Tank failure... Seam split...

[Noobsteve]

Ok I'm new to the forum, read many for about a year now.

Now to my fun..

So my 75 gallon tank desided it wanted to turn my living room into a pool. The seam split while we were watching tv. Luckly I was in process of cycling a 125 gallon next to it. My issue is it wasn't complete, so I had no choice but to get my 6 discus, 2 clowns, 2 Angels "soon to be gone" and 2 Corey's into the tank. I swap all the filters. But it's not strong enough, my nitirite is roughly over 2.0, Ammonia is between .25 and .5, and ph is about 7.0. Tank has no decor but has a few plants, fish are eating and seem to be just the same.

I'm tring to do 50-60% water changes, but my ro system don't make water that fast. My tap ph is about 8.2 after aging over night, I think color is hard to read use to my sea green color lol.

My question is my ro is about ph of 6, trying to figure out the ratio ro to Dechlorinated aged tap Water to get me to the 7.0 level?

Sorry kinda freaking out at this point fish have been in the 125 for about a week now. Nitrite is slowly getting higher...

2 canister filters 370gph and 240gph, light sand bottom and few plants temp 84 degrees.

[Keith Perkins]

I'm a bit confused, when you said you swapped all the filters didn't that mean you moved all the filter material from the 75 to the 125? I wouldn't expect those types of readings if mature filter material was moved from one tank to the other.

Anyway, about a 50/50 mix of RO to tap should land your pH around 7 or just a little higher. A consistent pH is more important than a particular one, just try to keep your ratio of the two pretty much the same and the fish will quickly adjust to the new pH level.

[Noobsteve]

Sorry I had one filter unit on the 75, and had a new canister on the 125 to start cycle. The 75 was bare bottom so it was easy to vac out waste.

Also we are in the process of getting a piece of driftwood ready for the tank. This will lower the ph.. Will it drastically change it?

Also should add I normally buy water from Lfs.. Just got a ro system tired of paying 20-30 cents for water. Plus the amount now is a lot larger lol.

[Keith Perkins]

Unless you have breeding pairs, lowering the TDS with RO generally is considered unnecessary. If you're just trying to lower the pH with RO, pretty much everyone will tell you that isn't necessary either. Today's domestic discus do well in a wide range of pH's, consistency is the key.

[Noobsteve]

It's so hard to figure it out lol so many different people say different things lol.. Do you think it would be ok to add hornworts to the tank to help with the levels?

[Keith Perkins]

That's one of the BIG pluses about getting advice here versus your LFS, the motivation here isn't to fatten a bottom line. No clue on the hornworts, I'd increase the % change and frequency of WCs. If the volume of water is the issue, and I know this will be blasphemy to some, there's no rule that says you have to fill the 125 to the top rim.

[oliverk]

Of course, people will say different things - sometimes radically different. Everyone has differing experiences, amount of experience, training or study etc and .... ultimately you will have to choose. Often I try and find the commonalities and or how the basics apply to the situation.

In this case you are moving fish from one environment to another. Normally introductions into a new tank involve slowly adjusting temperature and chemistry towards the new tank levels. My understanding is that this is to minimize stress due to the change in environment.


Too much Stress is not a good thing for any living creature, and is caused by sudden changes in environment among other things and your fish have already undergone a change of tank and water chemistry causing stress.

Ah so this was an emergency and you had to move from one tank to the other, and the new was not fully ready so you are cycling the tank as well.

Ok in your situation I would do the following.

1) Remember go slow if and when can - minimize stress
2) set up every filter you can in the new tank
3) try very hard not to allow water to get worse
4) supplement your RO generated water by treated tap or go buy treated water by the gallon five gallon or bottle if needed and use these to get water chemistry where you want it but go slow if you can
5) use your best judgement on what is most threatening to the fish at any given time and address those as a priority first --- A) not in water B) no air in water C) temperature D) Nitrate Nitrite, Ammonia E) PH within bounds etc.
6) don't worry at the moment about secondary things - i) tank appearance ii) breeding/spawning etc
7) Dim the tank lights if you can
OK once you are in a semi-stable state and it sounds like you are consider what you eventually want to do..... If it is use just the new filter, what do you need to do to get it built up?

There are several things you can do - just wait, put some media from a well established filter into the new filter, there are priming products you can buy that some maintain help a lot etc...... Note you have a little bit of a tough situation you could reduce feeding - less load for the filters to deal with, but you are trying to build the filter which needs food to establish itself..... Questions of balance.

On the PH - if you treat your tap or find the PH of bought water very high you could use a product to lower the PH. However, I'm not sure I would try and lower it all at once.

Try and relax yourself - you are going through a bunch of stress with this sudden unfortunate occurrence, and it may cause you to make mistakes or do too much too soon to get things "right"

Sorry - I don't know how hornworts might help get levels right, how they work with discus in specific etc. Might add a place for the fish to hide and feel more secure... less stress.....

GOOD LUCK

PS longer term think about what you would do in a future emergency.... I keep a bottle of tap treatment around and have several plastic bins around that can hold water. I have some backups for key things like pumps airators etc... I keep some medicines and hope I have enough of all the right things. Will reduce your stress in future situations if you have thought about what you would do. Trite as it sounds planning or the boy scout motto applies ... be prepared.

[Noobsteve]

One other question for water storage it's ok to use the brute trash cans as long as they are of food grade? Going to get a couple more to start aging, mixing, and heatig more water. Got mixed reviews on them.

[Keith Perkins]

Tons of people here use Brute trash cans for water storage, including me.

[Ryan]

My guess is that your nitrite and ammonia readings in the cycling tank are because you didn't change any water in that tank prior to adding the new fish and filter, right?

If you moved your filter from the 75 to the 125 at the same time you moved the fish, leaving the cycled media in the filter intact, it should take care of ammonia and nitrite left in the 125. If the old filter was cycled and handling the bioload in the 75, it should be adequate on the 125 since it's the exact same fish. If you test the water today, the ammonia and nitrite have probably gone down since the addition of the established filter.

[Noobsteve]

Tested the water when I got home ammonia is still around .25 but nitrite is .25 now. Did 50% water change, my stored water wasn't completely warmed up it was about 80 degrees. Fish seem just fine always act like they are starving. Chasing each other all over tank. Panic is gone for now thanks for the help.. I'll keep an eye on it and going get another heater for aging tank.

[Noobsteve]

So I clean the filters and been doing 30% water change in the morning and 30% in evening. I'm now plague with planaria... So many worms ugh. The tank is spotless and we have went from 4-5 feedings to 3 with the nitrite high for the last week.. Why would I have the worms it makes no sense. I did a 20% water change every other day to doing 60% a day.. After feeding we vac food and poop out. Did I stir them up by cleaning the two canster filters out?

[rickztahone]

So I clean the filters and been doing 30% water change in the morning and 30% in evening. I'm now plague with planaria... So many worms ugh. The tank is spotless and we have went from 4-5 feedings to 3 with the nitrite high for the last week.. Why would I have the worms it makes no sense. I did a 20% water change every other day to doing 60% a day.. After feeding we vac food and poop out. Did I stir them up by cleaning the two canster filters out?

cleaning the filters is not a good idea. As Ryan mentioned, if the filter in the 75g was handling that bio load it will handle the same bio load in the 125g. I also assume as Ryan did that you did not change out the water before placing the fish in to the uncycled 125. I believe this is where the problem started. What I would do now, is do as large of a water change as possible, and do it on a daily basis for the next week or so. You can run a full tank of fish without a filter if you do very large water changes daily. The one thing going for you is that you have a mature filter, but if you keep cleaning it, you may set it back, just as you would have if you would have cleaned it too much in the 75g tank.

Going forward, do a huge water change, at least 80%, leave the filter running and leave it alone. Do daily water changes, again, the larger the better and you should be fine shortly. Discus can tolerate colder temp drops from water changes. In fact, many here do that intentionally to promote breeding behavior.

[Noobsteve]

So now my angles who I was about get rid of laid eggs.. Ugh...

[Noobsteve]

So you don't recommend changing filter pads in canister filters? I didn't touch my bio balls or the bio ceramic.

[rickztahone]

So you don't recommend changing filter pads in canister filters? I didn't touch my bio balls or the bio ceramic.

For the time being, I would leave everything as is, unless the filter is struggling to function due to more buildup from the move. This is only to encourge the propagation of new bacteria.

[Noobsteve]

Can't win... Looks like two of my smaller discus have ich spots starting on the tail fin and side fins. Slowly bumping tank temp to 89 it's normally around 84ish. What salt should I add?

[ericNH]

No salt. Change more water, 50% daily, or at least every other day. Stop trying to change the pH. That's what i think is needed.

[Noobsteve]

I'm not trying to change ph. I was asking how to better meet the current ph. Doing 30% water change early morning and then another 30% after dinner. My ro system just keep up with that way wish I could do 50% both times, need another ro system and bigger storage tank.

[ericNH]

Ok let me re-phrase this: stop trying to "better meet the current pH". Ditch the RO water entirely, use just aged tap water, and don't put anything in it to change its pH.

[Noobsteve]

My tap here is like 8.2-8.4 and has high tds.. Have no choice but to mix 40-60% and age/heat.

[MendoMan]

Mine is 8 out of the tap and it ages to about 7.8. I only use Prime in the aging barrel and nothing else. I took the advice of Kenny when I got the fish and I never mess with the PH and it works fine. I think it's been over 6 months since I even tested the water.

[rickztahone]

If you have a pH swing then simply age the water first. No RO needed unless you are breeding.

[sdrexler078]

People have kept discus in water with ph over 8. Stability for fish and ease for you is more important. Just age the tap water and put it in. One winter my ph was reading 8.6 but dropped to 8.2 after aging and it was fine now they've redone the pipes and changed the system up but all my discus were we're doing great when it was that high

[ericNH]

It's really true - 8.2 pH is about where my water is at, and my discus do fine in it now. In fact I think 2 of the ones i grew out have now paired up.

My problem was in the beginning i was only changing 25% water every day, and i also was using salt, and pH buffer, and kept the temp at 86F. And I regularly had to deal with stressed out, sick fish. I took some advice here on Simply, and got myself a 55gal trash barrel and ran a hose from my boiler room, change 50-55% water every day, no buffer no salt, and i keep the temp down at 82F, and my discus magically became healthy and happy :) No buffer, never even check water params anymore. It really is easier if you can manage a sufficientl wc regimen.