firemouth died! :(

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livebearerfreak

Dovii
MFK Member
Jun 15, 2006
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tank has been unfiltered for almost 2 days ( awaiting for the pole and beam to be put in tomm ) and told my grandmother why he died and she said *no he didnt die cause of no filter he died cause of you messing with the tank* well i just finish filling half full and turned on my eheim 2260 so hoply that will help. afraid to know what the ammonia is! so tomm hoply i will begin filling all the way. anyways now i have:

2 oscars
2 male convicts

thinking of getting another firemouth ( love them! ) what you think?

plus quite a few platys and 3 swordtails and 4 black skirts. i may get 2 more blackskirts instead of getting the firemouth. think im done stocking with cichlids what you thnk? and will one eheim 2260 be enough for the cichlids filteration/?\ dont feel like hooking up the magnum 350 ( i may sell it on here or trade for a AC 110.
 
I'm really confused by this post but...Black skirts won't work with Oscars infact I wouldn't recommend anything else except a medium catfish in a 125 with oscars....And why did you have your filter off for two days?
 
cause i only was able to have the tank half full tell we get the floor beam put up ( theres beams there but not strong enough i don think so were gunna add to it. )
 
You should be able to run a filter with a tank that's half full. I have a Fluval FX5 running on my 150 that I drain about 70% empty on a weekly basis and I never shut the filter off. The intake pipe only sits about 6" above the bottom of the tank so as long as it's not sucking air it will continue to draw water and run the filter.

Also, I just had a tank shut off for over a week with no filter or heater, and when I went to clean it yesterday, I noticed that I'd left a baby severum in it. I missed him when I was transferring all his brothers and sisters. He was only in 1/2" of water for about 8 days with no filter, heater, or food, and when I filled the tank back up, he was up and about, eating and looking relieved. What else was in the tank with the firemouth? If a tank is not overstocked and there is plenty of oxygen, fish will live without filtration so long as the bioload doesn't get really high. If you knew the filters would be off, I assume you stopped feeding them and let them fast for a few days to prevent heavy ammonia/nitrite build-up.

Besides, beneficial bacteria doesn't just live in the filter, it also lives in gravel/sand, on decorations, etc. As long as it didn't suffocate (again, if the tank weren't overstocked and there was enough dissolved oxygen to sustain the fish and bacteria) it should still do its job of converting the harmful waste into nitrate. During Hurricane Season 2004 (I live in Florida) I was without power for over a week and my cichlids did fine with no filters.

I'm guessing the firemouth didn't die from lack of filtration after only a day or two. If it did, something's seriously not right in that tank. Just my opinion.
 
Also, I forgot to add that in a closed filter such as the Eheim, bacteria will die if the filter is shut off and no water is passing through. The chambers don't allow air flow into the canister and it will cause the bacteria to suffocate and die in the filter. If this happens, turning the filter back on will pump a ton of dead bacteria into your aquarium and poison your fish. This could cause more problems for you in the near future if you left the Eheim unplugged for a few days.

With canisters, I always keep them plugged into a UPS (uninterrupted power supply) in the event of a power outage. This gives me enough time to shut the filter down properly and open the canister so that the bacteria can breathe. I usually drain the water and leave the filter media damp in the trays so that the bacteria stays alive.

My suggestion, if the canister was off for a day or more and you just plugged it back in, you should do a very large water change to get out any of the dead bacteria that it could have potentially pumped back into your tank. If you notice your fish acting very strange, this is probably the culprit.
 
Darth Scohin;4334869; said:
I'm really confused by this post but...Black skirts won't work with Oscars infact I wouldn't recommend anything else except a medium catfish in a 125 with oscars....And why did you have your filter off for two days?
Click to expand...

Not necessarily, I found that no matter how small it was, my oscar wouldn't attack it unless it was something new I put in. I had a pair of convicts in with mine at one point and they had fry. I eventually moved the parents and most of the fry. Went I tried to reintroduce the parents my oscar killed and tried to eat my female convict. But to this day I still have 2 of the convict fry that are almost an inch that will eat along side the oscar and he doesn't care. He will chase anything new I try to add but does attack any of the fish I keep that were already there with him, half of which are easily edible to him.
 
I completely agree with ryan..
I don't get why you shut the filter off, if I wanted to I could take out 80% of my water and still keep the filters running.
What size tank was the firemouth in and what were his tankmates? If the oscars were in the tank as well I understand there was ammonia in the tank, but still, even then the firemouth wouldn't die so quickly.
 
mark377;4334982; said:
I completely agree with ryan..
I don't get why you shut the filter off, if I wanted to I could take out 80% of my water and still keep the filters running.
What size tank was the firemouth in and what were his tankmates? If the oscars were in the tank as well I understand there was ammonia in the tank, but still, even then the firemouth wouldn't die so quickly.
Click to expand...

True most cichlids can tolerate a lot of abuse (not that they should be subjected to it) and I don't see a little ammonia killing it. Maybe something entered the tank airborn?
 
I am still confused myself, last weekend we had a pretty wicked storm hit my apartment complex and were without power for almost 2 days. I didn't feed my fish and when it seemed like they were laboring for oxygen I did water changes. I also did them to get any of the waste out of the tank, so the water didn't foul up. It was a lot of work to keep up with 4 tanks, but with no power, it's not like I had anything else to do.

My suggestion to the OP would be to get the intake of your canister filter more near the bottom so that while you're doing water changes that you never have to unplug it. You shouldn't need to touch your filter until the flow slows down.
 
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