Questions about 'Old Tank Syndrome'??

[DLV082]

Ok, as stated I have a couple of questions about 'Old Tank Syndrome'.

1. What is it??
2. Can it be avoided??
3. If so, How??

Just curious as I have heard it used about the forum.

Cheers

 

[Riiz]

Old tank Syndrome, is where you introduced new fish to an already established aquarium that have missed some water changes and gravel vacuuming. And with the high Nitrate levels, it weakens the fish and dies soon after for no apparent reason or fails to thrive.

 

[AlexW]

Probably changes from place to place, but from what I can remember Old Tank Syndrome is when you feel lazy and instead of doing water changes as frequently as you should, you just figure "I'll top it off and worry about the pwc later" and eventually the heavy metals and other little things in the water build up to a point which becomes hazardous/lethal to the fish in it.

Either way, just keep on top of water changes to prevent it.

 

[McLendon]

Never heard it called that

 

[Lupin]

Old tank Syndrome, is where you introduced new fish to an already established aquarium that have missed some water changes and gravel vacuuming. And with the high Nitrate levels, it weakens the fish and dies soon after for no apparent reason or fails to thrive.

Probably changes from place to place, but from what I can remember Old Tank Syndrome is when you feel lazy and instead of doing water changes as frequently as you should, you just figure "I'll top it off and worry about the pwc later" and eventually the heavy metals and other little things in the water build up to a point which becomes hazardous/lethal to the fish in it.

Either way, just keep on top of water changes to prevent it.

Correct.

2. Don't be lazy. Keep up with your water changes or reduce your stocks.

 

[Mgamer20o0]

water changes 50% weekly does wonders.

 

[shawnhu]

Old Tank Syndrome could be considered the opposite of New Tank Syndrome, but the effects are the same, shock to the fish.

In new tanks, fish are introduced and must go through the phases of cycling, and dealing with high levels of toxins. These toxins such as ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate cause stress and could be fatal to most fish.

In older tanks, the lack of scheduled maintenance on the tanks could cause build-ups of fish waste that is undetectable in test kits. Depletion of certain minerals and the change in chemistry caused by the nitrification process could alter the GH, KH, PH of the system. If left unchecked, and unmanaged, these levels can stray vastly from your tap water parameters. Usually Old Tank Syndrome doesn't rear it's ugly head, until a water change is performed. At that time, the change in GH, KH, PH, and whatever else that has built-up, or depleted takes a huge shock, and the fish is stressed, and can lead to death.

These are the theories at least, no first hand experience in this, as I don't allow my tanks to get to these conditions. Prevention is the best cure.

 

[DLV082]

Thanks for the replies. If lack of maintainance is all that causes 'Old Tank Syndrome' then my tank will be fine. Do weekly WC at at least 50% regardless of Params. Thanks for the info, that is one more thing I don't have to worry about.

Cheers

 

[snoopy65]

Another thing about old tank syndrome is, if you take fish that have been in an "old tank" situation, you can not put them directly into clean water. The fish that live in that situation have grown accustomed to it and giving them clean water can shock them. You have to acclimate them very slowly. I know this first hand as we bought a tank off of CL and it was gross. It had never had a water change. We gave all of the fish away except one and it went into one of my other tanks. It bloated up one day and was gone within hours.

 

[Kashta]

A lot of us look for used tanks on Craigslist and find one well into an "old tank syndrome" condition or meet other fishkeepers with severely neglected tanks (as in no water changes for a year as they only topped off the water lost to evaporation). Many times, those keepers didn't lose their fish because they adapted very slowly to worsening parameters. This isn't always a sign of outright neglect on the part of those folks, as this also results from bad advice given to them or just a lack of knowedge on their part. Everything seems okay and someone they know told them you don't need water changes, etc.

Knowing better about proper maintenance, the first impulse we have is to change that water, clean out the algae buildup, and so on... which can prove disastrous for the existing fish who can't just switch back again so suddenly.

This is an article I found and saved on OTS because it explains so well how tanks get this way and how to correct the problem if we ever need to someday.

http://www.bestfish.com/oldtank.html