Overdose of the CO2

[Victor Cheong]

Hi all

i have been maintaining my CO2 for my 10 gallon at about 48bpm which gave me a slight yellowish green colour of the drop checker towards the end of the CO2 cycle. My fishes and shrimps have been doing fine until the day where I accidentally forgot to turn on the lights.

Used timer but the night before I accidentally turned off the switch on the light. When I was back home next day and checked on my tank, my drop checker was still yellowish green which routinely should have already been dark green. My Yamato shrimps were inactive and in state of dying or stoning near the top of the eheim intake pipe. 2 of the Yamato shrimps were dead by end of the night and more casualites followed eventually.

During the next day, 1 small swordtail and 3 more Yamato shrimps were dead. On the third day another 3 more Yamato shrimps were dead. During this period tuning down of the CO2 in sequential descending till 5bpm together with usage of the air stone at some point in time and two 25% water change were carried out and all this while, the drop checker was still green but eventually reached dark green on the 4th day. Yesterday which is the 4th day, I added 5 more Yamato shrimps as the drop checker has normalized and the algae appeared to increase substantially.

My other fishes including otos have appeared to be doing fine and swim around freely in the lower segment of the tank.

Today the drop checker is dark blue at the end of the CO2 period but yet one more shrimp was dead, one dying and the remaining all at this moment the top corner of the intake pipe stoning.

Can I have your urgent advice and comments please.

TIA.

[Victor Cheong]

Hi all

Could anyone provide comments please? TIA.

[fireblade]

during this period , did you do any water change or top up of water?
maybe you should stop adding new stock and observe the tank for a while.

[IrvineChen]

Over sudden change in PH level... your existing life stock could be over stress... they might be normal now, but some may not make it over some time...

Plus shortage of oxygen during that period may had caused a long term damage to the fish lung.

[tetrakid]

Over sudden change in PH level... your existing life stock could be over stress... they might be normal now, but some may not make it over some time...

Plus shortage of oxygen during that period may had caused a long term damage to the fish lung.

Fish usually are quite resilient to sporadic changes in water conditions. Thus they may not suddenly display any visible outward symptoms and appear to be 'happy' for a while and that can give one the impression that they are okay. But it is the continuous adverse conditions that cause gradual deterioration or damage to their health. Usually by the time one notices any symptoms, it would have been too late to remedy them.

Thus, it is important to prevent unhealthy conditions developing by ensuring good water quality at all times. Clean aged water and good oxygenation are the primary means of ensuring fish health. In this regard, the presence of CO2 is detrimental to the wellbeing of fish and other livestock.

[Bryan Dismas]

Hey Victor,

Something like that happened to me recently as well.

Basically I had pumped too much CO2 into my tank and it started to accumulate (drop checker never returned to blue). Because there wasn't enough nutrients in my water, the plants didn't use the excess CO2 and it piled up. Although CO2 accumulation does stress life stock (by reducing O2 in the water), in my case the reduced O2 appeared to also have hit the bacterial colony hard, throwing my tank into a mini cycle.

I had a measurable amount of nitrites in my water (0.5 - 1ppm) that only resolved after several water changes and dosing large amounts of prime. You might want to check for this, especially if you've stopped CO2 and life stock continue to die. Dosing prime prevented additional casualties after the initial die off.

I've logged my findings in another thread, here: http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...ablished-Tank)