Another disaster

[cbong]

Its been twice in two weeks! After changing water for my planted tanks last night and last saturday night, my fishes went into a shock and I lost almost half of the population, including my precious shrimps!!!!

I did half-tank change and disaster struck. Nothing different from my past years of water change and hence, I suspect that something is wrong with the water quality from the tap.

[bossteck]

Oh man!
Sorry about your loss.
What water conditioner do you use?
I think just to be safe, we should limit ourselves to 20-30% water changes only.

[AquaObsession]

I change water 50+% to 90% once a week or every 5 days, I never encounter any death related problems to my fauna.

I think you should have a well cycle tank, and during your water change, do not stirr up anything to avoid ammonia peak, etc.

[PeterGwee]

Did they die immediately or overnight? Something fishy but not likely to do with the water unless the KH/GH difference between them is pretty great.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[cbong]

Did they die immediately or overnight? Something fishy but not likely to do with the water unless the KH/GH difference between them is pretty great.

Regards
Peter Gwee

Within an hour from water change, the fishes were dropping like dead flies.

[PeterGwee]

Did you use anti-chloramine when changing the water? That is about the only thing that can really kill fish. Any coral chips in filter?

Regards
Peter Gwee

[bossteck]

Hi Peter,

What are the potential problems with having coral chips in the filter?

[PeterGwee]

Having coral chips in the filter or substrate raises the KH/GH slowly over time. Depending on the amount, a large quantity of it could cause a drastic rise in GH/KH as compared to our low GH/KH water. Changing water could stress them due to the sudden change in the amount of "salt" content.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[cbong]

Did you use anti-chloramine when changing the water? That is about the only thing that can really kill fish. Any coral chips in filter?

Regards
Peter Gwee

i had never used anti-chloramine all these years before. maybe time to start.

[|squee|]

How about the hoses/pails you used? My pails are shared for washing clothes/etc so I always make it a point to wash properly before using them for my tanks.

[kadios]

Could it be the detergent? Did you check your pH and water hardness. I suggest you to do a check before and after water change to see if there was any pH crash. Btw, what are your fishes? I know that tetras are very sensitive to pH swings. Another possibility maybe the pails or hose which contains some detergent or unclean traces. Maybe you can rinse them before using them.

Cheers!

[XnSdVd]

Actually.. could someone name a reliable brand of anti-chloramine?

[Sunfire]

Seachem prime is good. I use it personally. It also absorbs ammonia, or 'binds' it as it claims to do. With it I managed to reduce my shrimp casualities by a lot.

There are many other reasons why your fish and shrimp can die with changed water.
e.g. water pipe is made of lead or copper, it is corroding. / you used a pail with traces of soap inside. / you stirred up the substrate / others.

[Rokerites]

Seachem prime is good. I use it personally. It also absorbs ammonia, or 'binds' it as it claims to do. With it I managed to reduce my shrimp casualities by a lot.

I second Sunfire recommendation, Seachem Prime is very good and economical

[XnSdVd]

Hmm... hasn't it been shown that ammonia is the plants prefered choice of fertiliser? It's somewhere in Diana Walstad's book...

[Quixotic]

Some plants, not all. The keyword is preferred, so if ammonia is not available, they will feed on nitrate.

Anyway, Seachem Prime claims that ammonia is not removed but bound and held in an inert state until removed by bacterias.

[neon]

Nutrafin AquaPlus Water Conditional(anti-clorine and anti-cloramin is also economical 2L . Get it cheap from C328.

10ml per 70L water change.

[Quixotic]

For what it's worth, this is the article by Diana Walstad about ammonium and nitrate uptake.

http://www.aquabotanic.com/plants_an...filtration.htm

[ranmasatome]

dirty pipes, dirty hose used to fill tank, dirty pail, stirring substrate, coral chips in filter, Old carbon filter in filter...all possible causes. For filter materials, when you change your water and switch of filter.. then when you're done and switch it back on... there might be a surge of whatever your fish doesn't like for the first 30mins... so... i would wash that filter if you havent already for a long time.

[PeterGwee]

Hmm... hasn't it been shown that ammonia is the plants prefered choice of fertiliser? It's somewhere in Diana Walstad's book...

At what range did she mention that? Do you think you can keep the fishes/shrimps alive with that amount of ammonia in water? Ammonia is a great way to induce several species of algae.

Regards
Peter Gwee