# africans dying!



## mrbob (Aug 9, 2012)

Hi everyone have a mystery I think its the water perimeters? I have lost 3 female haps 2x empress 1x peacock over 4" 1 each day for 3 days now! Checked water after first death nitrite 0 ammonia 0 nitrate 40 gh 20 or 380 kh 6 or 107.4 ph 7.6 they all seemed to be breathing hard I have lots of air stones in tank? did 30% water change last night and found large female empress dead this morning? there eating good! hardly any aggression have over populated to cut down on that. have 72 g bow with fx5 and 405 fluval filtering this! is the gh to high at 20 if so what could i use to bring down? would that be killing my fish? also found temp had some how increased to 83 but im bringing back down to 80 slowly!
any suggestions would be appreciated! fish look healthy eating good just breathing harder then normal and 3 deaths in 3 days! frustrating!!


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## mrbob (Aug 9, 2012)

UPDATE: I added sodium bicarbonate and now have kh up to 11 or 196.0 fish already seem to be more active and breathing better? (maybe cause i just fed them? lol) will see still think gh is still to high? internet says 200+ better?


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## jbyoung00008 (May 16, 2011)

Easiest way to bring the Gh down would be a water change although Im not sure on what the tap waters GH is in Agassiz. If its lower than your GH in the tank than it should bring it down a bit. 

How often and what % of water do you dremove when you do water changes?
How often are you cleaning your filters?
How many African in the tank? 
Are you adding any products to raise your GH or KH or PH?
How long has the tank been running?


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## mdwflyer (Jan 11, 2011)

Sorry about your loses, how is the water circulation? Any powerheads?

I believe increase in temp can decrease O2.

What/how much do you use to set GH/KH?

If the tank has been running happy for a while, then I wouldn't do any drastic changes.


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## mrbob (Aug 9, 2012)

30-40 assorted from 1" fry to 6" I do w/c every week tank has been running 6 weeks since it cycled I also used a cycled fx5 I bought from a user on this site that was well established had no probs until last 3 days! I'm using seachrem lake Malawi buffer and add recommend amount after w/c I noticed last night before w/c gh was 15 then today 20 not sure if its my tap water or buffer? I will check tap water and update soon. so the gh is to high for these guys?
also filters once per month have not done yet in 6 weeks due to new tank thought i better let it establish itself before cleaning will do both filters tonight! thank you again for your help


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## mrbob (Aug 9, 2012)

30% w/c weekly


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## mrbob (Aug 9, 2012)

no power heads hooked up yet! lots of movement fx5 and fluval and air stones water is moving well!


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## sunshine_1965 (Aug 16, 2011)

It sucks to lose fish. Especially just all of a sudden. Hope you can figure it out and not lose any more.


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## jbyoung00008 (May 16, 2011)

IMO you need to up the water changes to 50% and clean those filters ASAP. I have about the same amount of African in my 120g tank a fx5 and a rena xp3 if I dont clean the filters once a month at bare minimum they are nasty. I understand what you are trying to do with not disturbing the filters but its time. Clean 1 than wait a week to clean the other if you are worried about disturbing the bio media. As long as you have lots of bio media and dont clean the media in tap water cleaning both filters sponges should be fine. I do it all the time wiht no issues.

To answer your question is a GH of 20 okay. If last week it was 10 and this week 20 than Id say NO. But if you are maintaining a 20GH all the time its probably not a problem. Quick fluctuation is what will upset the fish. Ideal is 12gh- 20gh, 10kh-18kh from what Ive read. I try not to worry too much about the number rather that it stays in the same area after each water change.

Here is a link to ideal African waters parameters. I run my African tank at a lower 10KH and 10GH because I have live plants. The fish seem happy as can be.

Aquarium Water Management: Ideal Water Paramaters


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## mrbob (Aug 9, 2012)

thank you everyone for your help! I will keep you all posted on how things go! yes Paul its hard to have to take that big beautiful fish out because he died!


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## mrbob (Aug 9, 2012)

cleaned filters did w/c everything seems fine now? I realized the 3 that died where ones I just purchased last weekend from another user!


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