After a catastrophe...new ideias

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J

Joao M

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Nov 28, 2010
1,014
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Portugal
I came homw from holidays last Saturday and scented a terrible smell coming from the garage. As I opened the door, my "Asian" tank´s (80x20x24") water was like milk and all the fish were death.
I lost 21 Clown loaches (2 of them of 9" and 10"), 1 fire eel (22"), 5 bala sharks (3 to 5") and one asian bumblebee cat. Also lost a BGK (15") that was temporarily in that tank.
1 week before they were all alive and kicking.

All the other tanks (700, 150, 125 and 55g) and fish were fine.

I couldnt find a logical explanation for this event (heater ok, filters ok). In 35 years of fishkeeping this never happened before

So, after cleaning up all the mess (wasn´t easy...) I am moving on and restarting the tank.

I come up with this ideia I wanted to discuss:
I have 5 FLG, 1 CK and 3 bichirs I am growing out and was planning to put them in a 250g (60x40x24") "primitive tank" that I am setting up in the near future, BUT
in light of the events, I am considering putting them in the - now free - 80x20x24" and getting a pair of hystrix stingrays for the 250g.

Is this feasible? The CK (now at 12") will outgrow the tank, but I can rehome it latter on to one of the bigger tanks, when needed.
 
Your disaster may have been down to a pump fail, i have had situations when power goes off for a split second and all my tanks are fine exept one-opened the pump-all clean in the mechanism-put it back together and starts up fine sometimes may stay off for a few mins then start up again for no apparent reason-this is why my larger tanks run pond pumps (way more robust and reliable) and most have a secondary internal as an emergency back up - ive not been away for years now and i certainly wouldnt do so without at least an air pump as back-up in each tank.
 
Thanks for your reply
I have 2 external filters in that tank: a fluval FX5 and a Eheim 2250. They could have had the same problem at the same time, but it is not likely.
 
Sorry for your losses =( imo the fish would be quite happy in the 20" tank for a long time if not years. The gar imo would do best in the deeper tank long-term but as you know its going to take them a few years to hit 16-18" where the 20" depth would then imo be insufficient. Long term I would plan on the gar getting the 250.. also if you want to try coming them w/ rays ( some are more successful then others) I had my rays in the tank first... so you could certaintly move them into this other tank for a few monthes get the rays acclimate them ect.. then move the gar over. More or less what I did and for me it worked.
 
Thanks for your words and replies.

As regards the future, I am still considering the options for two main reasons:
1- I would want to have a long term ("final") solution and even it is truth as you say Amy that I could have years before moving the gars, I would have to move the CK to the big tank much sooner and I don´t know if I want to put it there with the cichlids and aro and
2- after my preliminary queries, it would be extremely difficuld to get true hystrix in my country using any of the available LFS. Most likely they would come from Peru and therefore be "false hystrix" (orbigny or other species) what would mean a much bigger disc and thus not being suitable for the 250g. I could try a specific order from an European breeder (German or Dutch) but that would mean exclusive shipping for that order and therefore extra cash...
So, I am still tossing some ideas around.

Maybe I end up with the initial plan (primitive tank with gars, ck and bichirs in the 250g) and use the 20" deep tank (of around 166g, if I didn´t mess the conversion) for something totally different. Maybe brackish or something else
 
;) always happy to be a sounding board for you. I'm sure whatever you decide to do in the end will be nice.. and of course we expect pictures!
 
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