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Thread: Discus died after water change.

  1. #31
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    Default Re: Discus died after water change.

    Quote Originally Posted by captainandy View Post
    Hypoxemia. When you use straight tap with prime you must make sure that the tank has well circulated and oxygenated water.
    Dare I ask why?

  2. #32
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    Default Re: Discus died after water change.

    Johnny, I wouldn't kick yourself in the foot and 100% blame the large water change or yourself. Take all the advice and recommendations from us with moderation. There is always a chance everything you hear here might not be the case for you at all. I've been through hell doing everything single thing I could to my best advice and and months later there is still no proof of what exactly went wrong. There are theories and strong pieces of evidence to suggest multiple faults, but the fact of the matter is you will never know.

    The best bet you have is to take the wisdom from the wonderful people here and apply it moderately to the best of your ability. And trust your instincts.

    While I myself used to do 90% pwc daily, the next time I get discus I plan to do a maximum of 50% and that's every other day. The truth of the matter I've learned is that a stable PH will come a long way. That's the one thing I've learned that all my advice I've been given has connected to.

    In my case I consider the low KH to have affected my PH, and overtime the stress became too much without me realizing it. Reading through your posts, I would highly recommend an aging barrel and reducing your water changes to 50% or less. For the first couple days to a few weeks, I would check your PH, KH, perhaps even chlorine levels of your tap everyday. Trust your instincts. If you feel chlorine is an issue, test for it. If you feel PH is an issue like I did, test for it. Be relentless in your testing for a minute. You can let off once you've gotten it down so don't get intimidated by the tediousness of testing a lot. It's just until you get everything down to a science.

    And remember, don't 100% bet on a specific thing you hear here, always keep your mind open and trust your instincts to a fault.
    Amateur discuskeeper, Professional doofus

  3. #33
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    Default Re: Discus died after water change.

    Quote Originally Posted by peewee1 View Post
    That would be the purpose of Prime. Two drops per gallon.
    Prime has no bearing on micro bubbles. The water needs to be aerated to gas off the co2, thus avoiding micro bubbles.
    21 Discus, 7 Green Tree Frogs, 3 Eastern Dwarf Tree frogs, 1 Coastal Carpet Python,6 sawshelled/Murray river turtles, 2 dogs, a cat, 2 kids and a wife. Phew...what a mouthful


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  4. #34
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    Default Re: Discus died after water change.

    Water coming in under pressure is full of carbon dioxide and very little oxygen. The discus were gasping at the surface. The large water change without being conditioned suffocated them. There was no O2 in that large WC. It needs to be aged and aerated if you doing large WC's not just for a PH swing.

  5. #35
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    Default Re: Discus died after water change.

    As others have said, 90% is too big a change if you're using water straight from the tap even if it's temperature matched. I doubt that a Ph swing, chlorine or chloramines were the issue, fish are pretty resistant to them unless present in high doses and seeing as you dosed that makes it even more unlikely. As captainandy pointed out, it's more likely hypoxia, the fresh water was high in CO2 and low in O2, that's why you need to aerate for 24 hours before use. During this time the Ph usually rises, this is the effect of the CO2 being driven off. If you're making changes straight from the tap you're better limiting it to 20-25% to avoid the issue.

  6. #36
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    Default Re: Discus died after water change.

    Plus..to add..The water will hold less CO2 if the ph is greater than 8.5 from the tap. So some folks might get away with large WC's from the tap. This doesn't happen often because most folks don't use a high ph water for discus.

  7. #37
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    Default Re: Discus died after water change.

    Quote Originally Posted by bluelagoon View Post
    Plus..to add..The water will hold less CO2 if the ph is greater than 8.5 from the tap. So some folks might get away with large WC's from the tap. This doesn't happen often because most folks don't use a high ph water for discus.
    This is why it gets me when someone says they do things a certain way, therefor everyone can. The truth is, everyone's water is different!

  8. #38
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    Default Re: Discus died after water change.

    Quote Originally Posted by kev1310 View Post
    As others have said, 90% is too big a change if you're using water straight from the tap even if it's temperature matched. I doubt that a Ph swing, chlorine or chloramines were the issue, fish are pretty resistant to them unless present in high doses and seeing as you dosed that makes it even more unlikely. As captainandy pointed out, it's more likely hypoxia, the fresh water was high in CO2 and low in O2, that's why you need to aerate for 24 hours before use. During this time the Ph usually rises, this is the effect of the CO2 being driven off. If you're making changes straight from the tap you're better limiting it to 20-25% to avoid the issue.
    How does this explain why OP's problems began after a switch from Prime to Safe?

    This is almost certainly due to Safe's dosage being too low to do a 90% water change.

    My chloramine levels are well below the national average at ~1 mg/L. Safe at the recommended dose removes about half of that and if I did my typical 95% water change I would have around 0.5 mg/l chloramine. That's well above the levels known to cause acute toxicity.

    Quote Originally Posted by bluelagoon View Post
    Water coming in under pressure is full of carbon dioxide and very little oxygen. The discus were gasping at the surface. The large water change without being conditioned suffocated them. There was no O2 in that large WC. It needs to be aged and aerated if you doing large WC's not just for a PH swing.
    The last time I checked, my tap water was at 120% oxygen saturation.

    Quote Originally Posted by jeep View Post
    This is why it gets me when someone says they do things a certain way, therefor everyone can. The truth is, everyone's water is different!
    Dissolved gases shouldn't be too different since drinking water spends a lot of time in open basins during the treatment process at atmospheric pressure. Same atmosphere, same dissolved gases.


    The most bizarre case was one I read on Facebook where someone switched from Prime to Safe and a whole bunch of fish died quickly. He contacted Seachem and his water treatment plant and somehow reached the conclusion that it was because radon in his water decayed into lead which poisoned his fish because Prime "binds" heavy metals and Safe doesn't. I did the math and the the amount of radon was like 3.5 trillion times too low to decay into a toxic level of lead. The simplest explanation was that the inadequate recommended dose of Safe killed again.

  9. #39
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    Default Re: Discus died after water change.

    Just found this:

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...les-form-if-a/

    What you don't want is this dissolved gas coming out in the blood stream of the fish which is what happens when divers get the bends or decompression sickness. It's quite possible that Safe needs a stronger dose than Prime for treating chlorine and chloramine, but large scale water changes without ageing water first will always be a risk regardless of which is used.

  10. #40
    Registered Member bluelagoon's Avatar
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    Default Re: Discus died after water change.

    Quote Originally Posted by Megalodon View Post
    How does this explain why OP's problems began after a switch from Prime to Safe?

    This is almost certainly due to Safe's dosage being too low to do a 90% water change.

    My chloramine levels are well below the national average at ~1 mg/L. Safe at the recommended dose removes about half of that and if I did my typical 95% water change I would have around 0.5 mg/l chloramine. That's well above the levels known to cause acute toxicity.



    The last time I checked, my tap water was at 120% oxygen saturation.



    Dissolved gases shouldn't be too different since drinking water spends a lot of time in open basins during the treatment process at atmospheric pressure. Same atmosphere, same dissolved gases.


    The most bizarre case was one I read on Facebook where someone switched from Prime to Safe and a whole bunch of fish died quickly. He contacted Seachem and his water treatment plant and somehow reached the conclusion that it was because radon in his water decayed into lead which poisoned his fish because Prime "binds" heavy metals and Safe doesn't. I did the math and the the amount of radon was like 3.5 trillion times too low to decay into a toxic level of lead. The simplest explanation was that the inadequate recommended dose of Safe killed again.
    https://www.chewy.com/app/product-qu...by%20th...more

  11. #41
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    Default Re: Discus died after water change.

    I don't see anything relevant at that URL.

  12. #42
    Registered Member bluelagoon's Avatar
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    Default Re: Discus died after water change.

    Quote Originally Posted by Megalodon View Post
    I don't see anything relevant at that URL.
    Same chemicals are used in both, one dry one liquid from Seachem. Don't see how I posted that one. Must of had too many windows open and hit the wrong key.

  13. #43
    Silver Member Willie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Discus died after water change.

    Quote Originally Posted by Megalodon View Post
    ...The last time I checked, my tap water was at 120% oxygen saturation...
    I recall that maximum dissolved levels of oxygen in water at tank temperatures was 8 - 9 ppm. If your reading is 120% oxygen saturation, you would still max out at 8 - 9 ppm. The additional 20% reflects supersaturation, a phenomenon where oxygen would bubble out and causes harm to fish, divers, etc. Fish kills occur at < 4 ppm, which is why I keep a wave maker going in larger tanks where dead spots may occur. In comparison, land animals breath 20% oxygen or 20,000 ppm.
    At my age, everything is irritating.

  14. #44
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    Default Re: Discus died after water change.

    Quote Originally Posted by Willie View Post
    I recall that maximum dissolved levels of oxygen in water at tank temperatures was 8 - 9 ppm. If your reading is 120% oxygen saturation, you would still max out at 8 - 9 ppm. The additional 20% reflects supersaturation, a phenomenon where oxygen would bubble out and causes harm to fish, divers, etc. Fish kills occur at < 4 ppm, which is why I keep a wave maker going in larger tanks where dead spots may occur. In comparison, land animals breath 20% oxygen or 20,000 ppm.
    I looked and can't find the data log for that session. Maybe I didn't have it recording.

    Anyway, the meter reads in mg/L and converts to %SAT based on temperature and barometric pressure. If 100% saturation was 8-9 mg/L then it would have been above 8-9 mg/L to be 120%. I've seen readings over 20 mg/L and 300% saturation.

    IIRC, it took about 24 hours for oxygen levels to decline to 100% despite heating and mixing.

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