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Thread: Does anyone know what happened?

  1. #31
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    Default Re: Does anyone know what happened?

    David,

    I had a similar experience about three years ago. I was watching my fish one day and they all seemed perfectly alright when one of them suddenly darted across the tank and ran into the glass. This stunned the fish and it sank to the bottom. Never had this happen before. Then within a hour all of the fish were doing the same thing. I called Kenny (the fish were purchased from him). He told me that it was probably something in the water and asked me what I had done before this started. The only thing I could think of was the fact that I had changed the mechanical filters the day before. Within three hours of this first starting, all of the fish had died.

    I wanted to know what caused this so I began to investigate. What I discovered might help others. The filters were the pleated canister type that I had been using for more than two years. I removed them once a month and cleaned them in a weak mixture of Clorox bleach and water. Then I rinsed them three times before allowing them to dry. On the third rinse I always used Prime to neutralize any residue of chlorine. Been doing this for several years without a problem. Then I looked at the fine print on the bottle of bleach and determined that it had sodium hydroxide in it. This was a brand new bottle that I had just used for the first time. I looked at the old bottle of Clorox bleach and discovered that it did NOT have sodium hydroxide in it. I was really PO'd. Clorox started putting in sodium hydroxide and did not label the bottle any different except in the fine print.

    Then I found out that sodium hydroxide is a highly caustic substance and is used in the manufacture of many types of soap. I also learned that a simple test could determine if sodium hydroxide was present. Place a small sample in a glass jar and shake. If there is NO sodium hydroxide in the bleach the resulting bubbles will dissipate very quickly. Now I test every single bottle before using bleach.

    Hope this helps someone else so that they don't have to go thru what I did.

    Paul

  2. #32
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    Default Re: Does anyone know what happened?

    Quote Originally Posted by afriend View Post
    David,

    I had a similar experience about three years ago. I was watching my fish one day and they all seemed perfectly alright when one of them suddenly darted across the tank and ran into the glass. This stunned the fish and it sank to the bottom. Never had this happen before. Then within a hour all of the fish were doing the same thing. I called Kenny (the fish were purchased from him). He told me that it was probably something in the water and asked me what I had done before this started. The only thing I could think of was the fact that I had changed the mechanical filters the day before. Within three hours of this first starting, all of the fish had died.

    I wanted to know what caused this so I began to investigate. What I discovered might help others. The filters were the pleated canister type that I had been using for more than two years. I removed them once a month and cleaned them in a weak mixture of Clorox bleach and water. Then I rinsed them three times before allowing them to dry. On the third rinse I always used Prime to neutralize any residue of chlorine. Been doing this for several years without a problem. Then I looked at the fine print on the bottle of bleach and determined that it had sodium hydroxide in it. This was a brand new bottle that I had just used for the first time. I looked at the old bottle of Clorox bleach and discovered that it did NOT have sodium hydroxide in it. I was really PO'd. Clorox started putting in sodium hydroxide and did not label the bottle any different except in the fine print.

    Then I found out that sodium hydroxide is a highly caustic substance and is used in the manufacture of many types of soap. I also learned that a simple test could determine if sodium hydroxide was present. Place a small sample in a glass jar and shake. If there is NO sodium hydroxide in the bleach the resulting bubbles will dissipate very quickly. Now I test every single bottle before using bleach.

    Hope this helps someone else so that they don't have to go thru what I did.

    Paul
    i use bleach to clean my tank tools so this is really good to know!!! also makes me sad, tho, cuz my city is going to start adding sodium hydroxide to our water supply in a year or so. booo
    Last edited by Kyla; 01-03-2016 at 03:54 PM.

  3. #33
    Registered Member fishguy456's Avatar
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    Default Re: Does anyone know what happened?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ryan View Post
    I also wanted to mention microbubbles here. Cold weather is upon us (well, some of us) and we always see an increase in this issue around winter time.

    Cold water holds more dissolved gases than warm water. In the winter time, your water may be full of dissolved gases. The water remains saturated with gases while under pressure (while sitting in your house water lines, for instance). As soon as you turn on a tap and the water begins to warm up, it can no longer hold as much dissolved gas as before and the gas starts to appear as microbubbles. Changing 25% or even 50% may not harm your fish, but a 90 - 100% water change with water that has not been off-gassed could essentially suffocate your fish. It happens fast. This is why so many people age their water. It gives the water time to warm up and the aeration allows the gases to dissipate out.

    It could very well be the soap you used, depending on how much and what kind, and if the tank wasn't well-rinsed. But just in case it's an issue with microbubbles, I'd be very careful about doing large water changes on your other tank without aging/aerating it first.
    Did not use very much but thats all I can think of to be a cause at the moment, as for the micro bubbles I had a 200 micron sock for them
    It's just a box with water... and a few extremely expensive mutts...

  4. #34
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    Default Re: Does anyone know what happened?

    Paul, after reading your earlier post about this I did some research and found that ALL bleach contains NaOH because of the way it is made, with the cheaper brands having higher levels. Please correct me on this if I am wrong.

    I use plain old chlorox, which by some online research should be less than 1% NaOH. The labels are not informative, and the safety data sheets aren't much help either. It is possible to measure the amount of NaOH in bleach by adding some to distilled water, allowing the chlorine to fully dissipate, and then measuring the pH. Any rise in pH should be proportional to the concentration of NaOH. I didn't do any calculations to find the concentration, but the pH goes up dramatically.

    The solution is to rinse the devil out of anything after sterilizing with bleach. If you chlorinate your ageing barrel with bleach, even at 1ppm, the water has to be discarded after the chlorine leaves because the pH is elevated.

    -Dan

  5. #35
    Registered Member fishguy456's Avatar
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    Default Re: Does anyone know what happened?

    Quote Originally Posted by afriend View Post
    David,

    I had a similar experience about three years ago. I was watching my fish one day and they all seemed perfectly alright when one of them suddenly darted across the tank and ran into the glass. This stunned the fish and it sank to the bottom. Never had this happen before. Then within a hour all of the fish were doing the same thing. I called Kenny (the fish were purchased from him). He told me that it was probably something in the water and asked me what I had done before this started. The only thing I could think of was the fact that I had changed the mechanical filters the day before. Within three hours of this first starting, all of the fish had died.

    I wanted to know what caused this so I began to investigate. What I discovered might help others. The filters were the pleated canister type that I had been using for more than two years. I removed them once a month and cleaned them in a weak mixture of Clorox bleach and water. Then I rinsed them three times before allowing them to dry. On the third rinse I always used Prime to neutralize any residue of chlorine. Been doing this for several years without a problem. Then I looked at the fine print on the bottle of bleach and determined that it had sodium hydroxide in it. This was a brand new bottle that I had just used for the first time. I looked at the old bottle of Clorox bleach and discovered that it did NOT have sodium hydroxide in it. I was really PO'd. Clorox started putting in sodium hydroxide and did not label the bottle any different except in the fine print.

    Then I found out that sodium hydroxide is a highly caustic substance and is used in the manufacture of many types of soap. I also learned that a simple test could determine if sodium hydroxide was present. Place a small sample in a glass jar and shake. If there is NO sodium hydroxide in the bleach the resulting bubbles will dissipate very quickly. Now I test every single bottle before using bleach.

    Hope this helps someone else so that they don't have to go thru what I did.

    Paul
    Thank you paul it is good to know that
    It's just a box with water... and a few extremely expensive mutts...

  6. #36
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    Default Re: Does anyone know what happened?

    Quote Originally Posted by DJW View Post
    Paul, after reading your earlier post about this I did some research and found that ALL bleach contains NaOH because of the way it is made, with the cheaper brands having higher levels. Please correct me on this if I am wrong.

    I use plain old chlorox, which by some online research should be less than 1% NaOH. The labels are not informative, and the safety data sheets aren't much help either. It is possible to measure the amount of NaOH in bleach by adding some to distilled water, allowing the chlorine to fully dissipate, and then measuring the pH. Any rise in pH should be proportional to the concentration of NaOH. I didn't do any calculations to find the concentration, but the pH goes up dramatically.

    The solution is to rinse the devil out of anything after sterilizing with bleach. If you chlorinate your ageing barrel with bleach, even at 1ppm, the water has to be discarded after the chlorine leaves because the pH is elevated.

    -Dan
    Dan,

    My background in chemistry is very limited, so I only speaking from my experience of what happened to me three years ago. Perhaps my fish died from something else and the use of bleach with sodium hydroxide was just a coincidence. Would be interested in hearing from someone with more background than I have in chemistry.

    What I do know for certain is that Colorix bleach with sodium hydroxide foams while Colorix without it does not. Also, my fish suddenly died the day after using the product for the first time. This only happened once in over ten years of keeping discus, and I have used bleach labeled with sodium hydroxide only once.

    Hope someone will chime in here with background in this area.

    Paul

  7. #37
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    Default Re: Does anyone know what happened?

    Why would a city add Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) also known as "Lye", to the drinking water!

    Quote Originally Posted by Kyla View Post
    i use bleach to clean my tank tools so this is really good to know!!! also makes me sad, tho, cuz my city is going to start adding sodium hydroxide to our water supply in a year or so. booo

  8. #38
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    Default Re: Does anyone know what happened?

    Dan,

    Quote Originally Posted by DJW View Post
    Paul, after reading your earlier post about this I did some research and found that ALL bleach contains NaOH because of the way it is made, with the cheaper brands having higher levels. Please correct me on this if I am wrong.
    You probably know more about this than I do. What I would like to know is why did the bleach labeled sodium hydroxide foam while bleach without it did not? Both of them were manufactured by Colorix.

    Paul

  9. #39
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    Default Re: Does anyone know what happened?

    Quote Originally Posted by MD.David View Post
    Why would a city add Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) also known as "Lye", to the drinking water!
    They use it to raise the Ph. Water with a Ph less than 7 causes metal pipes to corrode. There are other chemicals that could be used to accomplish the same purpose, but they are more expensive. I would assume that they only use minute amounts.

    Paul

  10. #40
    Registered Member Akili's Avatar
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    Default Re: Does anyone know what happened?

    Quote Originally Posted by MD.David View Post
    Why would a city add Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) also known as "Lye", to the drinking water!
    Sodium hydroxide is added to raise the pH back to about the original level so that the water is suitable for drinking.
    Source: Winnipeg. Man,Canada Water treatment program http://www.winnipeg.ca/waterandwaste...ment/plant.stm
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  11. #41
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    Default Re: Does anyone know what happened?

    They use it to raise the Ph. Water with a Ph less than 7 causes metal pipes to corrode. There are other chemicals that could be used to accomplish the same purpose, but they are more expensive. I would assume that they only use minute amounts.
    Sodium hydroxide is added to raise the pH back to about the original level so that the water is suitable for drinking.
    Source: Winnipeg. Man,Canada Water treatment program http://www.winnipeg.ca/waterandwaste...ment/plant.stm
    Akili,

    The two statements above are consistent. Your statement (the lower one) applies to a specific water treatment plant in the City of Winnipeg.


    My statement is based on this source: http://articles.extension.org/pages/...-ph-adjustment

    Here's a quote from my source:

    "Water with a pH value less than 7 is acidic and tends to be corrosive. Acidic water (low pH) can leach metals from plumbing systems, which can cause pipes to leak. Metals that leach from the pipes (lead from lead pipes or copper from copper pipes) may also cause health problems. Water with a value greater than 7 indicates alkalinity and tends to affect the taste of the water. Alkaline drinking water may take on a “soda” taste. Corrosion problems also can occur in plumbing."

    Paul

  12. #42
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    Default Re: Does anyone know what happened?

    David,

    I sincerely hope that I didn't get too far off from your thread about what happened to your fish. I dislike it when my thread is hijacked, and I had no intention to do that, but I did think that what I added was going along with the general discussion. So back to your thread.

    What do you think happened to your fish? How convinced (if at all) are you that the problem was brought about as a result of using soap?

    Paul

  13. #43
    Registered Member Jack L's Avatar
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    Default Re: Does anyone know what happened?

    ugg...sorry to hear about the losses!


    just a guess, but you said dechlor

    depending on the product you use, if your city switched to chloramine instead of chlorine, and you only use dechlor....then you end up with ammonia left behind.

    maybe that was already ruled out though

  14. #44
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    Default Re: Does anyone know what happened?

    A long time ago I did a water change to a very crowded tank while I was oil painting in the room using turpentine. The room definitely had a strong smell of turp. in it. I had put a blanket over the tank because I was working through the night.

    The next day I found that everything had died during the night. My guess was that it was the paint, turpentine fumes combined with the chemicals for the water change, chloramine, etc. One angel survived, all the Discus died.

  15. #45
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    Default Re: Does anyone know what happened?

    OP, I am sorry for your loss. I am sure this thread can help many others possibly avoid the same problem. I am going to sticky this thread for the time being so people are in the loop with these products and their possible toxicity to our loved fish friends.

    However, I'd like to move it over to 'water works'. Is that fine with you?

    Click here to view my 75g Acrylic Tank w/ Bean Animal Overflow with 40g Sump Thread

    Also, click here for my 25 group of discus grow out thread


    http://i3.cpcache.com/product/162117...ht=75&width=75
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