Natural Gas

[jhutch]

I had posted a week ago about all my fish in my breeding system dying. I believe my well was contaminated by the Gas company that is drilling across the road. My carbonate hardness tripled since they started drilling and my nitrites are also registering high.

I have talked to the DEC(Department of Environmental Conservation), the DEP(Department of Environmental Protection) which is part of the EPA and a biologist from the gas company. They came and took more water samples and came back yesterday for dead fish I have frozen.

Now I talked to a chemist and he said that with my test results most likely they will find the same thing and it is proof that the gas company did in fact contaminate the well.

My big question is if there is contamination will I need to junk the complete breeding system and start over from scratch? I am most likely looking at methane as one of the toxins. The carbonate hardness has tripled which the DEC says is from the concrete they put down the well.

 

[Liam]

I had posted a week ago about all my fish in my breeding system dying. I believe my well was contaminated by the Gas company that is drilling across the road. My carbonate hardness tripled since they started drilling and my nitrites are also registering high.

I have talked to the DEC(Department of Environmental Conservation), the DEP(Department of Environmental Protection) which is part of the EPA and a biologist from the gas company. They came and took more water samples and came back yesterday for dead fish I have frozen.

Now I talked to a chemist and he said that with my test results most likely they will find the same thing and it is proof that the gas company did in fact contaminate the well.

My big question is if there is contamination will I need to junk the complete breeding system and start over from scratch? I am most likely looking at methane as one of the toxins. The carbonate hardness has tripled which the DEC says is from the concrete they put down the well.

install a water tank and use rain water for the time being while the water has high nitrates and gases etc.

 

[salsa]

That sucks... All I can say is sue the bastards!! lol, for your time cleaning tanks and resetting, the fish loss, potential profit from the lost fishes potential fry.

 

[jhutch]

By all rights I shouldn't have to install anything out of my own pocket. Should I consider all the fish junk and start with all new stock? That's the big question.

 

[King Edward]

It depends on what has been killing your fish. I wouldn't think that methane would be the cause of the problem. I will check tomorrow but I believe it has a very low affinity with water, so should not remain in the water, it should gas out faster than CO2 so if you have a decent water flow it would be gone, and it not toxic. Its usually found with a load of other nasties though like hydrogen sulphide (eggy smell) which is very toxic, but you can smell it at very low concentrations, so if you cant smell it its not the problem. I'll need to flick through some books. How fast did the fish die? What syptoms did they display before the did? This will give a clue to the type of poisoning...

Could it 'just' have been the increased hardness? As the nitrates have gone up could their drilling water be running into your well?

Certainly tell them you had to replace the lot...bastards....

 

[Arachnar]

I would have to agree that the lime from the concrete tripled the water hardness and killed the fish.

 

[jhutch]

Yeah they won't know anything definate until the test results come back though. The symptoms were few and far between. I didn't notice anything wrong. One example I was feeding my albino yellow lab breeding pair and the male was out swimming around eating like a pig, looked perfect. No signs of disease or stress. Went down an hour later and he was dead. I had a growout tank with around 55 Oto. Lithobates in it and they were the first groups to show any signs of stress. They would stay at the surface sucking air. Now we are talking a 30 gallon breeder tank with a large sponge filter as well as being plumbed into the system. It's a flow through system with two sumps. One is a large resevoir, the other is a wet/dry trickle sump and I have a large UV Sterilizer plumbed into the feed line. I use a blower to power all the sponge filters.

Now I cut the system off so the tanks were only running sponge filters and added 3 more sponge filters to the Lithobates tank. It didn't help. Other than when they ate they would stay at the surface. Something had to have been in the water to keep them starved for oxygen like that with 4 sponge filters running. I don't know what else I could have done. I ended up losing the whole group anyway.

So far this is what I have lost just in case you people don't look in the african rift lake forum:
Wild Breeder Male Placidochromis Jalo Reef
Wild Aulonacara Maleri Breeding group
Breeder Aul. Ngara Flametail Albino Male
Wild Breeder Aul. Ethylwynnae Females x 3
Wild Aul. Lemon Jake Breeding group
F1 Aul. Kandeense Male sub adult
Albino Lab. Caer. Male Breeder
Oto. Lithobates juvies - lost 53 juvies and sub adults so far

Uganda Fire Reds - total loss
Zebra Obliquidens - total loss
Ruby Greens - total loss

Albino Blue Eyed Bristlenose plecos - 28 dead(total loss)
Albino Long Fin Bristlenose Plecos - 9 dead(total loss)

Yellow lab juvies - total loss
White Lab juvies - total loss
Wild Breeders Copad Borleyi Kadango Pair
Aul. Flavescents Breeder females all dead
Aul Eureka Red Albino female
Aulonocara Otter Point Breeding Colony Dead
P. Demasoni F1 colony starting to die off

There are more I just feel sick thinking about it all dying off so I am stopping there but at least you get the picture. I have over 150 dead and counting. I guess there is one upside to all this. I have 15 tanks that don't run on this system that don't get well water that are uneffected. But that is little comfort to 80 tanks of african cichlids slowly being wiped out and all I can do is sit back and keep a tally of everything that has died.