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What kind of dechlorinator do you use?

Sometimes it might be construction sand, and sometimes that contains bleaching agents, this too could kill the fish. Sand could be any combination of rocks, minerals and organic and sythetic waste and obviously that could radically affect water quality and with more substances than would show on any test kit. Id go and buy some purposely intended aquarium sand if I were you.

if your sand was from the park it would have probably had some type of herbicide on it from weed spraying

OH TOLEEDY!

I've re-read your last posts and I just remind what could be doing my deaths, in fact I fell really stupid because I didn't remaind that

Wen I got the new tank the first thing i did was to test the equipment. I turn on the heater and it was working then I was checking the pump and forgette the heater on for a matter of minutes and... wen it melted a small hole on the base of my box filter.

I cover up the hole with a bit of plastic and silicon glue, that's it... it's the silicon glue, it's a very small portion indeed and I didn't knew that it'll need to be a special glue.... well well dumb of me!

I'm goin to fix things right away

thank you all!

ps - in fact I might require your help once again in a few weeks but we'll talk latter, thank you once again

Boiling things, will kill off living things, and organic things. However, most poisons, boiling will not do anything for. At least without very, extremely hot temps which for the most part you cannot get in your home. The problem with poisons, is they have to be denatured or changed in their form to become not poisonous. While many/most organic poisons can be dealt with by boiling, inorganic poisons need very extreme temps. Or they need something that will bond with them, or break their bonds, thus creating a new form. This is chemistry, lol.

Take for example, chlorine. It is a gas desolved in the water to kill off bacteria. It is a gas, and is innorganic. It is harmful to your fish. You add a de-chlorinator to remove it. The stuff you add is a non-harmful chemical that bonds to the chlorine, and makes it non-harmful as well. If you let your water just sit for 24 hours, the chlorine will evaporate into its gaseous form, and out of the water. Now, Chloramine is a metal, that is poison also. It is actually chlorine bonded to ammonia. This will not evaporate, and can only be removed by a special filter, or another chemical that actually breaks the bonds of the chlorine and the ammonia and then bonds to them making them non-harmful.

Organic poisons usually work much faster on harming something than innorganic. Organic poisons are such like those produced by other living creatures, like some fish, some spiders, and some snakes. Innorganic are those like heavy metals, gases, etc. Innorganic usually take a while to work, as usually they need to build up in the body's system and become toxic. This is what I believe you have some form of in your tank. As it takes a while for the fish to become ill. Then when moved to a clean envrironment, their body systems clean themselves out. And thus are no longer toxic.

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There is always a bigger fish...

How abou the wood? I have vine wood on my aquarium, I've boiled it (and it's not mutch) till it stoped leaving the water brown, they never left my water brown nor they influenced the ph.. they look preatty warmless but i start geting suspicious about everything

(just something about the sand, and I fell really dumb about this but i've "stolen" it from a public park, so it might be contaminated with some kind of quimic petrol? quimical treatment for the trees? I don't know, I've boild it before puting it on the tank..)

Well what ever it is, IMO it is some kind of poison. And is definitely coming from something in the tank. My oppinion is based on the fact that your fish get better when moved to the other tank. I have never heard of problems with construction type sand. I have it in several of my tanks. But then again, from your location, it may be different kinds and may in fact be hazardous to the fish. If that is the only thing you have that is not truely aquarium rated, I would definitely try something different.

When you take your tank down to change the sand, I would clean everything in the tank and the tank itself, very good. As what ever it is, it could now be on everything in the tank.

And yes, IMO, I would go with a more powerful external filter for that size tank.

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There is always a bigger fish...

"tank" god it is a Rena tank

so, everyones best guess is that it's the sand?

It's to be really hard to empty the tank, pass the fishes to another one and change the sand. I supose that in that ocasion I could also remove the internal box filter and put an external one...

A new theory;

Where did you get the "new" aquarium from? Is it a name brand, or did you make it/have someone make it for you? Is it home made in any way? Has it been repaired at any time, or has any of the filters or decor been repaired at any time?

From your description of the fish in the tank, the time it has been set up, and your maintanence program, I am guessing it is not the cycle. As your older tank is not having any problems.

My thoughts are, that your tank has some kind of poisonous chemical in it. My thoughts (from your description of the time frame and such) are that non-aquarium sylicone has been used. I have seen several tanks built (repaired) home-made that had the same scenario as you have described. They used cheaper contracting sylicone instead of aquarium safe sylicone.

If this is actually what is going on, then you need to remove all the sylicone. If it is part of the tank, you may not be able to use that tank for keeping fish.

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There is always a bigger fish...

Hi all, I really need some expert opinion, I've try to fix all the details on my aquarium mantenance but still I keep having dead fish almost every month. I don't know what is wrong.

Let me explain the situation:

I have two aquariums:

the "old" aquarium:
100 litres
ph7
27º
internal filtration (500 litres/h)

with: 2 apistogrammas, 2 corys and a few annubias

the "new" aquarium:
240 litres
ph7
27º
a lot of hidding places
internal "box" filtration incorporated in the aquarium (700 litres/h)
using ceramic and foam

with: 6 tiger barbs, 2 gouramies, 2 apple snails, 2 ottos a few plants..

I use the same water on the two tanks and make partial changes every two weeks. I feed flakes, sinking pallets to the corys and frozen food twice a week.

The problem is that fish keep on dying on the new big aquarium, but the apistos are doing great on the smaller one.

last week i've notice that the two corys that were on the big aquarium were sick... in fact one was on her back, i've change them to the smaller aquarium and they are fine, they recovered in a few hours. Today the same happend to a dwarf gouramie I put it on the small tank but he died in a few hours...

Since april untill now, i've lost 4 tiger barbs, one ancistrus, 4 corys, one sae, 2 dwarf gouramies and 2 botia clowns. Some of the fishes were even from my old aquarium and they got sick and died on the new one, most deaths happens like one month after the fish arrive.

Most deaths happend within the same pattern: the fish gets very quiet dosen't move, dosen't eat and some times shows a lack of equilibrium. Death occurs in 1 or 2 days.
The barbs had a different story, two smaller barbs just disapeard and in a diferent ocasion other two appear death and floating with their mouths wide open... really spooky! Perhaps that happend in result of some fights.

The fish on the other tank and the "surface" fishes like the barbs are fine, for instance the ottos: the two ottos are okey so far, tey pass the day on the upper corner of the tank and go feed at night.

Ideas about what could be wrong? I hate four main theories:

1) My filter in not powerfull enogh so the water dosen't circulate and the bottom fishes die due to lack of oxygen. The dwarf gouramies aren't bottom fishes but they liked to hide behind the rocks they passed a lot of time around the botton. I've instaled an air pump but it didn't make any effect.

2) I got a LOT of algae, I try to solve it reducing the light, closing the nearby window and setting the clock to 8 hours of light per day. I got less algae now...

3) the sand, i didn't got it on the LFS I just got some regular construction sand, it looks like the other sand and i've make all the regular procedures before puting it on the tank.

4) well... is there a remote possibility that all this is caused by the tiger barbs? I mean, can they harass the other fish without one see it? They fight sometimes (in fact I suspect that the tiger barbs that died were victims of violence by their mates) i've saw the bittes on the fins but never saw it happening. One fact is that the gouramies are a more agressive fish and they are nice in the tank.


Thank you all, I really need help cose I don't know what else should I check and fix and my fishes keep on passing away. Really need opinions...

You suppose the numbers are 0 for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate? Have you actually tested them? If not, please do so and post the results. It will help us work out what is going on.

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

I supose I got like 0 of amonia/nitrit/nitrat but i don't know the kh, yet I use the same water on the other aquarium and I have no troubles on it, i took two dying corys from the big aquarium, put them on the small one and they recovered and are fine now... so I supose is not from the water...

1 hour in the bag is nothing, as long as the bag is half full of water & half of oxygen.
Please tell us the exact water parameters & not only the ph.


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thanks for the first tips: my levels of amonia nitrates and nitrits are fine, my ph is 7º.

about the sand it looks just like the regular aquarium sand but the grain is bigger. I suspect that some of the grains have granite on them...

the aquarium was cycling for like 2 weeks wen I got it: only two fishes went there first and I wait another week before puting the rest of the boys in. That happend in April and I still got fish dying... so perhaps its not that.

I buy the fishs in a place a bit far from my home (like 1hour in car) wen they arrive I let them 15min on the bag inside the aqua and start ading bits of water every 5-10 min and after some 3 turns I put them in. I'm afraid that the 1hour they pass on the bag killed them. But the fishes die like 1 month or more since they are on the aquarium.

Alot of people use construction or playsand. It usually just needs rinsed an extra amount. However I think the construction sand I used is where I got my leeches and odd bugs that showed up in that tank. There are a few risks. You need to test at least ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate of the 2 tanks. If you think there's a low oxygen problem then all this can be solved by just tossing in an airstone and seeing if everyone does better.

It sounds like it may not be fully cycled, but the constructrion sand is questionable as it is not approved for aquariums. You need to check your water for PH, ammonia, nitrate, etc. but I am thinking it is the sand causing the problem. You really don't know what is in it. Where did you buy it? What brand it is? Some construction sand is based to be used for concrete and could contain lime and other substances that may not be suitable for fish.

needs more water info.

but there are other things that poped in my mind. did u cycle long enough.

when u get new fish, do u QT them first or add them right into the tank.