I have a planted 55g aquarium at home with 5 western dollars (1 inch)and 14 tetras and an otto catfish... The tank had some algae so i was going to take the whole thing down, dip the plants, and clean the substrate. Also i just got a new ro system beacuse the water around here is pretty hard and was high in nitrates and possibly phoshates.. I filled up the tank again half with ro and half with dechlorinated tap and put some flourish excel in incase of algae. I went to bed happy with a fresh and clean looking aquarium. I woke up to find almost all my tetras dead and my otto had his head above water but i pushed him back in. thankfully all of my western dollar sunfish are still alive but they all are really stressed. Some fish are at the surface and some are at the bottom,and that threw me for a loop. Im not sure what happened, and any input would be great.
Something went wrong.
- Thread starter Winks
- Start date
first off mixing natives with tropicals is not a great idea. How big is the aquarium? Lucky for me I have never had a problem with just adding tap water but my water is well water. But from what some one else said RO water is not the best for fresh water fish and is more suited for saltwater fish where you will be adding your own chemicals such as salt and blanceing the water.
yea its a 55 gallon. What is the reasoning for not mixing the two? and i didnt know if the ro water would have an adverse effect on the fish even when i mixed it with regular water.
It sounds like you triggered a mini cycle with the cleaning. The flourish might not have been a very good idea either. We need some more info. How long has the tank been set up? What size are the fish? Temp? pH? Lighting? What kind of plants, size, and how many?
Using RO water in freshwater tanks is okay, as long as the water is balanced with something else. Mixing it with tap water will do that, as long as you realize that the pH will most likely go down, and you may not have enough buffers left to keep it from crashing. It sounds like you changed two many tank parameters at one time, and it just crashed.
Using RO water in freshwater tanks is okay, as long as the water is balanced with something else. Mixing it with tap water will do that, as long as you realize that the pH will most likely go down, and you may not have enough buffers left to keep it from crashing. It sounds like you changed two many tank parameters at one time, and it just crashed.
well for the most part of not mixing natives with tropicals is each live in different habitats. Most natives do best at temps lower then then tropicals.Winks;3889869; said:
kzimmerman;3890432; said:
The tank has been set up for about 7 months now, the western dollars and tetras have been in there since the new year. but were fine before. The fish are all about 1 inch long, the temp is around 77, im not sure of ph and i have Odyssea T5's 4x54w... I have a bunch of wisteria, some amazon sword, anubias, and java fern.
I dont have any chemical filtration right now, i didnt think it would be a big deal right now with have pretty good mechanical and biological filtration. I was thinking of purchasing purigen to keep nitrate, nitrite and ammonia down and be able to recharge it after 6 months. Any thoughts
Well, started with 20 fish total, and now have 5. 3 western dollar sunfish and 2 tetras. I did a water change using my tap water and things are starting to go bak to normal. I bought some real cheap 5 in 1 test trips and found that the ph of my tap was 8.5...my tanks ph was 8.2 and the ro water's ph was around 6.5.... I was unsure why the ro became acidic because it doesnt filter out everything...and idk if a .3 ph swing from the orignial water is big enough to stress the fish out like it did. So thats my first thought... still not sure though
What are the ammonia, nitrite and Nitrate levels? When you very thoroughly clean a tank like you did, you can kill off a lot of the beneficial bacteria, which can trigger a minicycle. Also, adding the excel can reduce the amount of O2 available, which is probably what caused the fish gasping at the surface. I would do a regular water change, don't worry about using the ro water. You are, however, going to want to make carbon available to the plants. You can do this with C02 or with the ecxell. I've never used the ecxell, but have heard that it's best dosed everyday in smaller quantities. If you've got plenty of plants, they will outcompete the algae for the nutrients, especially with that much light
im 95% sure the pH swing was the reason. All the water parameters changed in a matter of seconds for them and once i did a regular water change with tap water they were fine... Im not sure about ammonia, but my nitrates were low as well as nitrite.
Sounds like you triggered your tank to cycle again BUT over night your tank wouldn't generate enough ammonia to kill off a 55G. Maybe one of the chemicals you used for cleaning didn't get rinsed off something you cleaned.
As for fighting algae your best bet would be to use a UV Sterilizer.
As for fighting algae your best bet would be to use a UV Sterilizer.