Really Hard water/school fish tank - what can be done?

Gomisan

Gomisan

Man in a hat
Feb 9, 2006
109
0
0
Adelaide, South Australia
www.ufo-x.com
I discovered yesterday that my work (a college) has a Freshwater Tropical tank. So I stood around and watched while the science assistant & biology teacher were doing a water change etc.

Since I'm new to it, I kept my mouth shut at what I figured was a pretty poorly tank, and the lack of knowlege about water chemistry & feeding exhibited...

but today, I went in there to grab some gravel for my tank (to help kick start my bacteria) and noticed one of their Gourami's had died overnight, and the other one was hiding behind the pump/filter, a big black fish with a red tail (a shark of some kind?) was also hiding away looking pretty unhappy.

So I grabbed a sample of water and brought it home to test for them, to see what 'might' have killed the poor fish.

ph: 6.5
Nitrate 50mg/L
Ammonia 0 - 0.1
but the GH was 460 !! (that's 23 drops with my Hagen kit to change the colour!)

Now the tank is setup pretty badly, but I don't want to coem in sounding like a 'know it all' and getting teh Biology department offside, so here's the conditions, perhaps some gradual fixes could be suggested here, so I can try and see it fixed up over time.

Tank is mid sized, about 3ft long, and maybe 18 inches high, and a 12 deep.
It's got a thin layer of crushed quartz gravel on the bottom, and it's pretty green with algae.
It has a few half dead vallis and something that looks like it might be a struggling Stricta. The top is COVERED in tiny duck weed.
They have a small heater, no thermometer, and a single flouro, which I am told is a 'Grow Light' for the plants.
The pump is a small Enheim unit with a built in filter it's just sitting near the surface sucking water in it's bottom and spitting it out at the top.

and that's it. A few small fish, 1 remaining Dwarf Gourami and that one big black guy, and a bloody huge rock at one end with no hidey holes.

:devil: :devil: :rant2:

the tank 'has' to stay.. they use it to 'teach' the kids about different environments.. but all I can see is an ugly green looking tank with a few very sorry looking fish.
 
Nice teaching tool. NOT!

I have the same problem as you. At the beginning of Sept my daughter's 3rd teacher brought in a class fish -- a betta in a goldfish bowl. My husband and I voluteered to give them a 2.5g Eclipse, heater, proper food, syphon and so forth and to come in every week to look after it. Every time I came in, I explained what I was doing to the teacher and why. Tested the water and explained that and so forth.

Everything is fine with that setup, but then the 4th grade teacher set up a 55 gallon tank in her classroom to teach her kids about taking care of animals and biology. My daughter's teacher told me that the 4th grade's teacher's fish were dying constantly and asked me to look at the tank.

I went in, looked at the tank and spoke to the teacher. This is what she told me:

She checks the pH every week, like she was told to
She adds water as it evaporates, like she was told to
She doesn't need to do water changes, just top off the tank. Water changes aren't necessary.
Fish always die in a new tank
And so on.

I think you get the picture.

I tried to gently persaude her to change what she was doing, no dice. She's one of those that just won't listen, even when you explain exactly why it needs to be done.

I don't bother with her anymore. Last I heard she threw some fish in the tank, had an outbreak of ich, all the fish died, she put some new ones in and is changing the water. Dunno how much or how often.

Point to my post is that sometimes people won't listen. Even people who really SHOULD listen, like teachers. If those guys in the biology lab don't want you fiddling with their tanks or take what you are saying and ignore it, don't take it personally. Some people are just like that.

The hardest part about what you want to do aren't the tank parameters you want to fix, it's the politics involved. You need to have the knowledge to fix the problem, but that's pointless if they don't want you touching the tank.

If they let you work on the tank, it probably hasn't had the water changed regularily. You should start there, but don't do a lot at once. Just a little at a time or you will shock the remaining fish.

Starting a regular change schedule will go a long way into fixing that tank's problems. See if you can get a picture of that other fish so we can ID it.

Roan
 
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Thats terrible - surely nobody would get offended if you stepped in to help and explained where they were going wrong. Maybe they feel awful every day looking at that tank of misery but just don't know what to do.

I can't even imagine what sort of environment is it teaching the kids about.
 
Thanks, this is senior Biology, they should know better, but I'll try and be diplomatic about it all. It's a bad start for me that the day after I take an interest, one of their fish dies. I didn't touch the tank, but logic often keeps well away from people's thoughts :)

If you know of anything that might help reduce the hardness in the water, safely, it may help me gain soem trust, (and I'll learn something), and then maybe I can talk about better filtering and the need for dedicated buckets etc for water changes (who knows what chemicals had been in the bucket they used)
 
Sounds like a fun project Gomisan ! (minus the politics end of it, hope they accept your offer to help)

There's nothing like taking a situation like that and turning it around for the better...to brighten a hobbyists day/week (not to mention the lives of those poor fish..lol).....go for it ! :thm:
 
Gomisan said:
Thanks, this is senior Biology, they should know better, but I'll try and be diplomatic about it all. It's a bad start for me that the day after I take an interest, one of their fish dies. I didn't touch the tank, but logic often keeps well away from people's thoughts :)

If you know of anything that might help reduce the hardness in the water, safely, it may help me gain soem trust, (and I'll learn something), and then maybe I can talk about better filtering and the need for dedicated buckets etc for water changes (who knows what chemicals had been in the bucket they used)
Click to expand...
Gomisan,

Test the tap water GH and find out what the difference is between the tap and the tank. It's probably a fairly large number. Show that to them. Explain WHY the tank number is so high and that it can ONLY be fixed with fresh, clean water. Use that if you need a bargaining tool.

Then, first things first. The water hardness is most likely from a build up of all the crap in the tank water and it will decrease as the water is replenished with fresh. Start with the water changes, slowly. Get the Basic Four back in control: ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, pH

Baby steps are needed with an abused tank.

Roan
 
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Agree w/RA - on both the Rx for the current tank and the disinterest of the teacher with the 55.

The Biology tank is likely in full OTS*, so handle with great care initially to avoid killing the current inhabitants. The staff handling the setup are very likely unaware of the significance of the underlying issues - this also requires a bit of diplomacy.

The shame with uncaring primary teacher is that she is teaching - all the wrong things. There have been many successful projects on placing simple setups in primary schools. If i can dig up the refs I will post back with them.

*http://www.thepufferforum.com/articles/small/ots.html
 
That's an excellent article, and I may print it out for their reference.

I've asked if I can help out with the tank after work, and they were fien with that, so I'm going to start doing some small water changes, and perhaps see if I can get a better/bigger pump/filter for the tank.

I'll also measure it and work out how much light it needs, I suspect it's getting too much sunlight, and not enough aquarium lighting, as it is right next to a large classroom window.

Would it be beneficial to replace the gravel? If so, would it be best to move the old gravel to one side of the tank, clean the muck and add fresh gravel to the empty side, let it settle in for a week, and then remove the old gravel and fill in the rest? or should I do it slower, a third at a time?
 
With OTS tanks, make haste v_e_r_y slowly, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If the filter is potentially inadequate, and equally likely undermaintained, the gravel and other surfaces in the tank may well be all the biofilter it has. Certainly vacuum it a bit at a time, but not too much in any one week.

Light is light. Natural light is fine for tanks so long as they do not over-heat or explode into algae farms.
 
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