Did this kill my arowana?

[6 bar]

I lost a 6" silver aro last Friday and I have not been able to determine exactly the reason for it's death.

However, after talking with a respected MFKer here:
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=250670&highlight=Denver

I performed a 50% water change yesterday morning and today I decided to perform 3 water tests throughout the day on my tank, especially to determine if my ammonia levels were the cause of death since I have an 8" stingray in the 120g tank where I lost the silver aro.

Here are the results:

At approximately 9:30 am
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
20 ppm nitrate


At approximately 2:40pm

.5 ammonia
0 nitrite
40 ppm nitrate

At approximately 8:30pm

between . 5 to 3 ammonia
0 nitrite
20 ppm nitrate

The following readings remained the same:
pH remained 6.8
Hardness 300 mg/L
Alkalinity 0


Is this just the normal process that transpires everyday as the fish produce their excrement and can I expect ammonia to be converted as the beneficial bacteria convert it to Nitrite then to Nitrate?

Or is this the culprit for the death of my aro?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Lupin]

It does not make sense to me. Your pH is 6.8. That is acidic and in this state, the ammonia's toxic effects will be locked due to its conversion to ammonium in acidic conditions. I do not think ammonia is responsible for your fish's death. Look at your other fish. From the thread you linked, all your fish except the arowana were absolutely fine. If the ammonia intoxication happened, your other fish would die first before your arowana would.

I read your thread. Some rubbish are being spewed there as usual.

Based on the first post of the old thread, you quarantined your arowana for 10 days only. Is that correct? This time frame is very short. You should be quarantining your new fish for at least 3-4 weeks if you are working hard to safeguard whatever disaster may cause your heavy losses especially as you yourself have the datnoid, stingray and flagtail, none of which don't always come cheap.

Secondly, please post which Hikari product you used, ingredients and guaranteed analysis. How long have you been feeding your arowana that product? How long have you had this product? What is the expiration date?

What else does your arowana eat?

If ammonia intoxication was evident here, your fish would be showing signs of listlessness, clamped fins, bloody veins (like all other fish) and gill burns. Does your arowana show any of those signs above? The quote below does not indicate ammonia intoxication at all.

Earlier this morning it ate just fine. It ate 8 pieces of hikari floating pellets. Hours later it was just barely able to swim in my 120g tank and would soon die.

Why did you do this? When you quarantine, you do not treat your new arrivals with anything. Chemical reactions add stress to the fish. All it takes to quarantine a fish is close observation for unusual behavior and water parameters (this has limited scope and any results do not always mean the quality is right at par).

I even put some parasite clear in there with some melafix in the tank.

Old issue: Your tank at 120g has very limited space for the fish to grow. This does happen. How often did you change the water? From your feeding regimen, you would be doing water changes every other day by at least 60% to compensate for the amount of food you give to your fish. Do you also thaw the beefheart?

A month before, I had lost my 10" silver which strangely only grew 2" in like 6 months with daily feedings of market prawn and omega one flake and when I first got it, it was eating krill, fd shrimp and fd krill and frozen beefheart. It just started swimming really low to the tank and then I found it floating vertically head first.

Could you please test your source's water for hardness levels and pH?


I am going to comment on the following posts you received there.

just looked at your photos, you do seem line you have under gravel and hand on filter.

ok
some might disagree.
but undergravel filtration might be good for clearing water so clarity is high. but really, ther eis no room for any bio media.

This depends on the setup used. If you are operating RUGF (reverse undergravel filtration), this is not a cause for concern as there will be no accummulated organic matter beneath the filter plates once the powerhead sucks them out. The old fashioned design was designed to remove the organic matter out of sight but not out of the tank. The new version on the other hand does both of what it is meant to be.

amonia should be zero in my opinion, its the worse of all toxins. amonia should never even establish itself my principles is that as they sh8t out waste - it should be digested constantly. no delay in time, this could be a proble.

Note that without ammonia, the beneficial bacteria cannot sustain themselves thus there will be no nitrogen cycle which is why ammonia is important. That's how I understand the way this is worded.

It's not the feeding that causes the ammonia spike. It's the big dump the fish take later on. The larger the colony of bacteria the quicker the ammonia can be consumed.

Food leftovers should not be discounted as one of those ammonia contributors.

 

[bluehairman]

Lupin, why do you ask if the beefheart was thawed? Does it cause issues?

And the guy who commented ammonia, I think he meant there should always be enough beneficial bacteria to consume the ammonia quickly.

 

[6 bar]

Lupin, Thank you for taking the time to make such a thorough reply.

My answers are written below in white.

It does not make sense to me. Your pH is 6.8. That is acidic and in this state, the ammonia's toxic effects will be locked due to its conversion to ammonium in acidic conditions. I do not think ammonia is responsible for your fish's death. Look at your other fish. From the thread you linked, all your fish except the arowana were absolutely fine. If the ammonia intoxication happened, your other fish would die first before your arowana would.

That's what I would think too especially with a stingray.

I read your thread. Some rubbish are being spewed there as usual.

Based on the first post of the old thread, you quarantined your arowana for 10 days only. Is that correct? This time frame is very short. You should be quarantining your new fish for at least 3-4 weeks if you are working hard to safeguard whatever disaster may cause your heavy losses especially as you yourself have the datnoid, stingray and flagtail, none of which don't always come cheap.

Lesson learned, next time I will quarantine for 3 weeks.

Secondly, please post which Hikari product you used, ingredients and guaranteed analysis. How long have you been feeding your arowana that product? How long have you had this product? What is the expiration date?
I was feeding hikari food sticks (with the silver aro on the front). Fish meal, krill meal and wheat flour are the first 3 ingredients.

I fed it the hikari sticks from day one of ownership. I had just purchased the hikari sticks maybe a day before I brought the aro home and the expiration was in 2010.
What else does your arowana eat?
It also ate on occassion omega one flakes. Ingredients are whole salmon, whole herring, black cod etc. But it mostly ate the hikari sticks. I purchased the omega one flakes maybe a week before the aro died.

If ammonia intoxication was evident here, your fish would be showing signs of listlessness, clamped fins, bloody veins (like all other fish) and gill burns. Does your arowana show any of those signs above? The quote below does not indicate ammonia intoxication at all. No.


Why did you do this? When you quarantine, you do not treat your new arrivals with anything. Chemical reactions add stress to the fish. All it takes to quarantine a fish is close observation for unusual behavior and water parameters (this has limited scope and any results do not always mean the quality is right at par).

It was recommended that I put in some parasite clear from someone I really respect in the hobby. It seemed to work well and the fish did not seem ill effected as it continued eating and living more than a week after I had put in some parasite clear. I think I've heard of fish distributors doing the same to ensure that their fish are healthy before they sell them.
Old issue: Your tank at 120g has very limited space for the fish to grow. This does happen. How often did you change the water? From your feeding regimen, you would be doing water changes every other day by at least 60% to compensate for the amount of food you give to your fish. Do you also thaw the beefheart?

I was doing weekly wc of 50% and I hadn't feed beefheart since last year when my other 10" aro passed away.


Could you please test your source's water for hardness levels and pH?

I believe that my water hardness is the same as indicated from my original post. I think that pH is actually 7 coming out of the sink.


I am going to comment on the following posts you received there.

This depends on the setup used. If you are operating RUGF (reverse undergravel filtration), this is not a cause for concern as there will be no accummulated organic matter beneath the filter plates once the powerhead sucks them out. The old fashioned design was designed to remove the organic matter out of sight but not out of the tank. The new version on the other hand does both of what it is meant to be.

I have the old fashioned UGF.


Note that without ammonia, the beneficial bacteria cannot sustain themselves thus there will be no nitrogen cycle which is why ammonia is important. That's how I understand the way this is worded.


Food leftovers should not be discounted as one of those ammonia contributors.

 

[Lupin]

Lupin, why do you ask if the beefheart was thawed? Does it cause issues?

Frozen beefheart can cause sudden change in the environment as the fish approaches the food unless it thaws quickly in the tank water. As fish are cold blooded creatures by nature, the temperature of the fish itself is the same as the environment. Now if the fish starts approaching a frigidly cold temperature by all of the sudden, its body system attempts to adjust quickly to it and may become stressed in the process by this.

I have the old fashioned UGF.

I think we may be onto something here. How long has this been set up? How do you clean out those accummulated wastes from under the filter plates? When was the last time you cleaned the filter plates?

If you disturbed the filter plate, you will notice bubbles coming out of it especially from under the substrate. This indicates dead pockets are present and in this case, the fish must be removed if you want to start cleaning the filter as a precaution. Once done, slowly rotate the substrate around with a vacuum cleaner and try to suck the organic matter accummulating around. You don't want to rotate the dead pockets quickly and risk breathing the odor yourself which could cause respiratory problems.

Hydrogen sulfide itself is a powerful acid capable of diving the pH steeply that your fish may suffer from acidosis as a result. pH under 6 is extremely acidic for some of your fish and unless they were used to extremely acidic conditions, they will simply become stressed and die a slow agonizing death.

 

[6 bar]

Frozen beefheart can cause sudden change in the environment as the fish approaches the food unless it thaws quickly in the tank water. As fish are cold blooded creatures by nature, the temperature of the fish itself is the same as the environment. Now if the fish starts approaching a frigidly cold temperature by all of the sudden, its body system attempts to adjust quickly to it and may become stressed in the process by this.


I think we may be onto something here. How long has this been set up? How do you clean out those accummulated wastes from under the filter plates? When was the last time you cleaned the filter plates?

If you disturbed the filter plate, you will notice bubbles coming out of it especially from under the substrate. This indicates dead pockets are present and in this case, the fish must be removed if you want to start cleaning the filter as a precaution. Once done, slowly rotate the substrate around with a vacuum cleaner and try to suck the organic matter accummulating around. You don't want to rotate the dead pockets quickly and risk breathing the odor yourself which could cause respiratory problems.

Hydrogen sulfide itself is a powerful acid capable of diving the pH steeply that your fish may suffer from acidosis as a result. pH under 6 is extremely acidic for some of your fish and unless they were used to extremely acidic conditions, they will simply become stressed and die a slow agonizing death.

I have had the tank set up with the ugf for about 8 months. I usually just siphon the gravel on top. I never thought to pickup the filter plates as I thought that this would be detrimental to the fish. But this could very well be the problem all together.

So, are you saying that I have hydrogen sulfide in my tank? If so, is that from the pockets under the ugf?

 

[Lupin]

I have had the tank set up with the ugf for about 8 months. I usually just siphon the gravel on top. I never thought to pickup the filter plates as I thought that this would be detrimental to the fish. But this could very well be the problem all together.

So, are you saying that I have hydrogen sulfide in my tank? If so, is that from the pockets under the ugf?

Have you actually noticed the bubbles coming out of the plates as you vacuum? If you have not touched the plates for 8 months, then the organic matter has accummulated there already and once disturbed, they break up and release the acid which reeks similarly of rotten egg odor. I would incorporate the use of powerheads on your setup to turn it into a RUGF which works better than the old fashioned setup.

 

[6 bar]

I actually have a powerhead running on each plate.

 

[Bderick67]

Alden, did you continue testing today also?

 

[6 bar]

No, I didn't. But I'm sure the water quality isn't any better as I see that my dat's eyes have gotten a little cloudy. That usually happens when the tank is imbalanced with too much ammonia.

Odd thing is the other fish seem to act like everything else is normal.