Sick from driftwood, please help urgent!
I have 5 discus, 65 gallon aquarium. Recently ordered a piece of alborz wood from an online aquarium store, which I have used before. Cleaned the wood and put in tank last night. This morning they were all gasping for air at the top of the tank. I added another air stone, removed the wood and did a 75% water change. They had a turquoise rainbow fish as a tank mate but he did not survive this. He quickly got black patches, then white patches then died. This is all in less than 24 hours! Now my discus are all still, some tilting to their side with clamped fins and one of them has gotten very dark, almost black eyes. I am so worried. Anyone with any information or knowledge on something like this, I would greatly appreciate the help.
Problem
1. Please explain the problems with your fish. When did you notice the problems and did anything unusual happen that you think started them?
2. Symptoms (i.e. turning dark, excess slime, not eating, clamped fins, flashing, darting, clamped gills, white/yellow/green poop, hiding, headstanding or tailstanding, white on tips of fins, rotting or fungus, blisters/white zits on fish, bloated, cloudy eyes, wounds).
3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.
Tank/Water
4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.
65 gallon running for 4 years, 5 discus, 4 cordyas
5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).
30% 3xweek
6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?
4 years, very thin layer of gravel
7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.
8. What type/brand water conditioner do you use? Do you add it to the tank or aging barrel? How much do you use?
Prime
9. Parameters and water source;
Treated Pond water
Note: Water Parameters are important in diagnosing problems within a tank. If you don't own test kits for the following information, you can purchase them, test your parameters and post this info as soon as possible.
- temp ____84_
- ph _____7.2
- ammonia reading ____0
- nitrite reading ____0
- nitrate reading ____80
What type of water or combinations of water sources do you use? If it is an RO/tap/well water mix, please list percentages in the mix.
- well water ____
- municipal water ____
- RO water ____
10. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.
Just the alborz wood
11. Please tell us what you feed your fish and how often. This can be critical information for solving the problem so be as specific as you can.
3 x day. Beefheart, bloodwors, brine shrimp, pellets and beefheart flakes
12. Include any pictures or videos you have which shows the symptoms. If you can't add them to this post, please provide a link to them.
Re: Sick from driftwood, please help urgent!
change 75% again and hope for the best. So sorry that this has happened to you through no fault of your own.
Re: Sick from driftwood, please help urgent!
You did a 75% W/C, and you now have a reading of 80 ppm of nitrate - is that truly correct?
Re-check this.
It can't be, after such a large W/C. So your post of 80 ppm of nitrate is either incorrect, or you have a huge nitrate condition/level in the water you used for your W/C. This level of nitrate would seemingly be very toxic to discus.
You said you were doing 30% W/C 3 X a week - did you do such a wc the day before adding the wood ?
Re: Sick from driftwood, please help urgent!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
discuspaul
You did a 75% W/C, and you now have a reading of 80 ppm of nitrate - is that truly correct?
Re-check this.
It can't be, after such a large W/C. So your post of 80 ppm of nitrate is either incorrect, or you have a huge nitrate condition/level in the water you used for your W/C. This level of nitrate would seemingly be very toxic to discus.
It was 80 before the water change
Re: Sick from driftwood, please help urgent!
I intend to do another large water change first thing in the morning. Didn't think I should do it again today. though I am fearful of what I am going to find in the morning.
Re: Sick from driftwood, please help urgent!
Am curious, any recent measured pre WC nitrate levels prior to intro of driftwood? Also check your nitrate prior to today's WC and if still very high, check your WC source for nitrates. Possible nitrate contamination of pond source? Driftwood might be temporal coincidence....What is your highest color on your nitrate test, are you possibly at 80+? Could explain the anoxic symptoms you encountered.
Re: Sick from driftwood, please help urgent!
Also with Nitrates at 80 or somewhere north of that value I would recommend starting with a 20% change and then 10% water changes hourly x 8-10 hours till you are <= 10 rather than a 75% change which would drop your nitrates from 80 to 20 (or from whatever level by 75%) almost immediately which has its own negative effects. This assumes your source for WC is nitrate free, it might in fact be the cause of the problem. Also if you have more air stones, use them. Finally you might want to be a little sceptical of your nitrate test and correlate with another brand tester. I personally prefer Hanna over other more popular tests as I can differentiate the scale a little better and I like their reputation.
Re: Sick from driftwood, please help urgent!
I might have missed it but if you have Prime to neutralize the nitrate load. I would use 3-4x dose. Might also consider salt at 1 tsp per 10 gal.
Re: Sick from driftwood, please help urgent!
I should have mentioned earlier I have always had a nitrate problem with this tank. They have been 60-80 ppm for as long as I can remember. I know that is high, and I have tried literally everything to lower them with no luck. My water tests 0, my second tank tests 20ppm so I feel the test kit is correct. My terrible nitrate issue is another issue for another day. All that said, I am confident this problem was caused by the alborz wood. Everyone is still alive this morning but most aren't interested in eating. I am about to do another water change and clean the canister and sponge filters now.
Re: Sick from driftwood, please help urgent!
Yes I use prime. I will up it with this next water change
Re: Sick from driftwood, please help urgent!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
dspeers
Also with Nitrates at 80 or somewhere north of that value I would recommend starting with a 20% change and then 10% water changes hourly x 8-10 hours till you are <= 10 rather than a 75% change which would drop your nitrates from 80 to 20 (or from whatever level by 75%) almost immediately which has its own negative effects. This assumes your source for WC is nitrate free, it might in fact be the cause of the problem. Also if you have more air stones, use them. Finally you might want to be a little sceptical of your nitrate test and correlate with another brand tester. I personally prefer Hanna over other more popular tests as I can differentiate the scale a little better and I like their reputation.
Jeanne
I would like to thank you for being though in defining the effects of large water changes in that you can improve some parameters that being amonia and nitrite those being the most toxic but you can also swing your ph and nitrates causing harm
Re: Sick from driftwood, please help urgent!
Hi Tanner, I noticed on your first post the source for your water changes is "Treated Pond Water". Could you describe this a bit more?
Pat
Re: Sick from driftwood, please help urgent!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Second Hand Pat
Hi Tanner, I noticed on your first post the source for your water changes is "Treated Pond Water". Could you describe this a bit more?
Pat
I live in a rural area. Our source of water comes from a pond with a natural spring. Didn't want a well. The water goes through two large treatment tanks, then to our house. It's like we have our own water treatment plant here!
Re: Sick from driftwood, please help urgent!
Are the nitrates high in the treated water Tanner?
Pat
Re: Sick from driftwood, please help urgent!
Nitrates are 0 in the water