Something is Wrong

[tara brown]

Hi Everyone,

Things have been going great with my tank, it will be a year old this weekend.

However, in the past couple of days or weeks something has gone wrong.

In the past 2 weeks i have added 6 new fish and a new plant, from a reputable source (my tank is not over crowded at all). I have also added back some drift wood.

I did a water change, less than 5% last week with regular water (i usually use reverse osmosis water) and some soften water got in the tank as well.

Since i got the new fish i have had at least one fish die each day (both old and new fish).

Also, my malasian trumpet snails are going crazy! They usually stay in the gravel and i never see them - they are EVERYWHERE now!

I tested for ammonia, nitrates and nitrites and the water is fine. My PH is the same. The only thing that is different is my Hardness has gone down (because of the addition of soft water).

Today i did a 1/3 water change with RO water and cleaned the filter.

Something is going wrong and i don't know what it is. Does any one have some ideas as to what i can do to save my fish? Another cory is dying as i write this......

Help!

Tara

[Rbishop]

Have you always used RO water..? Not good for buffering capabilities. Did you QT the new fish in their own tank first? You could have introduced disease.

I know you say everything is fine, but that can be open to many definitions.

1) What kind of a test kit are you using? Liquid or dip strips?

2) What are your exact ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH readings on your tank? Also, the same, on your tap water.

3) What size tank and how many each, of what kind of fish?

[wataugachicken]

questions:

what is the exact size of the tank?
what fish do you have and how many (which were original, which were new, which ones died)?
what exactly are your readings for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate (before and after your 1/3 water change)?
how often do you do water changes and how much?
do you only use RO water or do you use tap water as well? if only RO, do you add a mineral replacer?

most likely adding new fish did two things - created a mini-cycle in the tank which caused spikes of ammonia and nitrite, and also introduced some type of disease to the tank. even fish that look good at the store can harbor bacteria or parasites which can be harmful when added to your tank.

[tara brown]

Hi guys,

-the tank is a 30gal tall.
-i added 3 cories and 3 harlequin rasboras (there was 1 cory, 2 dwarf gouramis, 1 guppy 4 rasboras, 1 rosy barb, 1 snail and 1 ember tetra in the tank already)
-i have been using RO water for about 6 months - no mineral replacer
-i did not QT the fish
-the ammonia was 0 and the nitrates were less than 5ppm, ph was 8
-using liquid test kit
-i do water changes every 1-2 weeks - around 10-30%

Today i woke up to 2 more dead fish. So i have 3 rasboras, 1 ember tetra, 2 cories, 1 guppy

So what should i do guys? If its disease...if its water...and what about all the snails all of a sudden? Do they have a connection to this? I know they will come out of the gravel when the water quality is bad but according to my test kit it's not.

Tara

[silentskream]

RO water is actually very soft, very acidic water. by using an RO system, you are taking ALL of the minerals out of your water (well.. about 99.9% of them) so this is about as soft as water can get. adding soft water to soft water should not have done much, but the lack of hardness will make it easier for your PH to swing all over the place.
when using RO water you have to replace some minerals that fish need to live. usually in the form of "aquarium salts" or "cichlid salts" or "reef salts"

snails dont handle PH swings very well... so here's my guess.
by adding "soft water" to your RO water, you actually INCREASED the hardness. because soft water is less soft than RO water. by doing this your fish are having trouble adjusting (therefore dieing), and your snails are freaking out because of the change.

here's my next question though: did the new fish you got die first? are they all gone now? what sort of behavior do you see in the fish before they die?
it could be an internal parasite perhaps.

[tara brown]

Thanks for that info.
There are less snails above the gravel today actually.

As for who is dying:
-of the rasboras, 2 new died (out of 3) and 1 old died
-Out of the cories 1 new died (out of three) and one (the only one) old died
-So more old fish are dying than new ones.

-I didn't see any strange behaviour from the fish before they died. The rosy barb swam in one place for a day
-the cockatoo cichild (who i forgot to mention i my last posts) hid under the driftwood
-the gouramis didn't act much different - one stayed lower in the tank but the other one didn't

So if its due to hardness should i just wait it out, or is there anything i can do. If its do to a disease what can i do about that? None of the fish look sick....

[fgump]

Do you have a water outlet before the water softener? If so, I'd start using that for your water... Start by doing little water changes with the un-softened water, maybe around 5% (will need somebody more knowledgeable then me to confirm that). You don't want to make big adjustments at one time, and need to give the fish time to acclimate to the, hopefully slightly, different water parameters.

[silentskream]

there are anti parasitic foods or medications you could try just in case, it wont hurt them if they dont have parasites, but it will kill parasites if they do have them.

if its a water issue, my suggestion would be to decide what kind of water you want to use permanently. then do very small (5% is good) water changes with that water daily. after about a week you can probably go back to your regular schedule of water changes.

[Star_Rider]

RO water is pH 7 it is neither acidic nor base. it has no buffering capacity. buffers are mineral salts that will stabilize fluctuations . buffers do exactly what their name infers..buffer the water in sudden pH spikes.
unless you are doing daily water changes I would suspect you may be seeing some issues with the water chemistry.
over time without buffers the ro water will become acidic and you may see a drop in pH.

water softener usually replace calcium carbonates with sodium based. these will mess with the chemistry of the water.

usually if you live in an area with 'hard' water(high gH) you may want to experiment with using tap mixed with RO.
this way you dillute the gH of the tap with unbuffered water from the ro. on the reverse you have now added buffers to the RO.

[tara brown]

usually if you live in an area with 'hard' water(high gH) you may want to experiment with using tap mixed with RO.
this way you dillute the gH of the tap with unbuffered water from the ro. on the reverse you have now added buffers to the RO.

I do live in an area with very hard water which is why i thought RO would be better for my fish.

If i do a combination of the two waters how would i go about that? Each water change add one or the other? I don't want to shock my fish more.
Or should i just go back to my tap water slowly? and look for fish that like hard water?

Someone else said to add minerals to the RO water. Would aquarium salt do?

Thanks!

Tara

[Star_Rider]

simply mix the ro with tap water. bingo ..check to see if you have a by pass on the water softener(many of them do)

other than that you can find buffers at fish stores or on line.

[wataugachicken]

you could probably find RO mineral replacers in home stores right next to the RO units themselves.

[tara brown]

Hi All,

Just to let you know my tank does seem to be doing better now. Thanks for all of your help. THis forum is awesome - i trust all of you WAY more than any guys at the LFS.

Still a bit of a snail problem though... they came out of the gravel but not all of them seem to be going back in.

I did find a mineral replacement to add to RO water - it's made by Kent specifically for tanks filled with RO or distilled water.

Tara

[markpow]

Adding a couple of Clown Loaches should solve your snail problem. They are very good at natural snail control.

[wataugachicken]

clown loaches are not appropriate for a 30g tank.

and this thread is from october.

[iamgroovy]

And it's not appropriate to purchase a loach just to take care of snail problem.
I don't think her problem was overpopulation though. She was concerned with the change in behavior.
And hopefully she's doing fine by now....