Fish dying, tank water is ridiculously hard...

atc_ben

atc_ben

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May 16, 2006
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Ormond Beach, FL
Hello all, I am looking for advice. I have a 30 gal. tank currently stocked with two rams, two mollies, two daninos, two rosie barbs one emerald cory, one neon (there was 5), and one small pleco. Overstocked? Probably, but my NH and NO readings are always near zero. This is an old tank with an established biowheel in an Eclipse hood, but relatively new fish. Recently, my neons have been dying at a rate of one to two per night. Symptoms before death have been the fish looking like it blacks out and starts to float up for a second, and the righting itself and trying to keep up with the school. I've also lost one danino and just noticed a cory with a protruding eyeball. Since stocking the tank a few weeks ago, I've been doing a 25-30% water change a week and vacuuming the gravel at the same time. These fish were all added at different times and the neons and rams were the most recent. The rams are looking good so far. They're still young so they aren't showing much color yet, although more than when I bought them. My plan was to use this tank as a ram/neon tank. At this point, I'm assuming I got some sick fish, but my GH has me stumped.

GH in tank is 55dH!!! :eek: I don't know how this is even possible???
GH from the tap was 9dH
NH: 0
NO: <0.3mg/l
PH: 7.5

I haven't tested the KH yet. I was so freaked about the GH. What do I do?
 
NO? You have nitrogen monoxide? ;)

This sounds like OTS, but I need particulars.

We need to know how much NO2 and NO3 are in the tank. I suspect whatever you are using to test only tests for NO2. Please purchase a kit that tests for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.

Is this just recently that you've started doing water changes? How long was it between the first water change you started recently and the one before that? Ie: how often were you doing them and how much?

Roan
 
NO2 was <0.3mg/l (sorry, I forgot the 2)

My kit doesn't test for nitrAte, so I'll purchase a new kit tomorrow. I started doing the water changes after I restocked the tank a few weeks ago. This 30 gal. had some healthy cichlids in it previously and I transferred them to larger tank so this only had the small pleco in it for a couple weeks just to keep it cycled. I didn't change the water during this time. Since the tank has been restocked (3 weeks or so), I've been doing 25-30% changes weekly.

I was thinking OTS, but doesn't the water get softer and PH lower with OTS. my PH is stable and my water is super hard. I'll let you know about NO3 as soon as I test it.
 
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Don't suppose you have any large rocks in your tank?
 
The cichlids were South Americans - Green Terror younglings mostly. The Substrate is SeaChem Fluorite. The only rocks that have been in this tank in the past have been granite. There is a thick piece of clear glass in there at the moment, along with two plastic plants two bundles of anacharis(sp?), and a handful of small smooth granite river stones that were bought commercially.
 
I'll bet that the river stones might be your problem.

Take them out and do some water changes to see if you GH stabilizes. Then, fill a bucket up with treated water and put the stones in it. After a day test the water to see if the hardness went up. Granite can still cause heavy water, especially if it is river rock.
 
I believe what caused my problem was someone inadvertently poured a bunch of salt into this tank and didn't tell me. (People were watching my tanks while I was out of town recently.) I've been doing daily 1 - 2% water changes and the hardness seems to be coming down. Amazingly, I haven't had any more deaths either.
 
Why on earth would someone put anything into someone elses tanks w/out permission?! :mad2: But, Im wondering why salt would do this? Ive used salt for ich, no fatalities. I did add it gradually and dissolved, of course, so maybe thats why.
Hope the water changes do some good...
 
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