouldn't say that it was your filter or ammonia that caused the death of the fish. A death this rapid (within 24 hours) is likely due to a contaminant in your water or a huge TDS shift.

I've heard of instances where folks have recently used pesticides around the house or even in the house that have contaiminated tanks or water storage containers. These may even be in your water if you are on a well. Since I don't know what your water source is, it's hard to tell.

You really shouldn't have discus turning dark during water changes. You may see stress bars, but turning dark is a pretty good sign of something being very wrong. Any additional info would be great!

Best wishes!

[shoggoth43]

Well, it's city water. MWRA. He's not dark anymore and it lasts only an hour or so if/when he darkens. I think he just doesn't like the water level change. At the moment they're all about the proper color. Since the dark one is the omega of the group he doesn't generally venture out and about too freely. Hopefully they'll chill out a bit more shortly. They're out and about, but they're definitely starting to squabble a bit more since the pecking order is up for grabs.

Pesticides might actually be the key here. I found a yellow jacket nest in the AC and blasted it with RAID. When we came back there was a slight odor in the room of it even though I had all the vents closed. It didn't occur to me on that. I'm not sure that's the whole story, but it might be part of it.

-
S

[Chad Hughes]

Well, it's city water. MWRA. He's not dark anymore and it lasts only an hour or so if/when he darkens. I think he just doesn't like the water level change. At the moment they're all about the proper color. Since the dark one is the omega of the group he doesn't generally venture out and about too freely. Hopefully they'll chill out a bit more shortly. They're out and about, but they're definitely starting to squabble a bit more since the pecking order is up for grabs.

Pesticides might actually be the key here. I found a yellow jacket nest in the AC and blasted it with RAID. When we came back there was a slight odor in the room of it even though I had all the vents closed. It didn't occur to me on that. I'm not sure that's the whole story, but it might be part of it.

-
S

It may seem that it wouldn't have an impact, but it's likely what caused your problem. Nothing kills discus faster than a pesticide, cleaning agent, etc. Anything that goes airborne exchanges with the water's surface. I'm really sorry to hear of your loss. I would double your water changes for a the rest of the week to ensure that you've flushed out whatever is/was there. In the future, be sure to cover your tank with some saran wrap proir to exterminating. Once you can't smell the chemical, you can take off the wrap.

Best wishes!

[DiscusOnly]

I finally pulled out some bioballs that were floating around and got rid of the airstone since I figured I had enough surface movement.


I can only venture a guess is the lack of oxygen if it's not chemical that killed your fish.

I'll go back a few months when I "goof and did something stupid". I run 2 cannister filter and always have 2 spray bar (1 going across the front and another toward the back). I've beeing using this setup over 2 years and I decided I wanted to quiet the tank a bit. I directed the 2 spray bar downward after a WC.

I woke up the next morning to find over 30 dead shrimp (appear as if it's been cooked), over a dozen of rummy nose dead along with 2 loach. All my BD Discus had white spot and up gasping for air. I immediately change the water and set the spray bar back to it's original setting and everything was fine within 24 hours.

My guess is that you were not getting enough oxygen in the tank. I basically killed everything that was down on the bottom of the tank.

[shoggoth43]

I'm kind of leaning towards O2 as well. It would make sense that the biggest one with the most O2 demand is the one that died if that were the case. The cover was just a sheet of plexi on top of the tank, so only a thin strip was open to the air. I had no reason to suspect the lack of an air stone would make that much of a difference. In hindsight I should have known better. :( It's kind of a tossup between tight fitting cover, or bengals in the tank either drowning or possibly knocking the whole thing over sideways while desperately trying to get out since it's a 36" deep tank. I like my discus, but the kitties take priority on that one.

The pesticide smell was only near the AC towards the back of the room, but it also makes sense that it may have pushed them over the edge. I would think domestics would have somewhat more tolerance to pesticides since it's more likely they'd have exposure to it, but who knows. With the loss of those fish and the removal of the neons the overall load in the tank should have dropped a bit as well.

With the airstone they're all moving around the tank and eating. They seem a little subdued, but it's midnight, they've had a pretty lousy day and their hierarchy is all messed up now so I'll leave it as is and check on them in the morning. I'll try removing the airstone over the weekend again when I can watch the tank closely. I suspect the cover changes and new spraybar configuration will make all the difference here. I'll keep up with my usual ~50% daily water changes and semi random ammonia testing.

-
S


I can only venture a guess is the lack of oxygen if it's not chemical that killed your fish.

I'll go back a few months when I "goof and did something stupid". I run 2 cannister filter and always have 2 spray bar (1 going across the front and another toward the back). I've beeing using this setup over 2 years and I decided I wanted to quiet the tank a bit. I directed the 2 spray bar downward after a WC.

I woke up the next morning to find over 30 dead shrimp (appear as if it's been cooked), over a dozen of rummy nose dead along with 2 loach. All my BD Discus had white spot and up gasping for air. I immediately change the water and set the spray bar back to it's original setting and everything was fine within 24 hours.

My guess is that you were not getting enough oxygen in the tank. I basically killed everything that was down on the bottom of the tank.

[Chad Hughes]

I'm kind of leaning towards O2 as well. It would make sense that the biggest one with the most O2 demand is the one that died if that were the case. The cover was just a sheet of plexi on top of the tank, so only a thin strip was open to the air. I had no reason to suspect the lack of an air stone would make that much of a difference.

One air stone will not make that big of a difference. That's why I mentioned the pesticide.

I have tight fitting glass lids on my tanks as well minus the cutouts for the tubes an stuff in the back. I don't use air pumps either. If you truely had an O2 problem it might have been due to the fact that the fish were poisoned making it difficult to breathe. If an air stone could kill a discus in 24 hours, discus would not survive shipments from other countires.

Just my $.02

Best wishes!

[rickztahone]

...If an air stone could kill a discus in 24 hours, discus would not survive shipments from other countires.

Just my $.02

Best wishes!

that is a very true statement.

[shoggoth43]

Well, they're still alive as of this morning. Very clear water as well. Colors are much lighter and no bars showing. Of course I had just woken them up, but it's a vast improvement overall. My wife also told me that as soon as she took the lid off yesterday the rest of them were doing much better within a few minutes which definitely points to some sort of CO2 or O2 issue. I've usually done fairly well with fish so these guys are a whole new level. I'm starting to rethink any future inclinations towards marine...

One thing I do wonder about the tight fitting lids, where do you get any O2 exchange? I know it's an issue for the guys who do CO2 injection as they can readily repeat the gasping behavior with a tight fitting lid so I'm curious as to where/how the O2 actually makes it into the tank without plants if the lid is on tight. With an airstone you're pumping SOME amount of air to displace any stagnant layer of CO2 sitting just on top of the surface. I may decide to add a wet/dry to the final configuration to ensure there's a decent amount of O2 in there no matter what. I should have the second Eheim 2028 here tomorrow.

Now I just don't really know how I'm going to construct the final hood on the tank....

-
S


One air stone will not make that big of a difference. That's why I mentioned the pesticide.

I have tight fitting glass lids on my tanks as well minus the cutouts for the tubes an stuff in the back. I don't use air pumps either. If you truely had an O2 problem it might have been due to the fact that the fish were poisoned making it difficult to breathe. If an air stone could kill a discus in 24 hours, discus would not survive shipments from other countires.

Just my $.02

Best wishes!

[mmorris]

Did I collapse the bacteria in the filter when I cleaned? There's little point in testing for ammonia at this point as I'll be seeing plenty after using Prime and dealing with the chloramine. -
S

It's hard to believe an aquarium lid could be, literally, so air tight as to restrict gas exchange and if it was, why didn't it bother the discus before? You removed the airstone but I wouldn't think that would make such an immediate difference. You did a major clean-up (gunk?!) and removed some bio-balls so I'm guessing you had an ammonia spike. When I have a problem the first thing I do is test for ammonia. Still, I'm surprised the spike was enough to kill so quickly.

[plecocicho]

I suspect amonia spike. Since one of your sterbai diead as well, lack of oxygen by itself couldnt be the cause. All corydoras species can breath oxygen by swallowing air. Rich blood net in their guts alows them to extract oxygen from air. Did you measure your ammonia and nitrite levels?

[shoggoth43]

Gunk, sadly yes. I clean the prefilter daily but apparently it's too coarse. When I opened up the canister there was definitely some uneaten food in there which was a surprise since that's why I got the prefilter in the first place. I ordered a couple of those filtermax 3 prefilters and they should arrive with the 2nd Eheim 2028 tomorrow. Hopefully they will not let food through them. I rinsed out the prefilter section and left the bio section alone. The polishing pad got a squeeze or two as well. I got some reddish water out of it. I'm not sure if that was food residue or perhaps the ehfimek ( or whatever it's called ) dust since it's kind of reddish. I hope it was dust...

The lid was just a sheet of plexi on top of the tank, due to the airstone and humidity, the edges of the tank had layer of water, so it sealed pretty well around the tank except at the back where the canister tubes are. My thought was that if there were a stagnant layer of CO2 sitting on the water, they wouldn't be able to get any O2. Hence the thought about the airpump blowing off that stagnant layer. However, I would expect a lot more die off if that were the case but I have no idea since I didn't see any of the fish behavior. Ammonia was not measured nor nitrite. There's wasn't any point since by the time I got home there was already a major water change that my wife had done. Once that happens my test kits don't read a "proper" ammonia level due to chloramine and Prime. My main concern was getting the "bad" water out and replaced with something that was hopefully "good" considering the fish still looked pretty miserable and a touch cloudy. I have no idea how long the dead fish were in there or how cloudy it was initially.

I'm basically left with a second hand account of how they were acting and nothing but conjecture for causes.

-
S


It's hard to believe an aquarium lid could be, literally, so air tight as to restrict gas exchange and if it was, why didn't it bother the discus before? You removed the airstone but I wouldn't think that would make such an immediate difference. You did a major clean-up (gunk?!) and removed some bio-balls so I'm guessing you had an ammonia spike. When I have a problem the first thing I do is test for ammonia. Still, I'm surprised the spike was enough to kill so quickly.

[mmorris]

It might be useful to measure the ammonia of the water after Prime has been added, but before it goes in the tank. That should give you a baseline. I'm sorry you lost the fish, but your quick thinking and action probably saved others.

[shoggoth43]

2nd 2028 is installed. I have the prefilters installed. At some point I need to cut in the hydor inline heater but we'll see where things stand from there...

[hope]

just a thought... you might want to test your tap water. See if anything has changed with the PH. My tap water has extremely high ph according to my water department it's because they added something to the water to combat issues with old pipes, and the chemical caused high ph. Weird it would have just happened with you, but worth a check.

Even if the ph is fine, if everything else everyone suggests doesn't resolve the question, it might be worth just asking - maybe they added something else to your water that doesn't show up on our tests. Long shot, but it's onlyu a phone call. Good luck.

[seanyuki]

I was told that in my area.....they added more chlorine into the resevoirs to stop the algae blooms during summer months.


Cheers
Francis:)