Massive Die-Off
- Thread starter gouramiguy
- Start date
Spiritofthesoul;4883105; said:
I'd say around 100 ppm but they have stayed that high since I started the tank; I've always fought with that. Do you think that's what did them in?
Nitrates at 100ppm are not acceptable.
My bet is that your canister filtration was new, might have even had some chemicals in it...something changed, killed your fish.
Keeping your fish at 100ppm of nitrate (I would guess from detritus build up in your canisters) is very stressful, and at that point, other minor changes are liable to kill them.
I would get a sump, or start cleaning your canisters more often until the issue is resolved.
My bet is that your canister filtration was new, might have even had some chemicals in it...something changed, killed your fish.
Keeping your fish at 100ppm of nitrate (I would guess from detritus build up in your canisters) is very stressful, and at that point, other minor changes are liable to kill them.
I would get a sump, or start cleaning your canisters more often until the issue is resolved.
FLESHY;4884543; said:
I would Listen To fleshy more than me as He is one of three guys on here I listen to ironically in the salt section I noticed the Wisconsin guys Fleshy & Nonstophoops are very knowledgeable and helpful as well take there knowledge and use it to your advantage.
JT
ace869;4884666; said:
Sir, you are too kind. Wisconsin has a bevy of good salties, and a couple nice coral prop companies. We know what we are doing.
Dustin and I spend our noses in the books a lot. We are hoping like everyone else here to continue to learn and share information.
Im sorry if sometimes I come across as harsh, but I am always interested in disecting stuff with other people, just going through, and working problems out.
I appreciate your advice. I will learn from my blunder and move forward with a better, more stable tank for its future inhabitants.
FLESHY;4884543; said:
I agree with this and will add to it. You will have to do more frequent and consistent water changes to keep this down.
I would also say that the nitrates did not suddenly rise because of the dead fish in the tank. That would cause ammonia to spike because there would be too much waste(rotting fish flesh) for the bacteria to handle. Doing even a large water change would leave you nitrates still high.
For example, if your nitrates are 100 and you do a 25% water change you will now have nitrates of 75. Even doing another 25% water change will only lower your nitrates to 57. Another 25% to nitrates 43.75.
So even after 3 water changes you still won't have your water parameters where they should be. That doesn't even factor in the constant and continuing accumulation of nitrates from feeding your fish. This is why it is very important to keep up on water changes and not fall behind. It becomes very difficult to lower them to acceptable levels without changing your setup.
The other factor I would see here is that brackish fish often times have poor immune systems. They use their environment to combat this by constantly moving back and forth from fresh to salt water. When they do so they kill off the parasites and other things they picked up from the other water. When we put them into an aquarium that doesn't allow for them to switch back and forth they become susceptible to illness. This could have caused the death of your first fish. All the other fish could have then died from the spikes and changes in water quality.
The lower ph is also a big problem. Changes in ph stress fish greatly and a stable environment helps a lot. I am not sure how low the low you are referring to is because we don't know what your normal ph is(usually too low already on tanks that are under filtered using canisters).
Moving forward, I would be looking to upgrade your filtration setup as a few others have suggested. Sumps really do wonders for the health of the tank. They are much easier to clean, oxygenate the water much better, and keep all your equipment hidden, just to name a few things. I would also consider looking into a quality skimmer if you don't already have one. Quality powerheads within the tank also help keep waste suspended and allow its removal.
FLESHY;4885281; said:
I second this as well. Definitely spend a lot of time reading(books and online), working on my tanks(have had a full wipeout too), and learning from others. There are so many people out there with more experience and knowledge than me that I learn from, I in no way think I am an expert. Fleshy is definitely more experienced than I and I have learned from him as well. I would say you would be hard pressed to find someone learning at a faster rate than myself because I am so fully immersed in the hobby. I am now overhauling a fish store in town that badly needed it and gaining a lot of experience in making a business profitable. Definitely a different perspective there than with tanks at home.
I also may come across as harsh and don't want to offend people. I would just rather they hear the truth and learn from it the best they can instead of getting poor advice from people that tell them what they want to hear and don't want to hurt feelings, or worse make up advice to make money(many LFS's).
I would definitely get a good protein skimmer. They help take crap out of the water before it turns to nitrate. They also take other things of the water that can cause fish mortality.
