Interesting water parameters in aging barrel

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fattubwhale

fattubwhale

Candiru
MFK Member
Dec 25, 2011
441
46
46
Twin Cities, MN
In the last few weeks I been losing a few discus fry here and there and could not figure out what was going on. The only tank that was affected was the fry tank all the Adult tanks were fine. At first I thought it was flagellate infection, I had several fry turning dark so i did a metro treatment over the weekend. On Monday I did a 100% water change as I normally do... after WC they get a feeding of beef heart and in the late afternoon another 100% WC. When I went to go due the WC to my surprise I found 10 more dead fry :mad:
I ruled out parasites, bacterial, flagellates and flukes... The one thing I haven't done in awhile was check my water parameters. I been raising and breeding these beautiful flat fish for over 6+ years now and know my water parameters (I thought i did) due to the daily routine and testing I've done over the years.
It took me over a week to figure out what the issue was which only should of taken me 1 day!!!
To my surprise my water barrel and tap parameters looked like this.
Tap
PH. 8.4
AM. .50
Nitrite. 0
Nitrate. 0
Barrel #1: Aged tap
PH. 7.6
AM. .50
Nitrite. 0
Nitrate. 0
Barrel #2: Aged tap
PH. 7.6
AM. .50
Nitrite. 2 ppm
Nitrate. 10 ppm
Barrel #3: RO
PH. 6
AM. 0
Nitrite. 0
Nitrate. 0
On Monday I used barrel #2 for the water changes...
Im still not sure what caused the barrel to give out reading like that but after discovering the the crazy Nitrate and Nitrite spike I emptied out all barrels and bleached and rinsed them out. Barrels were refilled and 24hr of aerating the readings were back to normal.
So lesson learned Its important to check your water parameters even though you do it all the time and clean out your barrels from time to time. From now on I will be monitoring my water parameters more often than not!!! Not ok to lose 20+ fry...
 
I would think any barrel, container with water when not sterilized often, will go into "cycling" itself eventually because bacteria will colonize the sides and if there's a source of ammonia nitrification will happen. Even my dog's bowl of water needs scrubbing every few days because of slime.
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you would think it was a nitrogen cycle but the barrels would get a wipe down every so often were there was zero to little build up on the barrel. Also, the barrels were being emptied and re filled every day to every other day.
 
When I was a kid I kept one small loach type of fish that we had caught in the local river, unidentified too, for 5 years in a tank with no filter with 100% water changes once a week. My mother used to give out to me about the state of the tank as the walls were all covered in stuff. She sent me on a summer camp holiday one year, scrubbed the tank in my absence as I had moved it in the sitting room, the fish died before I was back. That was more than a quarter of a century ago and I knew nothing back then. ... And I suspect my mother used soap to clean the tank back then although she wasn't that stupid to leave residue but she cleaned the tank really well....

And it's not like I didn't clean it myself all those years, but when I did, I didn't scrub well, just with my hand as much as I could and never the lot just out of laziness.....It always felt slimy.

My point is, giving the scientific information these days, water changes do nothing to the biofilm that can establish on surfaces, even on sides of the container and the glass. Cleaning them properly of course will, same as when washing dishes. Just running water isn't what does the cleaning, it's when you scrub with the sponge, or whatever you use.
 
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