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bro did you check the tapwater's ph value prior to water changes ?Originally Posted by k3nlim
Just did a 10% water change, inital water ph is 6.2 before water change but after a while, realised the fishes are acting funny because most of them are swimming near to the surface and rather inactive. Check the ph and realise that it's 5.8. No schooling response to lights which should not the case.
Using magicsoil and the tank have been running for 2months, no co2 and fert. Only water conditioner is added after water change. Water surface movement is gentle. This is my first time having issue like this.
Anyone have got any advice and experiences on this?
bro did you check the tapwater's ph value prior to water changes ?
Ph crash, I think so.
For me, I always add sodium bicarbonate to increase the PH during water change. You can get them from RED MAN at low price.
Thanks for the information. I didn't check the tap water ph prior water change. The only change i made is adding too much stress coat thus the strange behaviour of the fishes...they're behaving alright after removing them and introduce them into the main tank over night
I say it was stress coat. Ammonia killers warn not to overdose or dose twice in one day, for reasons of dangerously lowered ORP or REDOX.
No oxygen left for fish.
Also you likely have not enough gas exchange.
I like to use sponge filters with lift tube, or lift tube alone, to get bottom-to-top circulation, and I like to see waves on the surface.
Dave
Last edited by raglan; 31st Jul 2008 at 23:09.
There is lots of surface movement...that's the strange thing...concluded that the stress coat might have increased the particle contents in the water thus affecting the fishes
Hi guys
Sorry for digging up this old post...but not too sure if anyone here has encoutered this problem. But I sure have heard of people having this problem
Over the past 1.5yrs, I have lost hundreds and thousands of baby angelfishes to water PH crash. I have been doing the same routine for years long time ago when I would change the tank water before I go to work and put anti chlorine and feed some food to the fishes. I also included air blown filter inside the tank. All was okay in the past.
However past 1 yr or so, I can come back from work sometimes and discover my whole tank of angelfish would have died. This had happened to me countless number of times and this is very very frustrating. This also happened to my 2ft goldfish tank when I have an overhead filter as well. I will change the tank water in the morning before I went to work and put antichlorine. However when I came home in the evening, all the goldfish would have their full bodies covered with some sort of white mucus and with cloudy eyes and they would be breathing at the surface of the water even though the water is crsytal clear. I had to immediately change the whole tank water again and few hours later, they would be alright (that is if I managed to save them in time). I measured the PH of the "crystal clear" water and it was less than 5!!! My PH from tapwater is 7.
I spoke to a fish shop owner and he advised me to put in lime stones in my tank or filter. Very surprisingly, it worked. It actually helped to buffer and stabilise my PH level. Further enquiries and I was told that PUB has added Chloramine and antichlorine solutions has not effect in getting rid of it. After a while I managed to buy anti-cholramine solution and added to the tank water whenever I changed my water. Not to forget that the lime stones were still in the filter and tank.
All was well until 2 weeks ago, I thought that the anti-chloramine solution was solving the problem and I decided to take out all the lime stones from the filter of the baby angel tanks and the goldfish tank. And what happened next was tragedy. Again 2 tanks of baby angelfish died in less than 24hrs after changing the water. Also my whole tank of goldfish in the 2ft tank also died in less than 24hrs.
I am very saddened by this issue and I am wondering if anyone of you can advise me on this and if anyone of you is encoutering the same problem?
Sorry for my long post but I have already tried making my story short but it still seems too long
Hi fishking,
Sorry to hear about your losses.
You are right, our tap water now contains chloramine rather than cholrine. So make sure your water conditioner removes chloramine rather than just cholrine. Most of the water conditioners these days are able to 'remove' both AND ammonia, which is the by product of breaking down cholramine (if I remember correctly).
Changing the water of the entire tank when your fishes are in distress is never a good idea, my suggested course of action would be to run an air stone and add a packet of activated carbon, but then this really depends on the situation, but if you really must change water, do it with a few partial water changes.
On the topic of pH swing that you're encountering, something must be lowering your pH. Because your tap water reads 7 while your tank at the end of the day reads 5. You should try to find out what is causing this. Some possiblilities: co2 if you're injecting any, leeching of tanic acid from drift wood.
Lime stones / crushed corals acts as pH buffers, you can think of them as sponges that absorb acids, having pieces of lime stones / crushed corals in your filters will help to prevent the pH from dipping.
Hope this helps!
P.S. On a side note, quite interested to learn more about your angel spawnings
- eric
i think so too. i do think water changes are good if trouble is brewing, but several smaller ones per day is better than one huge wc by that method.it's tricky to figure out what's going on here. i've done all kind of ph swing in my tanks, never showed any effect on my fish. way bigger swings.now i never consider ph to be a factor to worry about except if ammonia is present.
On the topic of pH swing that you're encountering, something must be lowering your pH. Because your tap water reads 7 while your tank at the end of the day reads 5. You should try to find out what is causing this. Some possiblilities: co2 if you're injecting any, leeching of tanic acid from drift wood.
i am more cautious of dissolved gases in tapwater, or of antichlorine overdose, than of ph swing, in a freshwater tank. so i use carbon filter pretreatment and agitation of wc water in a container.
perhaps the tank is actually dirty even though water changes are done.
maybe a dirty substrate. is that possible.
sorry my keyboard is not working correctly, and can't do some punctuation.
Last edited by raglan; 8th Oct 2008 at 22:20.
Sorry if it seems off topic, but I think I am looking at the same problem from a different angle. In regards to our local water, what do you recommend as a base guidline in preparing out tapwater for the aquarium, given the current additives added into the tank.
Surprised that this thread is still alive...i will guess that "proper aging" your bucket of water would be recommended plus the correct water conditioner.
I have even heard of not doing WC on thursday due to the fact that chemical treated water will be pumped in. I could be wrong
Hi all
Thanks for your replies.
To bossteck - believe it or not, my tanks are all completely bare without any plants, substrate or whatever. Just air filter (cannot use overehard filter because it will suck all my babies into the filter) and normal changing of water. The tanks are just used for growing up baby angels. As the angels grow, it is very common for the tank to get dirty fast because of the numerous times of feeding to let the babies grow fast. Thus every 2 to 3 days, I will change the water as what I have done for more than 6 years ago......you can PM me and we chat on angelfish spawning if you want. ...kekeke
To raglan, junglemania, and k3nlim, understand that smaller water changes are better but I also noted that if I were to just change half the tank water, my PH is still lower than 5, so the acidicity is still bad enough to kill off the fishes, that's why I did a whole tank water change to bring the PH to 7. Also, by "aging" the water, it seems like chorine can be dissipitated into the air but not chloramine, it is still present in "aged" water.
Last edited by bossteck; 9th Oct 2008 at 15:36. Reason: spelling
but there are things in tapwater other than chloramine that needs to dissipate...dissolved gases in the cold pressurized water. you can see that something happens when you fill a new tank with cold water...is it warms, there are many bubbles of gas on the glass.Hi all
Thanks for your replies.
To bossteck - believe it or not, my tanks are all completely bare without any plants, substrate or whatever. Just air filter (cannot use overehard filter because it will suck all my babies into the filter) and normal changing of water. The tanks are just used for growing up baby angels. As the angels grow, it is very common for the tank to get dirty fast because of the numerous times of feeding to let the babies grow fast. Thus every 2 to 3 days, I will change the water as what I have done for more than 6 years ago...
To raglan, junglemania, and k3nlim, understand that smaller water changes are better but I also noted that if I were to just change half the tank water, my PH is still lower than 5, so the acidicity is still bad enough to kill off the fishes, that's why I did a whole tank water change to bring the PH to 7. Also, by "aging" the water, it seems like chorine can be dissipitated into the air but not chloramine, it is still present in "aged" water.
that's why i heat and agitate the water in a container, to get rid of dissolved gases so that i feel safe doing big wc. as the tapwater comes out of the tap, it goes through a carbon filter which splits out chlorine from chloramine and adsorbs it. so there is no chloramine or chlorine left, but there are still gases.
regarding babies...to do total wc, perhaps you can do it from a larger tank instead of the tap.
I will take note of your comments. Thanks
I think ageing the water is probably a safer bet for you then, if not, at least you keep the coral chips / lime stone pieces in your grow out tanks.
I really can't explain why you experienced low pH by the end of the day.
- eric
yeah...not realyl sure why like that..nothing ever happened like that in the past 22 years that I have been keeping fish till recently 1.5yrs ago...
Never create what you can't control
It seems as if you could be suffering from some kind of pH swing. However, I may be reading things wrongly, but it seems as if in trying to cope with the problem, you may have been introducing too many changes at the same time, which really isn't good actually.
How are you measuring the pH, test strips? Any readings of kH of the tapwater and tank water?
I would also be interested if you could read the pH at different times, once in the early morning, once at the afternoon, and once at night.
One thing though, do not measure them right after dosing any additives (e.g. de-chlorinator, ferts, if you are dosing anything). Some additives are known to affect the water parameter readings.
Not sure if anything could be inferred from these, but since there is no idea on how else to move forward, anything may be worth a look.
Hi...tried measuring using those chemical ones where there is a test tube vial...Tetra brand...change water is still neutral level at 7...but at the end of the day, it drops to below 5 or less...because my colour indicator card only reads till 5...anything lower must be very bad then...
Well I am back to putting lime stones or dead corals into my filter this time round and hopefully the next batch of baby angelfishes can live to a ripe old age then...hahaha
How large is your tank?Hi all
Thanks for your replies.
To raglan, junglemania, and k3nlim, understand that smaller water changes are better but I also noted that if I were to just change half the tank water, my PH is still lower than 5, so the acidicity is still bad enough to kill off the fishes, that's why I did a whole tank water change to bring the PH to 7. Also, by "aging" the water, it seems like chorine can be dissipitated into the air but not chloramine, it is still present in "aged" water.
What water conditioner are you using? What are you feeding your angels?
These could have reacted with the chloramine & produce some by product which lowers your ph.
Anyway it is always good to have some ph buffering medias around because you never know...
My tank ranges from those plastic tanks to 2 ft glass tanks.
I feed them cut tubifex worms or even whole pieces of tubifex worms. The fish can finish off the food in a few minutes before I leave for work....it is after work I come back and see the dead fishes...
anyway will be leaving the dead corals and lime stones in the filter...
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