I give up on White Clouds...

Hmm. There went another one... I turned the lights off at 4 pm yesterday, and let the room naturally darken (there's window light.) So I know this way they slept. They were sleeping when I opened the office, one was very pale and stuck in the plants again.

Well it rolled and rolled and got worse, and in less than 2 hours, dead.

I now have ONE left. It too was in the plants (it's probably scared and lonely), but it did rush out to eat. It's hiding under the dark filter. Maybe I'll keep the light off still in case it's stressed. Hmm it's back out and acting normal again.

I just did a test, definitely no ammonia (although I don't know again why there would be, 2 small fish in a 20 g, 1 died and was removed immediately.)

I also tested the pH, it's 7.4 so that's fairly steady with what it was yesterday.

I see some uneaten food but it seemed they tended to only be interested in eating flakes that were in the water column, and once they fall, they aren't really interested. I hope they've been eating enough, but I think both of them were eating at least a few flakes everyday.

Some of the plants do look pretty yucky... like fuzzy. Hope it's not some effect of some of the weaker plant stems rotting.

I'm at a total loss. One? Why? They look perfectly fine...
 
Be extremely careful with the pH. Remember that it's not a normal scale, like nitrates or ammonia. pH is exponential - so a pH of 5 is ten times that of 4, and a pH of 6 is 100 times that of 4. That means that even moving from 7.0 to 7.4, you're making a huge jump. It's better to have a steady pH than to try to move it around, in my opinion. Wait until it's steady for a week or so, then SLOWLY try to move it, not with water changes or chemicals but natural substances like crushed coral or peat moss.
 
That's all I had in there is crushed coral... I've taken most of it out, and in 4 hours it dropped again to 6. I know that's really harmful for them, I had no idea it could drop so fast without it in there. I have just the tip of the bag hanging over the filter, because the pH was getting too high. Even just haivng the corner in it's staying at 7.4, and I hope it stays there.

I know it's an exponential scale... I was hoping though that using natural kH buffers, it would stop when it got to a certain point. Obviously it didn't, because it was getting higher and higher, which is why I thought it was saturated enough, to take out. (But which it was used up in just a few short hours.) It's really strange how that water has no buffering capability. But I can't manage to buffer it either, even naturally, without it soaring higher and higher. I really hoped the crushed coral, it would just stop. Then I took out 2/3 of the amount in the filter bag. It was still high, so now I just have the corner overhanging the filter, so maybe a half inch is actually touching the water - and it's enough to keep it at 7.4.

I do find it surprising thought that the snails and shrimp seem unaffected by the swings, but these "hardy fish" are dying, presumably because of it. (I an't think of any other reason, other than the algae growing in the tank doing something, or the plants doing some thing too.)
 
I think you misunderstand me (which is understandable). I'm not trying to move it either direction. I'm just trying to keep it the same everyday. It bottoms out on me without me doing anything to it, with a 0 kH. That's why I put in the rock and crushed coral. But then too much of it soaked in/dissolved (It was actually dissolving a 4" rock every few days), and then the pH started getting too high, 7.8. So, I took the crushed coral out, and in 4 hours it had bottomed out to the bottom of the scale.

This is what's so frustrating... I'm not trying to make it more of anything, I'm just trying to keep it somewhere around 7 and not have it contsantly changing.
 
Ok update for today... no deaths. Last survivor was up and about to greet me as the sun came through the window, looking for food.

Tank temp is 72, so that's good, and pH is again 7.4. So that means it's been close to the same for a few days in a row, so maybe have just the corner of the crush coral bag to the water is helping out enough.

Tonight it'll get another big water change, and with a lot less gravel, I think I'll be able to keep it clean easier.

The plants are definitely covered in algae too, I guess I'll have to clean them off.

I'm happy to have good news - but then again, I had fish for a week last week without losing any, so a few days without a death definitely doesn't mean I'm in the clear yet. It does finally look like it's behaving normally though.



My coworker is also having problems with his 48 gallon. He has a discus in there, huge thing, that won't eat and lost a reedfish that also wouldn't eat. (He doesn't test the water though.) My guess is that without seeing the picture, his pH is swinging all over the place too, because of the water here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom