View Full Version : Emergency!
Yesterday I did the bleach dip on my plants, driftwood, and rocks, and then a 35-40% water change trying to tackle a hair algae infestation. This morning I woke up and all my fish are at the top gasping for air! I dropped in a powerhead to provide oxygen and dosed with Amquel to perhaps kill some of the ammonia. Is there anything else I can do? Should I do another water change???
Please help, I don't want to lose my fish.
cds
Lukara
11-03-2003, 9:04 AM
I'm no expert, but I think you didn't give us enough information about your tank parameters. How long has your tank been established? What are your water parameters? Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates, PH, GH and KH? After you bleached the plants etc., did you rinse them under tap water and dechlorinator? Are you using CO2?
Tank is very well established, almost two years... yes, using DIY Co2. I have added peat to the filter about 1.5 months ago to aid in plant growth... has not been a problem. Only problems started after the bleach dip. Since my first posting 30 mins ago I lost one fish (cardinal tetra) :(
Nitrate: app. 30ppm
Nitrite: app. 0.25 ppm
Total hardness: app. 200ppm
Alkalinity: appears to be "zero" (I'm using test strips)
ph: 6.4
Lukara
11-03-2003, 9:39 AM
Like I said before I'm definitely no expert, however, if I were in your shoes, I would do another large water change for sure. When you say you bleached some plants... did you uproot well established plants? Do you use fertilizer tabs in your substrate? It could be that you inadvertently released something in your water column by pulling up your plants to bleach them. Does the water smell? Could also be anaerobic gas from stirring up the gravel when you took out the plants.
None of the plants were established for more than a month. I could do another water change, but I'm won't that stress the fish even more??
OrionGirl
11-03-2003, 11:28 AM
Water changes stress the fish less than poor water conditions.
Did you rinse everything with a dechlorinator after that chlorine dip? If not, you introduced bleach to your tank, which is killing off bacteria and causing the spikes. Porous things like wood need to be rinsed and soaked with dechlorinator before being introduced to a tank.
djlen
11-03-2003, 11:30 AM
You will not hurt the fish by doing a large water change provided you use the proscribed amount of Tap Water Conditioner with the change and keep the replacement water's temp close to the tank's temp.
You need to have zero nitrItes and lower nitrAtes. The fastest way to clean up the water is with water changes.
Did you use Tap Water Conditioner to dip the bleached plants prior to re-introducing them to the tank? Did you also dip your hands in the Conditioned water to get the bleach off of them?
What was the ratio of bleach/water that you used?
If you did, this sounds more like an over-dose of CO2 but it's hard to overdose a tank unless it's very small. What size tank do you have? What is your kH? You need to check that against your 6.4 pH to measure your CO2 level.
The bottom line is that in either case, a water change is the best thing for you to do now.
Len
Timmain42
11-03-2003, 9:19 PM
I've seen this done before with over-bleached tanks, and it seems to work, but it will not be popular with the Plant Folks (myself included):
Get a powerhead. Aim the return upwards to make as much surface ripple as possible. This gets O2 into the water so your fish won't die from their new-aquired bacterial bath, but it WILL de-gas your CO2 (but that shouldn't really be a concern at the moment).
P.S. listen to Len. I followed his advice on bleaching my hydrocotle and marselia two weeks ago when I got them from a tank infested with BBA, and everything's growing great now with no die-off or algae.
Lukara
11-05-2003, 5:03 PM
Cds, how's everything going with your fish?
125gJoe
11-05-2003, 7:13 PM
...an update would be in order...
Wonder if the plants were rinsed thoroughly before going back into the tank. Or, did they absorb the bleach from sitting in it too long, and rinsing could only help a little bit (?)....
:(
I'm pretty sure that I followed the instructions perfectly. Some of my plants died unfortunately (pretty sure that I "overbleached"). I keep checking my nitrates/nitrites and they are fine, but now my water smells funny, and the fish are gasping at the top for air. I add a powerhead, and all is fine although the tank doesn't look appealing. So last night I take out the powerhead (which was in for several days) thinking that things are okay, and I wake up this morning to more gasping! Anyone have any suggestions?
I've put the powerhead back in for the time being, but there's got to be another solution...
djlen
11-11-2003, 10:39 AM
Did you do the water-changes?????????
Len
Lukara
11-11-2003, 11:42 AM
Cds, in order to get the best possible suggestions from the people on this site, I recommend that you list everything you've done step by step, from start to finish, and list as many of your tank parameters that you know. ;)
tanker
11-11-2003, 3:08 PM
BEST GUESS: Chorine in wood. Wood absorbs chorine and a simple wash does not remove it, must be soaked. Wood is probably leaking chlorine into tank and affecting gills of fish. Do a water change and add extra chlorine remover.
Here's what I did:
I did a big cleaning on the tank in prep for adding plants. Things were going fine until I added iron tabs in the soil... several weeks later I had a hair algae infestation. So I did the bleach bath on the plants and the driftwood, washed them off, and reintroduced them all to the tank... and have since used a sh*tload of chlorine remover. Should I do another water change? Take out the wood?? I mean, I only dipped the wood for a short while, how much could it have absorbed?? And it's been about two weeks... shouldn't things have stabilized by now??
Please help!
Cds
tanker
11-11-2003, 10:28 PM
Keep the power heads in there for a while, but turn off CO2 (it will be dissipated anyway). This would get more O2 into water, and/or dissipate chlorine (if there is some more chlorine). Wood absorbs stuff as good as carbon but releases it back into water at a slow pace. Yes remove the wood and put into another container of water to soak for a while (do you smell chlorine on wood??). Check water for Ammonia, your nitrite is kind of high.
Have you done another water change?? 20-25%??
Also do not thing FE (Iron) causes algae, isolated incident.
I performed everything you suggested, so now it's the waiting game. Thanks for the diagnosis.
by the way, just before the algae bath, I noticed that some of the algae was a reddish color... any idea what caused it?
tanker
11-12-2003, 3:14 AM
Originally posted by cds
by the way, just before the algae bath, I noticed that some of the algae was a reddish color... any idea what caused it?
Never heard of red FW algae. Maybe brownish red?? Turf algae??
No idea... I guess my question is: how did the hair algae get in there in the first place? What did I do wrong or what parameters was I not mindful of enough that caused the algae in the first place? My nitrate/nitrite readings were always low so I'm completely at a loss...
tanker
11-13-2003, 1:01 AM
Algae spores are always present in water and plants. When you added plants and iron did you increase or added lights?? When the plants was added the spores probably came in at the same time. Algae got foothold before plants did. Once plants get established algae will go away. Personally I would have boiled wood and rocks (not clhorine dip them) and bleach plants.
You did nothing wrong just algae started before plants. If you have enough plants and they get established ==no more problems. GOOD LUCK
Bad news, lost another fish this morning--chinese algae eater. Have extremely cloudy water. Really at a loss here...
tanker
11-15-2003, 1:22 PM
Cloudy water?? is it white, dusty, green?? Did the chlorine bath wip out you BIO?? Check again for ammonia, nitrate, nitrite. First two should be zero and nitrate low.