I don't get it...

[Stab]

I am beginning to realize that I have a problem. This came as a result of slowly converting my 125G South American biotope to an Asian biotope. All I am doing at this point basically is swapping fish. Currently the tank is stocked with a group of uarus and hoplo catfish. All of these are doing great and have been going strong for close to 2 years now.

About a month ago I have added a 6" clown knife. He seemed to be super healthy and active in the store but after about 2 hours on my tank, I saw him listing to one side In the morning he was dead. I checked my water and all parameters were fine.

A week later I purchased 2 3" CKs. Both were dead before the end of the day. Again, water tested normal and all other fish are ok.

This past Friday I came home with 3 3" clown loaches and a 2" giant goramy (I know, I know, I have a contigency plan for when it outgrows the tank). As with knives before, all 3 loaches were dead in teh morning. Considering they costed me $60 I was not a happy camper. Little goramy, which BTW was kept in teh same tank with loaches when I bought him, however is fine.

I have a suspision that something in my water is affecting scaleless fish. Here are the readings from yesterday (before teh water change):

Amonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 30
PH: 6.0

Personally I don't see anything wrong in teh readings. Nitrate could be lower but I have certainly seen worst. Besides, my uarus are thriving in this water. Could it be teh PH? I know its very low but all of my research points at fish like clown loaches and clown knives oreferring low PH. Final guess is some sort of bacteria that affects scaleless fish. I would prtefer not to nuke the tank with random medication when I don't see any definitive symptoms but something clearly needs to be done...

Any ideas what this could be? AM I mising something? This is getting very frustrating

 

[Stab]

 

[tRiP]

Possibly PH shock from stores water and your tank water? How do you acclimate them to tank, float bag or do you do the drip method?

If you do float, perhaps try adding a little bit of tank water into the store bag after floating for 20 mins, then after adding the tank water let sit for another 20-30 mins, add a bit more tank water and let float for a bit more to help them slowly get used to the lowered Ph of your tank.

 

[Stab]

If you do float, perhaps try adding a little bit of tank water into the store bag after floating for 20 mins, then after adding the tank water let sit for another 20-30 mins, add a bit more tank water and let float for a bit more to help them slowly get used to the lowered Ph of your tank.

Exactly what I do -- the whole accimation process takes about an hour to two. Maybe I should have done the full airline tubing thing as with marine fish? Its just that I always found it to be a bit excessive with FW species

 

[tRiP]

hmm that is pretty weird. I had this problem w/ a spotted gar, I put him in my tank after acclimation, to find him belly up 20 minutes later. My LFS gave me another one and the same thing started to happen almost immediately. Started becoming unbalanced, I netted him out, placed him in a different tank and he fully recovered. I did a test on both tanks and params were the same so I had no clue what was causing it.

Maybe next time you're @ the store see if they will compare your water with theirs to see if there's something different? Sorry I can't really offer any more help, but please keep us posted if you find out what's causing this.

 

[Nick660]

I had a similar problem a while back. Bought 2 seperate groups of young hoplos from an LFS and neither group survived longer than about 24-48 hrs. The only thing I could think of was that the water they were in at the LFS was really high nitrate and/or low pH which was too much of a shock for such young fish when i introduced them to my "better quality" water. At one stage when i saw the second replacement group beginning to suffer i did an emergency water change which appeared to make them die even quicker .

The LFS was going through a change of ownership and re-organisation at the time which made me suspicious that water changes/tank maintainence were not high on the list of priorities for them

I'd be interested to know how you get on too.
Good luck.

 

[Stab]

The only thing that comes to mind still is teh PH: Store's water is at 7.0 while mine is at 6. It does not appear to be a big difference, besides, with the way I acclimate fish (see a post above) it should make no difference at all. I will try thi again within a week or so, and will keep you all posted on teh outcome

 

[-Asianguy-]

need to remember that stores constantly change their water from the tap. they may or may not include meds, and balancers.

I'd suggest testing the store tank water. or simply buy from another lfs and see if there are changes.

I don't see why fish should be dead in 20 minutes. thats just to fast. even a day is to fast for my taste.