# Tank Disaster



## summit (Aug 22, 2010)

Well something happened over the course of yesterday on my osaka 155 tank, I am trying to narrow it down but I lost 50% of my stock when I got home yesterday, really quite upset over it at the moment as it had a few fish in there I had really grown to enjoy, I feel really bad as I am sure it will come down to a mistake I made. 

Basically I have been having some trouble with green water in the tank, so I have been doing 50% changes every second day to get rid of it for the past week, also dosing 2 caps of seachem clarity per day (I hear its not supposed to do much but I had it anyways), and running a aquaclear 30 with just a sponge, purigen, and filter floss which is changed daily. I do match up the temp when I do a water change, and dose the full tank volume with prime since I use a Python for water changes. I also have been using fluorish excel, 3/4 cap per day to help with algae and shut the lights down.

Second off I have been slowly increasing the GH/KH in the tank by 1/1 per week to get to my goal of 5/5, when I do a water change I have a plastic container than I mix the equilibrium and alkaline buffer, and slowly add it to the tank while my tank fills up during a water change to make the GH/KH the same as it was before the water change. I did not get a chance to test last night, but with how conservative I am with the stuff I don't think I would have overdosed, but I will be able to tell tonight when I can test the GH/KH.

Third I noticed that unfortunately during the water change the night previous, I had turned on my canister filter, however I forgot to open the valve back up so there was no flow in the canister filter, and the Fluval E series heater had a flashing "Low Flow" warning as it sits next to the intake, however I checked the thermometer at the other end of the tank and it was reading 74, only 2.5 degrees lower than what I normally keep it at.

I did test my water parameters, PH was 7.6, ammonia very slight trace, nitrites 0, nitrates 0 as I have been doing so many water changes. Fish were acting completely normal the night before I found this, and no signs of disease.

Anything else I should be looking for? Any guesses? I just hate that I lost my favorite fish, and countless others


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## ibenu (Apr 21, 2010)

Seachem clarity, how many times did you dose it? I found my fish very sensitive to it, gasping at surface, really struggling to breath. perhaps it was just too many doses and cumulatively they succumbed. 

I know the label says fish safe, yet when I used less then recommended I saw major stress. It would be my first suspect.. I never used water clarifier with fish in tank again after my experiences...


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## summit (Aug 22, 2010)

everyday I dosed the recommended 2 caps, I was worried about that as well, I don't think I will ever use them again either, I just had it sitting around. With that being said, should I have not seen signs of this with the fish? as I have been using it for about a week now and they all seemed to be happy and hungry, thats what is throwing me off as I saw no problems with the tank until I got home last night.


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## ibenu (Apr 21, 2010)

With no signs of disease I cant imagine you got a plague /bacterial/ problem, all your fish looked good, eating well. Your Parameters sound great. They never went to surface or showed stress with clarity huh.. But green water required you to does daily as it was not clearing? Are you sure we are taking about the floculant clarity and not the stability(bacterial supplement for bio filter) 

Unique you saw no stress with addition of floculant... 

I didn't notice in your first post you saying ammonia traces--with no nitrates or nitrites it would indicate to my a mini cycle as you have no bio filtration going on what so ever... Do you have another tank you can seed the filter from? Perhaps your low flow killed a bunch of bacteria and it released ammonia as a result.. it takes very little to wipe out fish....


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## summit (Aug 22, 2010)

yeah I did not notice any gasping for air after dosing the clarity, and it is the seachem clarity product, I was monitoring the tank quite closely because of the green water and treatments I was doing so I am sure I would have noticed it, however some of the deaths were a pleco that stayed hidden for long periods and cardinals that were hiding in plants alot mid column, I did have a couple cardinals at the surface which were already pretty much dead last night after discovering it, so I can not say for sure. Only thing that was off after I started dosing the clarity was I had a jumper which I never had before which made me wonder about it. The clarity seemed to do very little to clear up the green water, I could swear it was almost making it worse and was going to discontinue use of it just before this happened.

As for the ammonia trace, I will do another test tonight when I am home to see if I have any levels again. Would dead fish not give off trace amounts of ammonia as well? Would there still be some bio filtration on the aquaclear 30's sponge, tank walls, and driftwood? But perhaps overwhelmed without the canister giving me a trace reading? Either way I do have another tank to seed it with if need be, thanks for your help.


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## ibenu (Apr 21, 2010)

Its true that the fish would give off ammonia from death I hadn't factored that in.. It sucks you doing so much to do things right and "here you are" hospital section. Do you have access to a diatom filter. Very inert way to clear out green water. The floculant will make it appear worse as it actually glues all the small pieces together so it can be filtered out. very cloudy upon adding it, then you see clearing. 

Its a general community tank? No need to thank for help Im just talking it out with ya, have provided no solutions or answers

osaka 155 is how many gallons?


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

osaka 155's are 41 gallon
sorry to hear this happened Summit, hope you get the problem figured out


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## summit (Aug 22, 2010)

At the moment I have no access to a diatom filter, I am hoping the green water will not be a problem anymore with a planted tank (it appeared when I had no plants and had the lights on too much) so its just a matter of clearing it out now, which is almost there, it was quite bad at one point.

It is a community tank, it had a prized L183 starlight bristlenose pleco which was my favorite fish purchased from a member here (sorry Adrian, I don't know what happened ), SAE, cardinals, german blue rams, and some ammanos, all that is left is some cardinals and one german blue ram.

Osaka 155 is 41 gallons I believe, it is running a fluval E series heater, fluval 405 filter, aquaclear 30 with sponge, filter floss and purigen for water clarity.


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## summit (Aug 22, 2010)

Diztrbd1 said:


> osaka 155's are 41 gallon
> sorry to hear this happened Summit, hope you get the problem figured out


Thanks, I will get this figured out, and learn from it thanks to BCaquaria here


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## darb (Apr 21, 2010)

Three things you may want to look at IMHO.

First 50% is a large water change and Gas Bubble Disease becomes more of a risk as our water temperature in the reservoirs drops. This article explains it fairly well: Gas Bubble Disease. And erratic behaviour is one of the signs with GBD and may explain your jumper. Did you examine your dead fish at all?

Second the Clarity is a possibility, but by your description didn't seem to be an issue.

Finally if your canister was without flow for 24 hours (?), you definitely had die off. I have read that it starts after as little as 20 minutes of water flow. A fully cycled healthy tank should read 0 ammonia. When you say a slight trace, what number can you put to that? There is bacteria present in all of the tank, but the vast majority of it is in your biomedia. Your tank was in a state of balance before and with the elimination of a majority of your bacteria leaves a huge deficit. The best way to recover from that is with bacteria in a bottle, ie Seachem Stability or Nutrafin Cycle as two examples.


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## summit (Aug 22, 2010)

darb said:


> Finally if your canister was without flow for 24 hours (?), you definitely had die off. I have read that it starts after as little as 20 minutes of water flow. A fully cycled healthy tank should read 0 ammonia. When you say a slight trace, what number can you put to that? There is bacteria present in all of the tank, but the vast majority of it is in your biomedia. Your tank was in a state of balance before and with the elimination of a majority of your bacteria leaves a huge deficit. The best way to recover from that is with bacteria in a bottle, ie Seachem Stability or Nutrafin Cycle as two examples.


Yes the canister was without flow for 24 hours, but there was still water in the canister, do bacteria die off without flow even if they have water to live in? A slight trace to put a number to, I think the API test first shows the first level at .25, mine was just hardly off yellow to green so if I had to guess I would say maybe .1

Thanks for the information on the gas bubble disease, I am going to do some research on it, sounds like its another candidate, I did not examine the dead fish at all, it was a 1.5" SAE that was pretty dried out on the carpet.


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## Morainy (Apr 21, 2010)

Hi Summit,

Something similar happened to me a few days ago. A friend helped me out by changing about half the water in my 25 gallon tank, and afterwards a bunch of fish died. Water parameters were all normal before and afterwards, and as the fish died overnight, none was left in the tank undiscovered. She also noticed a fish jumping after the water change (as you did).

My friend didn't add a flocculant but that would be the first thing I'd suspect in your case, since that was new. I've never tried a flocculant but would be very careful with it, especially with adding it more than once. If you add flocculant every time but only change some of the water, you could end up with quite a bit for your fish. For fish, it might be the equivalent of trying to breathe in a very smokey room.

The two things that I suspect in my tank's demise are a) the addition of more Equilibrium (gh riser) than I normally add and b) too much or,more likely, not enough dechlorinator. No way to tell about that one, a day later. As you were increasing your tank's gh, that makes me think that a sudden increase in gh could have been a factor in my fishes sudden deaths, too.

Someone mentioned to Sandy that it could have been gas bubble disease and I looked up the info and photos for that one. The pics didn't match with what was happening with my fish, but that is a possibility, too. However, there were no air bubbles sticking to the glass on the sides of the tank.

How are your remaining fish looking? Are they healthy or are they bleeding?

In any case, I'd recommend changing some of the water (again) and replacing it with water that has no flocculant in it, but that is safely dechlorinated. Keep up with the water changes until all the flocculant is gone.

Good luck! I'm very sorry for the loss of your fish and having been through almost the exact same thing myself, I know that sad, sick feeling.

-Maureen

PS Edited to add: if your pleco died undiscovered awhile ago, that could certainly cause the cloudy water as well as a sharp spike in nitrates.



summit said:


> Well something happened over the course of yesterday on my osaka 155 tank, I am trying to narrow it down but I lost 50% of my stock when I got home yesterday, really quite upset over it at the moment as it had a few fish in there I had really grown to enjoy, I feel really bad as I am sure it will come down to a mistake I made.
> 
> Basically I have been having some trouble with green water in the tank, so I have been doing 50% changes every second day to get rid of it for the past week, also dosing 2 caps of seachem clarity per day (I hear its not supposed to do much but I had it anyways), and running a aquaclear 30 with just a sponge, purigen, and filter floss which is changed daily. I do match up the temp when I do a water change, and dose the full tank volume with prime since I use a Python for water changes. I also have been using fluorish excel, 3/4 cap per day to help with algae and shut the lights down.
> 
> ...


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## darb (Apr 21, 2010)

the bacteria requires oxygen and being in a closed canister with a high bacteria population, all enclosed O2 would have been consumed fairly quickly resulting in die off. You will probably find you levels of ammonia higher on your next test. Dead fish will cause a spike, but the ammonia is a by product of bacteria consuming the carcass and if you get it out quickly there won't be much decomposition happening yet. Also prime doesn't eliminate ammonia, just converts it to a less harmful form of ammonia (for 48 hours as I recall) which some test kits don't register, so you have another variable to consider also. An ammonia absorbing media in your HOB filter is also another short term alternative to the problem.


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## discuspaul (Jul 2, 2010)

Hi Ken,
The commentary above is all quite good.
As two members have pointed out, the Clarity could be an issue, and I also suspect your Excel dosing frequency may be too high for that 41 gal. tank, with limited plantings - I would suggest that twice a week, or even once weekly would be appropriate in that size tank. That's my experience.
BTW, the use of Prime (as opposed to other conditioners) wil register a slight reading of 'ammonia' with some test kits, but it's actually producing a reading of relatively harmless ammonium, so I really think you're ok there.
Another suggestion re: your bio-filtration -
Don't change your filter floss daily - by doing that it's contributing every day to a loss of a good portion of your bio-bacterial capacity, which constantly needs to re-build.
Changing that floss once or twice a week should be plenty. It can't get very dirty after only a day in your filter - does it ?
One other point - I wouldn't worry too much about your GH-KH levels in greater Vanc. water - the alkaline buffering is not essential IMO, and you may be creating some other problematic conditions with it's constant regular usage, when coupled with other issues you're facing.
Hope these comments are found helpful.
Paul


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## summit (Aug 22, 2010)

Thanks for all the suggestions,

Morainy: Thanks for the support, I also looked into bubble disease and found no signs of that on my fish, but I can't rule it out as of yet, the pleco muct have passed with the rest as I did see him just the night before, so he must have passed along with the rest. The rest of my fish look pretty inactive, I did a water change last night but never got a good look this morning to see how they were doing as it was 5:30am and they all seemed to still be sleeping near the bottom/hidden, or perhaps thats another bad sign I am going to come home to...  I am sorry to hear of your fish as well, its terrible!

Darb: thanks for the info, will test all water parameters when I get home again and will know for sure, if my bacteria did die off I luckily run 4 baskets of matrix on a eheim 2075 and fluval 405, so I can rob a basket from the eheim if necessary to go in the fluval.

Paul: I have been changing out the filter floss daily as it does seem to get dirty quickly from filtering the green water and slows the water flow drastically, basically I am using the aquaclear 30 more for water movement/water clarity, and use my fluval 405 with 4 baskets of matrix for biomedia filtration. That being said once the water clears I am sure I will not need to change it out as much, perhaps I am stuffing it in too tightly. I will cut back on the excel dosing, I had followed the dosing on the bottle but it appears to be melting my vals anyways which I had read about, so will try cutting it back to a half recommended dose.

Thanks for the information, its very much appreciated.


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## discuspaul (Jul 2, 2010)

Need to give you a bit of an apology re: the filter floss usage. I didn't realize that you were using filter floss in a canister filter (when I originally mentioned that media as a good water clarifier along with Purigen). Filter floss does, (or certainly can), reduce flow in most canisters, perhaps even to the point of clogging it up.
So, suggest you not use the floss in your canister, although the Purigen is a-ok in there. Also, it will reduce your burden of having to make those frequent changes of that media from your canister. Just use it in the A/C 30 - then switch it out as often as you want - be much easier than re-working the canister.
I keep forgetting that others are mostly using canisters, just because I happen to run 2 A/C HOB 110's on my 260.
Anyway, after all your start-up woes, you certainly deserve some breaks - I'm sure you're trying very hard to do all the right things from the get-go, just as I did more than once, only to find that I was messing things up by trying to get too sophisticated with my routines/practices. May I suggest, please keep it simple, and try hard to stay away from too much usage of LFS bottled goods & chemicals.
Best to you,
Paul


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## summit (Aug 22, 2010)

Hi Paul, I think my post must have been misunderstood, currently I am using a fluval 405 with all 4 baskets full of matrix biomedia, the aquaclear 30 I have on it is stricly running the sponge, purigen, and filter floss as I agree, the maintenance would be too hard to put filter floss in a canister. I agree I am probably trying to hard to get everything perfect, thanks for the info


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## bonsai dave (Apr 21, 2010)

Hey Ken. I'm sorry to hear about what happen. I also had the same problem awhile back with my wife's tank where after a lg wc all the discus and rainbows in her tank died . First I thought it was a ph crash but later learned it was because of the metricide i was using to kill bba . I had used to much. It had lowered the oxygen levels. I think you may have raised your gh levels to fast and that with gas bubbles can do cause fish to die. I hope you get to the bottom of this and every thing get back to normal with your tank..


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

summit said:


> Thanks, I will get this figured out, and learn from it thanks to BCaquaria here


If you are in the neighbor hood drop by and i'll give you some Microbe-lift/tac.
should stop your mini cycle and make the water safe for fish also adjust the ph to neutral.
stuff is a miracle IMO....
sorry about your loss.


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## summit (Aug 22, 2010)

Thanks Dave and Adrian, some good leads to look into here. I will post my results when I get home tonight, hopefully I have no more deaths. I think perhaps the combination of me leaving the canister filter off, dosing clarity, and too much excel might have added up and given the fish too much to handle.


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## Adz1 (Apr 21, 2010)

summit said:


> Thanks Dave and Adrian, some good leads to look into here. I will post my results when I get home tonight, hopefully I have no more deaths. I think perhaps the combination of me leaving the canister filter off, dosing clarity, and too much excel might have added up and given the fish too much to handle.


leaving the canister off would cause your good bacteria to die off if left for to long.


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## discuspaul (Jul 2, 2010)

Yes, Ken - I did misunderstand your post. Phew, glad to hear you're not using the floss in your canister. And your use of bio-media throughout the canister is a good move, coupled with the HOB for water clarity purposes.
Don't know which tank you have your A/C 30 on, but I assume it's the 155 - If so, you might think about putting on an A/C 70 on that tank, instead of the 30You'll get much better coverage of the floss & Purigen to rid yourself of the cloudy water, more quickly, & maintain good clarity on an ongoing basis.
As for the 260, if you're also using a canister on that, supplementing it with an A/C HOB 110 will give you a lot of options & improve your filtration - just a thought for you.


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## summit (Aug 22, 2010)

So I just got finished running some test, a bit of good news is the fact I had no more deaths. Anyways the results are as follows:

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
GH 2
KH 2

This leads me to believe either a good portion of the bacteria survived, and is enough to handle the bioload left in the tank? It also tells me I don't think it would be a GH/KH overdose as that is right on where I should be at this point? Does this mean its probably pointing to the excel/clarity that was the culprit? I guess that is not something I can exactly test for and know for sure?


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## summit (Aug 22, 2010)

emile said:


> Yes, Ken - I did misunderstand your post. Phew, glad to hear you're not using the floss in your canister. And your use of bio-media throughout the canister is a good move, coupled with the HOB for water clarity purposes.
> Don't know which tank you have your A/C 30 on, but I assume it's the 155 - If so, you might think about putting on an A/C 70 on that tank, instead of the 30You'll get much better coverage of the floss & Purigen to rid yourself of the cloudy water, more quickly, & maintain good clarity on an ongoing basis.
> As for the 260, if you're also using a canister on that, supplementing it with an A/C HOB 110 will give you a lot of options & improve your filtration - just a thought for you.


Yes the aquaclear 30 is on the 155 for now, just temporarily until I get another one, just testing out how they work  Where did you put your aquaclear 110 on your 260? I don't have room to fit it on mine as the middle support, or the black bars supporting the light get in the way. Ironically the water has pretty much cleared up, I was right at the tail end of the battle when this happened.


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## discuspaul (Jul 2, 2010)

Yes, unfortunately a 110 will not fit at the back of the 260 - I have mine on the sides (2 of them - one on each side) & they don't detract from the look of the tank - particularly the one on the 'wall' side.


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## Mferko (Jun 8, 2010)

sorry for your loss
about the filter floss tho, i have it in my eheim ecco 2232 and its been in there for the last 2 months at least with no noticable decrease of flow, is there a chance its bypassing the floss or its it just ok cuz its not a very high flow unit??


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## summit (Aug 22, 2010)

well levels are still 0 for ammonia, 0 for nitrites, so I would assume I will not have to go through another cycle at this point and got very lucky. I guess it was either the excel dosing, or seachem clarity, or perhaps an unfortunate combo of things when my filter was left off. I am not going to add in any more stock for now, just take a wait and see approach and get things cleared up and planted, ironically the green water is pretty much cleared up at this point.

Thanks for the help everyone, its very much appreciated.


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