Leaky Fluval 404, ammonia, dead fish, Oh my!

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Like others have said already, you should be doing regular water changes AT LEAST once a week, more if your filters are unable to keep up to your bioload.

You probably need to change the motor ring seal on your fluval as those tend to degrade after a few years; they are under $10 each, so not expensive at all.

Also, you will need to start being more diligent in checking on your fish & setup. If your filter has been leaking for that long, and you have neglected to check it long enough that it's soaked the floor, it's too long. Fish are not a 'set & forget' type of hobby. They need regular care and maintenance to live a healthy life.

Make yourself reminders if you need to, but try to increase the amount of time you put into your fish :)
 
F1 VET said:
Definitely need to step up the wc, atleast 1 50-60% wc per 5-7 days imo but its whenever your nitrates spike, I like to change mine at 40ppm, but you also have ammonia and this is much more toxic, not sure if your tank is mini cycling or what but I would start by cleaning the filter out and doing every other day 30% wc till that ammonia drops!

I agree I would put money on mini cycling. my 120 gallon does something similar in nitrate spike if i let the primary filter go to long befor a cleaning. If your not running any form of plant filtration then i would bet you have a starting case of old tank syndrom and i would stick to many small water changes and detox the tank slowly.
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How often do you all clean your canister filters out? And what is the process of that. Still kind of new with this tank as I have only had it for barely 3 years so I am still learning its capacity and bioload. Do you wash off all the internal media? What all do you typically keep in your canister? I usually just have the typical pads, some carbon and some kind of ceramic little tube thingies that fluval makes. That's about it. The tank has been set up since roughly July 2010, with fish in their consistently since then. Don't know if that helps or not.
 
First the ceramic rings house your bacteria, the bb(beneficial bacteria) converts fish waste (ammonia) into nitrite, there is a second bb that converts nitrite into nitrate, nitrate is removed thru wc or plants, click my link below for a 10$ plant that will greatly reduce nitrates and the need for big wc.

Secondly, after a month or so carbon will start leaching all the crap it absorbed back into your tank, many of the exp fk around here only use ceramic rings, that's all you need, AND WHEN YOU CLEAN THE CERAMIC RINGS SWISH THEM AROUND IN TANK WATER, TAP WATER HAS DECHLOR AND WILL KILL YOUR BB! Seems to me like you need more rings, buy a couple boxes.

Lastly, cleaning your can is simple, fill a bowl with tank water, put your ceramic media in the bowl, then take your canister outside and blast it with the hose, take the sponges out and blast till they are clean, clean the hoses and intake, if you can take the impeller out and clean that, then blast it again with the hose, shake the ceramic media in the bowl, then put everything back together and its done. BTW if you have gravel substrate this will trap poop a lot, try pool filter sand (pfs)

Goodluck

_________________________________________________________________________
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?504763-Cheap-plants-less-nitrate!-POTHOS

*Go S. Vettel #1 RBR! 3 BACK TO BACK WDC AND CONSTRUCTERS! :cheers:
 
F1 VET said:
First the ceramic rings house your bacteria, the bb(beneficial bacteria) converts fish waste (ammonia) into nitrite, there is a second bb that converts nitrite into nitrate, nitrate is removed thru wc or plants, click my link below for a 10$ plant that will greatly reduce nitrates and the need for big wc.

Secondly, after a month or so carbon will start leaching all the crap it absorbed back into your tank, many of the exp fk around here only use ceramic rings, that's all you need, AND WHEN YOU CLEAN THE CERAMIC RINGS SWISH THEM AROUND IN TANK WATER, TAP WATER HAS DECHLOR AND WILL KILL YOUR BB! Seems to me like you need more rings, buy a couple boxes.

Lastly, cleaning your can is simple, fill a bowl with tank water, put your ceramic media in the bowl, then take your canister outside and blast it with the hose, take the sponges out and blast till they are clean, clean the hoses and intake, if you can take the impeller out and clean that, then blast it again with the hose, shake the ceramic media in the bowl, then put everything back together and its done. BTW if you have gravel substrate this will trap poop a lot, try pool filter sand (pfs)

Goodluck

_________________________________________________________________________
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?504763-Cheap-plants-less-nitrate!-POTHOS

*Go S. Vettel #1 RBR! 3 BACK TO BACK WDC AND CONSTRUCTERS! :cheers:
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That was a great bunch of info that i never new. I probably do need some more ceramic rings. I only have one tray in each filter about 1/2 full. I dont know if it is worth putting 2 full trays of ceramic in. So i have that tray and the tray i put carbon in. Then there is 2 other empty trays that i dont know if it is worth doing anything with. I sometimes use a micro partical pad in one of the trays but it fills up quick.

Thank you all very much for the help and advice. It has been eye opening. Please feel free to keep it coming. I'll check on those other parts. I started the leaky filter up at lunch and got it going with minimal leaking and it stopped leaking fairly shortly. It has been fine since.

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The problem with the Fluvals, from my own experience, is that they need frequent rinsing. It's best to get into the habit of checking the filters when you do your water changes to ensure that they are running at full output capacity; this should help you avoid more problems in the future.
 
KrazEDesigns said:
The problem with the Fluvals, from my own experience, is that they need frequent rinsing. It's best to get into the habit of checking the filters when you do your water changes to ensure that they are running at full output capacity; this should help you avoid more problems in the future.
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That is usually what i do. I change and clean filters and filter media when i do water changes. I just need to do more water changes. I can usually see the water pressure output get weak too from the filters and know it needs cleaned.

Dont quite know how i got it but i have quite the snail infestation too. It is the spiral cone shaped snail. Kind of fun actually, except they really get into the filtration canisters and makes cleaning the canisters kind of annoying.

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Pond snails - did you get any live plants lately?

I got a major infestation from them back when I had my discus setup & added some new plants without noticing the freaking snail eggs on them; it was a very long battle to get rid of them.
 
I haven't gotten any live plants lately. At least not for that tank. It has been some time since I have had the snail infestation. I think I bought some platy a year ago or so in hopes they would start their own colony and breed consistently as a food source and just something else to look at. Well it ended up just being an $8 dollar snack for my cichlids. However, they may have been the ones to somehow bring the snails in. Not for sure. Far as the pothos plant, I tried taking some clippings off of the one we have in our house and put them in the back corner of the tank. I don't know if they are not getting enough light or not, but they are not making it. The corner of the tank I put them in is right above a bubble stone putting air in, so I don't know if it is too much oxygen in that area of the tank for them, or again the light situation. Maybe just that they are not established either with a solid root system. It really isn't the plant season in South Dakota, and even our walmart right now doesn't have any pothos, but if I can get out of town one weekend to a Home Depot or something I will try to pic up a couple pothos cause I think it'd look cool there clearly seems to be a benefit to it.

Far as the tank, I think things are stabilizing finally. Now there is just some aggression issues with the flowerhorn and midas trying to breed and beating on the salvini, but I am going to take care of that problem today. I haven't done a water test lately, but I have been doing some more water changes and the fish seem to be looking better aside from the nipped fins by the flowerhorn. Today I was planning on ordering some more media for my filters as there isn't much in there to start with, which again, could help the problem. I have some fluval ceramic tubes. Some of these things. However I don't think I have near enough of them.

http://www.petmountain.com/product/.../hagen-fluval-pre-filter-media-750-grams.html


Do they do the job okay? There is only 1 tray of these in each of the canisters, that came with the filters when I bought the whole set up used about 4 years ago. However the one tray of them is maybe about half full in each filter. I am guessing I need a good few more. If these work okay for bio filtration, would putting two trays of these in each canister be helpful? I was planning on ordering 3 boxes. That should fill the half full trays and fill one more tray in each filter I would guess. However there is also this stuff. This biomax ceramic rings by fluval.

http://www.petmountain.com/product/...agen-fluval-biomax-media-500-grams-17-oz.html

Is one of these ceramic rings better than the other? One is definitely more expensive than the other. If anyone has experience with these rings, or has better suggestions of what I should add to help the filtration, please let me know. Will try to put in an order at the end of the work day today. Thanks everyone!
 
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