All my fish died (established tank with crystal clear water)

[duanes]

Clear water does not necessarily mean good water for fish. You've undoubtedly seen rivers with chocolate brown water that are filled with fish. Clear can be deadly, or not. You're clear, hard, water may have no buffering capacity, which means it cannot absorb fish urine, and freshwater fish are constantly urinating to maintain osmotic stability. Without buffering capacity, pH will drop alarmingly fast, and that is when many small water changes are needed.
You may want to test your tap and tank water alkalinity, that is a measure of buffering capacity.
A high school chemistry class could do it for you if you do have the test available.

 

[F1 VET]

Contamination, something is leaching toxic substances, non aquarium decor likely



Go S. Vettel #1 rb8

 

[cor]

I just tested the PH and it is lower than my tests bottom range of 7.4 . My tap water is over 8.6 at the other end of my test.

So it looks like I gave my fish an acid bath

I tested my 20L and its in the 8.0 range. I tested my 29g and it was very acidic as well.


So now the question of how to fix this or what test to run to see the buffering abilities of my city water.

 

[1bigdovii]

You need to get a test of "hardness" of the water. Your waters hardness is its buffer if its too soft it will not buffer. You can fix it naturally with crushed coral added to tank substrate or in a media sock in the filter. Should not be too hard to fix.

Sent from my SCH-I500 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[cor]

I tested Alkalinity and it is in the "Normal" range on my test. I have started to take out all the directions and clean the gravel and my canister.

I'll have to re-cycle the tank and hopefully get it back to where it should be. I have some rock from a salt water tank that has been sitting dry and is now dead rock. What are everyone's thoughts on adding the rock to the tank to help add buffers?

 

[anarekist]

yeah, looks like you killed them with the ph swing. i keep a ton of crushed coral in my aquarium (sump) so the pH is always stable more or less and i never have to worry about that.

 

[anarekist]

I tested Alkalinity and it is in the "Normal" range on my test. I have started to take out all the directions and clean the gravel and my canister.

I'll have to re-cycle the tank and hopefully get it back to where it should be. I have some rock from a salt water tank that has been sitting dry and is now dead rock. What are everyone's thoughts on adding the rock to the tank to help add buffers?

depends if the rock will affect the ph.

 

[cor]

I tore out all the decorations and did a very good gravel vac. The amount of stuff being sucked up was crazy! I refilled the tank and will check PH tonight.

Next I will clean all the filters and do the gravel again. I'm sure the tank will need to go through a full cycle again.

 

[F1 VET]

I tore out all the decorations and did a very good gravel vac. The amount of stuff being sucked up was crazy! I refilled the tank and will check PH tonight.

Next I will clean all the filters and do the gravel again. I'm sure the tank will need to go through a full cycle again.

Yea u should be vacing once a week, when u let it build up like that its mind boggling the amount of poo. Just keep up on everything from now on and ill have a lot less problems. GL

Go S. Vettel #1 rb8

 

[cor]

I cleaned my AC110 and my XP3. They weren't bad at all so I suspect the crazy dirty gravel did the tank in.

I moved the intake for the XP3 to the opposite end of the tank as the AC110. The outlet for the XP3 is by the AC110 pointing to the far end of the tank where the intake is.

Also did the good old canola oil to the background trick while I had everything off. PH is still at the bottom end of my test so tomorrow I will do another 50% water change.