three bad days

[kcooley]

this weekend, the unexpectable happened. on friday i woke up to find my fish gasping for air at the surface. i changed 10gallons and by time i was done, he was dead along with one of my siamensis. before the water change my nitrites were at .3mg/l, none after change.

thursday night i changed 15 gallons before i went to bed. friday night i changed another 5 gallons to be safe...

saturday i woke up to my small turq and my breeding female dead along with my last siamensis. my last turq was holding on for his life. i changed another 15 gallons, he came back for a little bit, then died later that night.

not one of my other fish was affected besides the siamensis. my rams are fine, as a matter of fact they laid eggs thursday night. my pair of discus (that is now dead) laid eggs on wednesday and ate them later that night. my tetras are fine, my plecos are fine. it is just the wierdest thing i have ever encountered. i lost well over $200 worth of fish this weekend.

tank:
ph7.2
gh 6
kh 5
nitrate 0
ammonia 0
nitrite 0

anybody have any ideas?

[wobble]

Nitrate 0? That doesn't seem right. Are you sure?

What size tank? What type of filtration? Water changes....how often and how much? How often do you clean your filters? How do you clean your filters? Any recent changes to the tank? How long has the tank been set up? What's the temp of the water?

[kcooley]

it is a 55g planted tank, very well planted. i have a magnum with carbon and phosphate resins i clean the cartridge itself, not the canister. change carbon once a month. clean filter once inbetween. ht etank has been running flawlessly for 6 months now. i keep the temp at 86*. i have not added a fish for atleast 6 weeks, a gold nugget pleco. it is a community tank with rams, tetras, SAE, plecos. the only thing out of the ordinary is 2Xprime on water changes, to make sure none of the bleach i cleaned my R/O bin and buckets with got into the tank.

[kcooley]

o... before the last discus died he was vomiting. a little information i thought might be helpful

[Star_Rider]

wow, sorry to hear about your loss.

any chance of some foreign chemical or substance getting in the tank.

[drgold]

did you overdose CO, or maybe the plants sucked all the oxygen out of the water? If it's that hot, and planted, you may not have enough O2. Just a thought.

[kcooley]

i dont have my Co2 running. havent for weeks, the plants took off and i ran out and never remixed it.

i think i may have figured it out with a little help from a friend in california. i found that aluminum sulfate-toxic to discus at a lower level than angels, rams, tetras... was recently used in my cities water supply. a 2% concentration of aluminum sulfate is guaranteed fatal to discus.