FishProfiles.com Message Forums

Greetings to all,
When I was younger I greatly enjoyed keeping fish; that was about 30 years ago. I have decided to pursue the hobby again and have found that much has changed. Sadly, things have not been going well and I will soon give up if I can’t cure whatever problem that I am having.

A little less than a year ago I set the tank up. It is a 90 gal. tank and I decorated it with a lot of very pretty rocks and all plastic plants. After the water cycled I began to add fish and all was well. Nothing too exotic; plecos, tetra, corys, catfish, botia, etc. It was very pretty to look at except for the plastic plants, so I decided to replace them with real plants. I planted 18 plants; ferns, swords, wisteria, etc. Now it really looked good; the fish were happier, the water chemistry was great and I had no problems at all.

When I first bought fish it was to give the tank some life. Now that things were growing and stable I had to decide exactly what kind of fish I wanted to keep permanently. Guppies!!! I bought a few guppies and saw that there was going to be some trouble so I removed everything except the corys, plecos, and the guppies. My lfs is not so local (150 miles round trip) so I would buy about a dozen fish each trip until the tank was stocked. After a while (some weeks) they began to get sick and die. I couldn’t identify a specific disease, only that they would get lesions and rot away. No meds seemed to help. After much head scratching I turned my attention to their environment and the very pretty rocks… that were in fact, very pretty mineral specimens!! Covealite, pyrite, stibnite, quartz in matrix, etc. It was indeed very pretty to look at but, the poor fish were being poisoned by heavy metals! I removed all of the minerals and did everything that I should do to clean the tank and make it safe.

All of the original stock have died out over time. There were births and some of them are now adults and I have continued to add new fish trying to keep the population at about fifty fish. There was a period of about six weeks that I did not loose any fish, however, they have started to die again but with almost no symptoms at all. A fish will separate it’s self and in three days to a week or so it will be dead, no symptoms except separation and sometimes labored breathing, especially when close to death. It doesn’t matter if I leave them in the tank or move them to a hospital tank, they still die. I have tried several different treatments and meds in desperation and nothing works, they still die. They are dying at a rate of 1-3 per week and I am down to about 20 fish.

I have spent hundreds of dollars on these fish and can not continue to do so. Any help that you may offer would be greatly appreciated!! If they die out, I will break the tank down and put it away or sell it to recover some of my “substantial” investment.

For the record; the water chemistry is perfect, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, ph, salts, all where they should be. Water changes and vacuuming are done regularly with stress relievers and water conditioners added. Temperature is a constant 77%. I currently have two fish that have separated themselves from the rest and will soon die!

???????????

Thank you for any assistance,
John

ok well when was the last time u changed the water and does it seem like there dieing off more after a waterchange or not. try to test the water source see if its ok i would know how to test for hevy metals but if u could do that it would be good 2 know 2. if ur fish die out sure its gona be said and expensive but i say u get something like a oscar or sometype of cichlid tend to be more hardy and are very fun to own if u have never owned them before.

50 guppies isnt to much of a bio problem for a 90 gallon tank if u have proper filteration. what type of filtration do u have on the tank i uselly try to get the gph up to 10X how many gallons are on the tank. i got around 1000 gph on my 55 so u can never really be over filtered.

Just something for u to think about a guy i know has some larger platnium and gold barrmuindies that in 3 days ate 500+ neons and 100+ zebra danios if i remember correctly the tank is a 450 and is pushing around 6000-7000 gph......

If the tank was running OK and no new fish. Then the problem could be several things.
If the fish are dying so fast this will pollute the water more as well.

Water you introduced a problem at a water change.
Filtration you have not mentioned it at all
what brand, type and how often do you do a full pull down and cleaning.
Water changes what percentage and how often. Do you store and or treat the water first?
Substrate type, size and depth etc, when did you do a good deep vacuum cleaning?

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info
Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith



Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

Hi,
You did right in removing the minerals from the tank.
The copper, iron, and tin could and probably were leaching
out into the tank water. The quartz (SiO2) is an inert rock,
so depending upon the matrix it might have been able
to stay in the tank with no ill effects.

The question now, is if there is something in the tank that
the heavy metals have attached themselves to and so are a
source of continued contamination. Sometimes, Copper, for
instance, can attach to the silicone sealant and cause
problems, after treatment for an Ich outbreak for
copper sensitive fish.

The only way to be sure that it is not heavy metals is to
have the water tested, paying particular attention to
Copper, Iron, and Tin. There are Copper and Iron test kits
available for the typical fish keeper, but they are
expensive and not normally carried in the typical LFS. You
would have to go on line to locate them or perhaps a very
good Salt Water LFS. I don't know of a hobbyist type of
test kit for Tin.

Living so remote from any LFS, might you be on a well for
your water? If so, have you had your water tested. All
wells should be tested annually and not just for potability,
the tests should also include tests for heavy metals as
well as other chemicals. Depending upon your location,
it should also be tested for Radon and other indications
of radioactivity.
If you are on "city" water, I would check with them
to get a printout of the water, especially the heavy
metals, and other parameters (Ammonia, Nitrate, GH,KH,
etc.) Are they using a combination of Chlorine and Chloramine
to kill bacteria? Some water treatment facilities add
increased doses of various chemicals to combat problems
peculiar to a specific region, or neighborhood.

With the plants in your tank, you should be keeping the
Nitrate around 10. 40+ will cause problems for your fish.
Since you have prior experience, I assume that your test
kits that are giving you the "normal" readings are not
strips, and are not out of date.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Thanks everyone!
I have posted this information on several web sites and have gotten a lot of suggestions. Sadly, I have tried all of the suggestions already and nothing has really changed. I guess I was hoping that someone knew a secret that the rest of us did not know. Thanks again!

I am sure that I have removed everything that was toxic; I even removed the wood that was in with the offending minerals. I did leave a few large quartz crystals, but they have no matrix attached and as Frank said, they are inert.

The water conditioning products that I use specifically address heavy metals and claim to neutralize them. Having a bit of a water chemistry background, I do not think that it is possible to neutralize heavy metals. They can be removed or they can be contained, but they can not be neutralized. I think that these products coat the heavy metals with a molecular coating and they are there by “contained”. I suppose that it is possible there are traces of metals in the tank still. There is some discoloration on the silicone sealer and again as Frank said, it is possible that there could be some attachment. However, I think that the conditioning products should take care of any trace metals.

I live in Montana and it is very rural. I am on a well but the water quality is excellent. There is a privately owned lfs about 20 miles away but the prices are way over the top and the few times that I purchased things there, I felt that I was just supporting the mans drug habit. Other than that, it is 75 miles one way to Bozeman and their local Pet Smart.

I have no test kit for heavy metals. To maintain my water quality I use an API master kit that is liquid. I do not use strips of any kind because they are not reliable. Currently: PH 7.9, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate7.0, Temp 77%. I do a 1/3 (30gal) water change and vacuum once per week.

I have two more tanks set up, one is a hospital tank and the other contains the fish that were originally in the toxic tank. Cherry Barb, Serpae Tetra, Neon Tetra, Glowlight Tetra, Skunk Botia, Glo-Fish, Pleco. All of these fish are fine and have never been sick even though they spent a couple of months in the toxic tank before it was cleaned.

I may just have to reevaluate things. Perhaps I should move the Guppies to the smaller tank since there are so few now and put the other fish back in their place. I just do not want to continue to spend money on Guppies only to watch them die. I am really starting to think that the gene pool is bad!!

Thanks again,
John

Hi John,
Yes, you are about as isolated as we are at our home in the
CO Rockies. It's an hour and a half drive (90 miles), much
of it over packed dirt/gravel road and a mountain pass, to
get into town.

You are right as far as the term "neutralize" is concerned.
What they do is add a molecule or atom to the compound
and change it from toxic to non-toxic.
Sort like the difference between Copper and chelated copper,
or the iron in fluorite for plants.

I'm in agreement with your thought about the guppies.
With the other fish healthy and in the same water, that's
about as good a guess as any. I've had the same "luck"
with guppies and Platies that I've gotten from the "local"
warehouse pets stores. Some would last a month, and others
a week or two, and like yours, my water is fine.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--