Just when I was starting to love how big my fish have gotten, this happened (about 10 days ago).... I wanted to give up fishkeeping (I'm sure all of you have been there at one point or another)
I have 2 tanks running currently, a growout 135 gallon & a main 240 gallon.
Some background about my setups:
My 135 is a traditional setup with a sump at the bottom with bio balls, ceramic media, few plants (java ferns mostly), lava rocks and a return pump.
My 240 is an all in one aquasystems aquarium with 2 built in sumps at the back of the tank, one sump is filled with photos, bio balls and the other is actually used to siphon the water into my Eheim 2280 thermo canister filter.
I change 80-90% of my water every 2 weeks, this has been my schedule for a long time now. And I use tap water set at 78 degrees. My house has this http://www.pelicanwater.com/whole-house-water-filter.php filter installed to the main water supply.
How it started to happen: Did a manual water change and as soon as I was done they started dying. And fish died from both my tanks so it had to be the water. Checked the water params and it was 0 for nitrate ammo and nitrite, ph was 6.8, I tested the water in both tanks about 20 minutes after I was done with the water change. My mind wasn't working right when I witnessing all my beloved fish die almost instantly.
Why it happened? I have have a few theories. But no definitive answer, if you guys can help me figure this out that would be great.
Theory 1: The city happened to increase the chloramines in our water by a huge amount. I add copious prime during my water changes and I guess the amount of prime I added wasn't enough.
Theory 2: On my 240, I shut off my eheim by moving the lever from the 'on' position to the 'off' position. I usually don't do this but this time I didn't feel like priming the filter again. My guess is that the bb colony in my filter died off due to a lack of oxygen (water change on my 240 takes about 1.5 hrs) and released a lot of ammonia, and as soon as I started my filter again, all that ammonia was released into my tank thereby killing a lot of my fish. My 135's sump has a 3-4" deep ceramic ring bed and I was siphoning this as well. And I guess a 3-4" deep bed is enough to have an anaerobic bb colony...? The movement made by the siphon released ammonia into the water.
I can't think of anything else that could kill 35% of my stock within 30 minutes.
PS: Mods, I'm using this sub forum because most of my dead fish are characins & 'other' monster fish.. Sorry if this isn't the right place.
I have 2 tanks running currently, a growout 135 gallon & a main 240 gallon.
Some background about my setups:
My 135 is a traditional setup with a sump at the bottom with bio balls, ceramic media, few plants (java ferns mostly), lava rocks and a return pump.
My 240 is an all in one aquasystems aquarium with 2 built in sumps at the back of the tank, one sump is filled with photos, bio balls and the other is actually used to siphon the water into my Eheim 2280 thermo canister filter.
I change 80-90% of my water every 2 weeks, this has been my schedule for a long time now. And I use tap water set at 78 degrees. My house has this http://www.pelicanwater.com/whole-house-water-filter.php filter installed to the main water supply.
How it started to happen: Did a manual water change and as soon as I was done they started dying. And fish died from both my tanks so it had to be the water. Checked the water params and it was 0 for nitrate ammo and nitrite, ph was 6.8, I tested the water in both tanks about 20 minutes after I was done with the water change. My mind wasn't working right when I witnessing all my beloved fish die almost instantly.
Why it happened? I have have a few theories. But no definitive answer, if you guys can help me figure this out that would be great.
Theory 1: The city happened to increase the chloramines in our water by a huge amount. I add copious prime during my water changes and I guess the amount of prime I added wasn't enough.
Theory 2: On my 240, I shut off my eheim by moving the lever from the 'on' position to the 'off' position. I usually don't do this but this time I didn't feel like priming the filter again. My guess is that the bb colony in my filter died off due to a lack of oxygen (water change on my 240 takes about 1.5 hrs) and released a lot of ammonia, and as soon as I started my filter again, all that ammonia was released into my tank thereby killing a lot of my fish. My 135's sump has a 3-4" deep ceramic ring bed and I was siphoning this as well. And I guess a 3-4" deep bed is enough to have an anaerobic bb colony...? The movement made by the siphon released ammonia into the water.
I can't think of anything else that could kill 35% of my stock within 30 minutes.
PS: Mods, I'm using this sub forum because most of my dead fish are characins & 'other' monster fish.. Sorry if this isn't the right place.
