Tank disaster related to DIY CO2?

[eea876]

I am not sure if this is the proper forum for this topic redirect or delet if needed.

For the last 2 months I have been trying my hand at a planted tank. I am using the DIY yeast method with a simple bell reactor. My plant growth has been amazing. I have to cut/trim back daily.

Here is my problem. Over the last 10 days all of my fish except 1 molly and about 8 ghost shrimp have died. (6 platys, 4 guppies, 20 platy fry, 4 corys)

I at first, assumed that I had a bacteria infection so they were treated accordinly. Obviously this did not work at the cost of massive fish death. :(

I did discover that my pH had tanked. (pH was around 7.2 and fell to around 5.6) I am now buffering to bring pH back to around 7.

I need to figure this problem out before i try and restock this tank. Do you think CO2 was the killer here?

This tank was well established almost 2 years with hardly ever a problem. p.s. sorry about the long post and thanks for any help.

[MyShrimpDied]

I would say that the ph drop was the cause of the death, was the ph at 5.6 while the fish were dieing? or did they die after the fact?

~ MyShrimpDied

[phanmc]

It definately looks like the CO2 did it, adding CO2 will drop the PH in your water, and a drastic drop like that probably killed your fishes. Buffering the water will help short term but you need to reduce the amount of CO2 going into your water.

[eea876]

Yes the pH was that low when the mortality started. I wasn't aware of the low pH until the third day of problems. It took me two days to get the pH back up after this... by this time all were in very bad shape with more dieing each day even after the pH was raised.

Thats what I am thinking as well. I am going to let the tank set for two weeks after I can find a way to keep the pH stable. I have reduced the amount of CO2. I was running two bottles at a time which was giving my about two bubbles every second. Now I am running just one. My tap water fairly hard from the tap and untreated is around 8 pH. Hopefully with the reduced pH I can find a balance.

Thanks for the quick replies..... if i can get this ironed out for sure i will update.

[djlen]

This is very sad. I'm sorry to hear this.
A person should never inject CO2 into a tank blindly. You need to know your kH before even thinking about injecting gas into the water table. Then the kH/pH relationship must be monitored very carefully for the first few days to determine the water's reaction to the amount of gas being injected.
Plant mass also plays a big part in the equation.
Do you know your water's kH? What size tank are we talking about?
Again, sorry for the loss.

Len

[anonapersona]

You must have a target pH!

You must know your KH and that plus the charts will give you your target pH (where CO2 ~ 20ppm +/- 5ppm)

If your KH is below 3degrees, you must increase it.


Did you know these things???



OK, now get your KH and raise it up to about 3 degrees.

Keep the bacteria alive (if any survived) by ammonia feed, wild guess is 1/4 teaspoon/day.

Restock slowly. Mind the ammonia and nitrite, you may have damaged the biofilter.

good luck!

[Starry]

djlen summed up what I was going to say, but I'd like to include a CO2 chart. You absolutely need to know your KH. It doesn't really change, so it only needs to be tested about once a week, and even less often once you've got the hang of it. Test your pH at least in the morning and at night when you first start injecting CO2. Once it's stable and you know it won't swing down, you can test much less frequently. But it's very very important when you first set up a new bottle.

Which reminds me - how big is your tank? It's very rare to have problems like this with DIY CO2, unless you have very soft water. Your KH should be at least 3.

Here's the CO2 chart.
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/kh-ph-co2-chart.html
You measure KH and pH, and read the CO2 concentration off the chart. It should be between 15-30ppm, for healthy plants AND fish.

Hope everything works out.

[Starry]

Originally posted by anonapersona

Keep the bacteria alive (if any survived) by ammonia feed, wild guess is 1/4 teaspoon/day.

[/B]

BUT, don't add ammonia if you still have fish! Even so, it's probably not necessary, just restock slowly once you have the CO2 problems ironed out.
AND, 1/4 tsp is a lot. If you do decide to do this, try a few drops, then test (it should be around 1ppm I guess). Again, I'm wondering what size your tank is...

[eea876]

My kH is around 4 degrees straight from the tap. I figured i was in the clear. I do understand the relationship between CO2 and kH. Before I even considered using the DIY CO2 I double checked my alkalinty and general hardness.

I know that I oversaturated the tank with CO2 (how this happens in a 30 gallown with only an airline and a simple bell reactor?)

This is what happens when I assume. I assummed that I would be lucky to even get 15 ppm CO2 dissolved in the water. This led to me not being very vigilant with keeping tabs on the pH and kH after I begun injecting. My pH crashed and basically I killed all of my fish by burning them alive with carbonic acid. :(

The only survivor to my clumsy attempted at CO2 supplementation is a black female mollly that I have had for over a year in this tank. Since I have cut in half my CO2, buffered the water she is showing signs of improvement.

Thanks for the input everyone.

[anonapersona]

So, your tap water has KH of 4 and pH of 8.

The tank was at pH 7.2 and fell to 5.6 with the addition of CO2 with a bell to dissolve???

This just doesn't add up.


Were you using some sort of pH down product? RO water? Distilled water? Rain water?

how often do you change water? Using tap water?

[eea876]

That is correct. pH 8 and KH of 4 from tap. When diaster struck the pH fell to 5.6. The only pH buffering i have done is pH UP after the diaster.

Before this I was doing a 10% change (water) once per week in this tank. (Worked just fine prior to CO2)


When adding water to tank I use straight tap treated only with Wardley's CHLOR OUT and Seachem Flourish.


Even with only one bottle now I can't get my KH over 2 degrees.

Until I can get my KH up I am going to be stuck using ph Up.

[eea876]

I think I may have figured it out. Please let me know if i am on the right track.

Before I decided that I was going for a planted tank I was adding salt to my water at changes. (I could never get any plants to really grow in my tanks before.)

Now when I decided that I was going to get a planted tank going I changed three things.

1. - I added more lighting.

2. - Begun using DIY CO2

3. - I stopped using salt because I thought it would be bad
for my plants.

Could the fact that I completely stopped using salt contributed the lack of buffering that my water had?


When I starting think about it I was sure that I read somewhere that salts increased KH or at least improved bufferring.

[Milton Friedman]

By increasing KH, dont you also increase the water hardness?

[djlen]

Salt should not be part of the equation in a planted tank.
And it does not evaporate out of the water. Since it will be a detriment to your plant's growth, I suggest a series of large water changes to get rid of it.

-kH (carbonate hardness) and gH (general hardness) are two separate things and are increased by different measures. You can increase one without significantly changing the other.

Len

[eea876]

"3. - I stopped using salt because I thought it would be bad
for my plants."



I have changed the water enough times to fill up two thirty gallon tanks before I put the plants in.

I don't need to remove salt.... it's all ready gone.

I am going to try adding about 1/2 tablespoon of baking soda to the water to see what effect it that will have on my KH. If I can get the KH above 4, I think I will have better luck keeping my pH stable with the CO2.

[eea876]

Len I forgot to add.... thank you for giving my problem some thought.

[djlen]

Just remember that you'll probably have to add the baking soda at each water change. If you have access to some crushed coral that you can put into a filter bag and put in your filter it makes it a bit easier.
I think, somewhere in this thread you reported a kH of 4°H. If that's the case, you don't need to buffer up at all. You probably over injected the gas and that's the reason for the huge drop in pH. There are ways around that issue though.
As far as the salt thing goes.......at the end of one of your posts you said something about thinking that it might improve your buffer. That's why I responded the way I did.
And......we all try to help out in any way we can. We learn a great deal from these inter-actions.

Len

[anonapersona]

Originally posted by eea876
That is correct. pH 8 and KH of 4 from tap. When diaster struck the pH fell to 5.6. The only pH buffering i have done is pH UP after the diaster.

Before this I was doing a 10% change (water) once per week in this tank. (Worked just fine prior to CO2)

So, the KH may have been falling solowly over time, with very small tap additions to increase it.


When adding water to tank I use straight tap treated only with Wardley's CHLOR OUT and Seachem Flourish.


Even with only one bottle now I can't get my KH over 2 degrees.

Until I can get my KH up I am going to be stuck using ph Up.

the baking soda you mentioned will work, also try crushed coral from the marine section of the fish store.

[anonapersona]

Originally posted by eea876
INow when I decided that I was going to get a planted tank going I changed three things.

1. - I added more lighting.

2. - Begun using DIY CO2

3. - I stopped using salt because I thought it would be bad
for my plants.

Could the fact that I completely stopped using salt contributed the lack of buffering that my water had?


When I starting think about it I was sure that I read somewhere that salts increased KH or at least improved bufferring.

The light makes the plants run faster, so KH can burn up faster than before, but this is usually a small effect, unless you are below KH3, which you probably were, due to small water changes and starting at KH 4.

the Co2 makes the plants run faster.... speeding up those reactions.

Salt, if it is marine salt, might have buffers. "Aquarium salt" might have buffers, pickling salt or solar salt wont.

[eea876]

Update.

I have begun using baking soda. My KH is now at 10 degrees. I hope this isn't going to be too high.

My water appears to be buffering quite well now. Two days and nights without the pH changing a bit. I will continue to monitor pH and KH daily. If I can find a balance that I am sure I can maintain I will slowly begin to restock my tank.

BTW... my 1year old molly is doing much better. She swims vigorously when I approach the tank and eats voraciously again.
( She was the only one to survive my diaster.)

[Starry]

Glad to hear about your Molly. I recently had a Platy recover from the brink of death, it's a good feeling. :) On the other hand, my hamster died shortly after :(

About your KH - it's higher than I would like in my tank. Is your pH low enough, according to your target? The higher the KH is, the harder it is to lower your pH. The good thing is that it won't swing as much. From personal experience, I once had high KH water, I think it was around 15, and the plants pretty much withered away, not one of them was doing well. And I was dosing NPK and traces, and CO2 injection as usual. So I'm blaming it on the water, and would never want to deal with such hard water again. You can just lower it by doing water changes, so it's not a problem for you. I'd keep it between 4 and 8. Look into using crushed coral for less maintenance.

[eea876]

Would anyone have a link to where i could learn more about using crushed coral.

[anonapersona]

APD (http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/)

[eea876]

Doing better..... TY everyone.