Alrighty then...

[FooF]

so i posted a few days or so ago about the loss of a small clown loach and the other of the same size hovering about one of the spillover intakes with clamped fins. nothing much came of the post.

alright, now i had moved the small loach to a 1g QT and he seemed to be doing fine. so a few days later, i moved him back to the big tank. acted alright for a day and then started hanging out at the top again and acting sick. infact hes kinda chillin up there right now... its irritating because im almost expecting him to die.

i went and tested the no3, no2, gh, kh, and ph then later the amonia... nothing wrong as far as i could tell.

i have however noticed that the tank seems to be ever so slightly cloudy with a white mist almost. now, ive never had this problem before w/o being able to clean it up. but this time, no matter how much i changed the water and blasted the filters, it would not go away for more than about an hour. so from there, i concluded there must be something different about my setup than any previous setup and came up with one thing.... flagstone.

so... i know flagstone gets its colors from metal and the two pieces i have are red and orange. i also know it is a rather dusty type of stone (for lack of better terms... less dense, rather pourous maybe?) anyways, im pretty sure that is what is making it hard to keep nice clear water, so could it also be making the clown loach sick? my eels seem to be not burrowing lately as well, and my other loaches have been acting a little funny too. not sickly, but a bit uncomfortable maybe. i removed the two slabs of flagstone and did a 50% water change thisafternoon.... anyone have any input?

 

[Lobo.]

did you clean the stones before you put them in the tank? it sounds like the flagstone is disolving in the water... eesh.... ive had a similar problem with other rocks, except i didnt notice the sorce untill i saw that the rocks were actually getting smaller, turned out the rocks were limestone....
ive heard the best way (except research) to tell if the rocks are ok or not is to put a drop of vinegar on one of them, if the vinegar fizzes then the rocks are no good.

 

[FooF]

i washed them briefly a few times over two or three days before adding them to the tank. i didnt think much about it because they were sold to me at a pet store as 'aquarium safe'

then again, they were in a cardboard box on the floor with black marker text and looked like they'd been there a handfull of years undisturbed.

 

[ergo sum]

How large is the flagstone? It could be that you are causing oxygen depravation in the substrate.

 

[daveedka]

Err um flagstone is limestone, sedimentary rock primarily made up of CaCo3, depending on the source, it may also contain magnesium carbonate in some quatity. if It's colored it may very well have metals, I would surmise some iron from the colors you mentioned, but could be anything. I would guess it is melting slowly, but it should definately show up in your Kh tests. and your GH as well. It would cause cloudiness if it melted quickly or eroded in the current, but if this was occuring it would definately show in the Kh test.
dave

 

[FooF]

in contrast to compact disc size

 

[FooF]

Err um flagstone is limestone

i see. i was unaware. i know very little about 'rocks', heh. or minerals for that matter. well, my gh was showing 150ppm, as was my tap water. my kh was showing somewhere around 300ppm wich is the top of the scale on the strip tests i have, so maybe it was higher than that? i believe my tap was showing a reading of 180ppm for kh.

 

[FooF]

oh also, it was sold to me as "slate" and my ignorance just went along with it. my father pointed it out to be flagstone as he's been in the construction/masonry/landscaping/etc business for over 15 years and has a pretty good knowledge of such things.

so anyways, would this cause my clown loach to act the way he is? or am i still looking for the problem?

 

[daveedka]

The rocks pictured are not what I would normally call flagstone. the appearance to me is one of most likey a metamorphic rock which poses a it less risk, but may still create problems. I would be far more wrroied about metals than CaCo3 with the rocks in the picture ( but it is hard to tell without some touchy feely or some knowledge of what quarry they came from) . see how the fish respond to the changes and that should give you an answer of some sort.
Dave

 

[FooF]

it is hard to tell without some touchy feely

theyre rather rough, something along the lines of a fine grain sandpaper.... just incase it helps any.