Problems with changing water

Thanks a bunch! A few more things. . .

Well I brough up my whole ordeal to my mother, and she said she has noticed quite a spike in the chlorine smell in our tap water. I haven't noticed it but she seems to notice stuff like this. I also noticed last night after I filled it back up, there was a really strong smell of some sort of gas - my initial thought was ammonia because that was the closest smell I could think of, but it very well could have been chlorine. So I'm guessing if this is true, then the stuff I have to dechlorinate my water is useless due to age(??) or it wasn't enough. I'm searching for Prime, but the store closest to me didn't have any more. Overall I've lost 5 fish. Here are some numbers too.

The night before water change:

Ph: 7.8
Kh: 80
Gh: 300
NO2: 0
NO3: 20 (this seems pretty constant even with new water)

During the change:

All the same except for NO3 which shot up to 40ppm!

Today:

All the same including NO3 at 40

Make sense? If not oh well, but I forgot to mention them in my posts. Thanks again to everyone!
 
With that said (the chlorine smell) and how fast the fish are dying after the waterchange....The first thing I would guess is that

1) the ammount of chlorine has gone up in your water supply, perhaps needing more dechlorinator. (probbably not this one)


2)You might have chloramine instead of chlorine in the tap now.

The reason I think it's #2 is because one time I did a 50% water change I completely forgot to use dechlorinator and within 10min (at the most) all my fish were gasping for air and not swimming correctly and litterally the INSTANT I added the dechlor. They started improving immidiately, they still breathed hard, but their swimming became more "normal". So just as an educated guess, I would think its chloramine/amonia problems. Also the chloramine problem would explain the nitrAtes to shoot up so fast, because the bactera in your filter would immidiately begin turning the released amonia into nitrites then nitrAtes....so that IMO would explain them shooting up soo fast. Obviously your filter is processing the amonia fast, but there's probbably soo much amonia with the amount of water you're changing it just shocks the fish.

If you have an amonia test kit, fill your bucket with water, use the normal dechlorinator, then test for amonia. If you see amonia show up, then you can assume that the dechlor. product you are using is releasing it when it breaks the chloramine bond.
 
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I agree that chloramines are likely to be a problem, but if you're treating with ANY kind of dechlorinator, it's unlikely the problem is solely chloramines, unless the water utility is jacking them WAY up because of some other problem.

I'm wondering about similarity of the new water to that in a tank. Unless your 55 is VERY lightly stocked, cichlids produce so much waste that I can see the water chemistry changing substantially between changes, if they're a month apart.

Another possibility, although a long shot... in cold weather, cold water can hold a lot of dissolved gases, some of which may be very bad for fish. If you're adding cold tap water directly to the tank (even if it's mixed with warmed water), you might be putting in some bad gases that could be absorbed by the fish (I have seen this referred to as gas embolism). This would only be a potential problem if you're adding cold water directly to the tank.

I'd invest in a chlorine test; even a cheapo test will tell you if you're adding chlorine to your tank.

Good luck,
Jim
 
Well the water that I'm adding is different from that in the tank - well because it's cleaner. I made sure the water had warmth to it when filling up my gallon jugs. From everyone's input, I think the ammonia/chloramine is most likely the culprit. I don't have a test kit for ammonia nor do I have a chlorine kit. Guess it would be wise to invest in one. Although I did remember reading on the back of some kind of ammonia remover chemical that test kits will pick up on the ammonia, but in its non-toxic form, so therefore wouldn't an ammonia kit be useless? Thanks again!
 
There are two primary types of ammonia test kits. One is a Nessler based test. It features one reagent (chemical) which is added to the water and acts with the ammonia to produce a color. This will give you the amount of ammonia (in ppm) only for water that has been treated with plain dechlorinator (e.g., sodium thiosulphate).

Salicylate-based test have two reagents added to the water, and they can tell you the amount free ammonia in water treated with plain dechlorinator OR with an ammonia binder like Amquel or AmmoLock2.

Prime, if I recall correctly, will mess up BOTH types of tests. Seachem (maker of Prime) sells ammonia "badges" that sit inside your tank and give a reading of free ammonia when using Prime. (I recall testing Prime-treated water with both Nessler and salicylate tests, and got inconsistent readings, so I think the ammonia badges must use a different means of testing, but I'm not a chemist and can't say that with 100% certainty.)

To kill your fish, the new water would have to be substantially different on one or more of the primary paramenters: pH, KH, GH, and temperature. Simply being cleaner should not make new water toxic to your fish. If it did, we'd all have dead fish when we did water changes.

Also, simply the fact that water contains chloramine shouldn't cause a problem unless it's not being treated with anything. The modest amount of ammonia freed in chloraminated water treated with a simple dechlorinator is usually about 1 ppm or less. Certainly not enough to be toxic in minutes.

Jim
 
Im no expert, but my fish seemed to be doing the same things when I forgot to use dechlorinator one time on a large water change ie. gasping for breath and swimming irradicly, and this was within 10 min MAX of adding the new water. Again I'm by no means an expert, but thats all that I can think of that would hurt the fish so suddenly....and yes 1ppm of amonia released shouldnt be an immidiate death for the fish, BUT if they were allready in "not so good health" for what ever reason, then that could be a factor...or if your dechlorinator has gone bad it may be chlorine thats killing them.....because chlorine could kill them that fast.


Just weighing options, also I think if the water was a little cooler that wouldnt be a big deal, when i want my cories to spawn i will drop the temp 5ish degrees in 5-10 min. with cooler water, with no negative side effects.
 
try to let the water you put into the tank sit out for a day or to and put the dechlorinator in there before you put it in the tank.
 
wow there are a lot of posts on this question. I did not read all the posts but i will give you my opinon. If you did not reuse the water in the tank then you killed a lot of your bacteria. Now it has been a month since any new fish, but the nitrates spiked agian that is a sign that it has not cycled properly or it has not fininshed. If it has been established then the nitrates should not spike too high unless it is not finished RE-cycling. I dont know why the other fish stayed alive maybe they are healthier, adapted to the conditions, or are just hardier fish. May be worth a shot.
 
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