Lessons learned...

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MonsterMinis

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Apr 28, 2009
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Wisconsin
Cheap pool filter sand = not a good thing.

HTC is not a brand I would ever reccomend again for anyones tank. We used abit first for our puffers tank.. and he seemd fine so I rinsed a bunch and added it to my fire eel tank... big mistake apparently.. Last night my Royal pleco was acting odd.. so I did a WC and 1/2 dos of Melfix to help. Well this morning I woke up to a dead Royal.. and I just found a 1/2 eaten fire eel..:cry::cry::cry: Who musta jumped dureing the night and the cat found.

I will now be doing another water change.. and removeing the sand.

What a horrible day.:irked:
 
Sorry HTH sand... and.. Just lost another eel while doing the water change... we noticed blood.. and he was spitting up chuncks.. and shakeing his head... he quickly went into death spirals... and all I could do was try and get the sand out asap... he died as I was getting the last of the sand out... The last fire eel looks fine... But... this is one of the worst days I've had as a fish keeper...

Never again will I try and keep eels on Sand.
 
Your sand might have spiked the hardness. Check your GH and KH.
 
entirely possible I did have a GH/KH spike.. but.. It wasn't what caused the major problems. The tank also houses 2 gar ( which are as sensitive or more so then the eels or pleco I lost), and an ornate bichir. and the fact 1 eel looks completely unaffected. really points me to the sand being the major issue. The surviveing fish look fine. But I lost 2 eels ( one jumped during the night, so I don't know what shape it was in. and the others slim coat was sloughing off and was spitting up chunks of it's gills.) and my royal pleco.. which was covered in what appeared to be velevet but after it died i'm 99% sure it was sand as it was gritty and very different then velvet.

I had seen the pleco down in the sand the night previousely before it started acting odd, and the eels are on the bottom 99% of the time. The eel unaffected was the smallest and the lowest on the totem pole so was always hideing in the PVC pipes.

I was also leery of sand so it was rinsed within' an inch of it's life. until it ran clear even in highly aggitated water.

PS - as for checking the gh/kh now it's a moot point.. I did a 80% WC removing all the sand and scrubbed down all the decor, cleaned the filters as best as I dared between my first post and now.
 
it is a tough loss but i think it was cause you probably had something inside the sand or it might of not cycled/filtered right with the sand
 
Aqualoon;5046547; said:
I have sand with my eel and pleco and have 0 issues.

Actually my eel loves it, easy to dig in.
Click to expand...


Yep I did extensive reasearch on sand and adding it to my tank. not sure what brand you use. BUt HTH is not a brand I'de ever reccomend and had no prior info in reguards to aquarium use.

the past 2 yrs neither my eels or my pleco where on anything but a bare bottom tank, so sand was new to them.

"it is a tough loss but i think it was cause you probably had something inside the sand or it might of not cycled/filtered right with the sand "

It is entirely possible the sand I used had something else in it but the label stated it was sand. nothing added.

as for it being a cycle issue.. I serverly doubt it was a water quality issue as the tanks been set-up for almost a year here, and was set-up for more then yr at my prior residence. Fully cycled the whole time. I didn't even get a spike from the move.

Another reason I ruled out gh/kh issues is my previouse residence was on well water that was hard as rocks and maintained a high PH. Not to say a spike couldn't have also effected things.

You live and your learn... Hopefully someone else thinking of using HTH sand will stear away from it in favor of other brands that are reccomended by eel and ray keepers.
 
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