Be carefull sealing up aquarium decorations

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O

Oreo

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 7, 2008
223
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Baltimore
So I had this fake tree stump / root looking thing. It's been in my tank forever now. When I bought it I filled it with sand & sealed it up with hot glue so that it would sink without allowing any livestock to get stuck in there.

So over the last few months I've been wondering why a couple of my fish just weren't acting healthy & active like they used to. My water parameters were perfect. So I decided to make some changes for the health of those few fish which involved removing that tree stump. When I pulled that thing out of the water- PHEeeeeewwwww... MAN that thing stinks!!

What I think happened was that water seeped into the hollow cavity of the stump. With no real circulation there was perfect conditions for anarobic bacteria to start creating hydrogen sulfide gas. No sooner was that smelly stump out of the water- it was mere hours before all my fish looked much better, acted much better & healthier.

Lesson learned.
 
Hot glue held up just fine. Works OK in an aquarium. I just didn't seal up a few of the tiny holes. I left them open for water to seep in not realizing at the time about anaerobic bacteria.
 
I tried filter floss jammed into a hole once after I had a Clown Loach get stuck. I pulled it out 2 days later to check to see if it was holding up and it smelled the same way-awful. I ended up just not using that peice in a tank with fish like Loaches.
 
I was very lucky with my beautiful black ghost knife. Poor girl was looking worse & worse by the day. Almost completely inactive. I panicked when I found her laying flat on her side on the bottom of the tank not moving. I thought she was dead. She sprung up & started moving when I reached in the tank but that prompted me to make the changes I did. That ghost knife looks MUCH better today. Active, healthy, swimming... just like she was when we got her. Like she should be. Was a close call for her.
 
I had the same problem with a piece of wood like that, I love the way they look but they get nasty really fast.

One of mine I plugged the bottom holes with silicone then filled with gravel and did another layer of larger rocks covered in silicone along the bigger holes. It didn't work So now the small one is in a tank with rasboras and cories who don't go down inside of it and I pull it out and rinse it every water change.
 
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