Re: Drama in Shark Alley...

[Earl D Fitzgerald]

Is it possible when you cleaned your backwater filter it dumped the water of
the filter into the tank? The mulm in the bottom of the filter box can
spill out if you forget to dislodge the siphon. I have killed a few fish
this way...

BTW AquaPlus is really not needed if you age your water. Many of these
chemical just bind themselves to nitrogen compounds and drop to the bottom
of the tank. My question is what happens when the bond is released by
another chemical?

I haven't used any chemical addtives to my 10+ tanks in 2-3 years.

Fishboy


"D&M" > wrote in message
...
> Decided to post this for feedback and informational purposes. (Warning:
> Long)
>
> Last night I performed my routine bi-weekly tank cleaning. Everything as I
> normally would. I scrubbed the glass, rinsed out the filter in tank water.
> Fired up the Python and vacummed as normal. Double dosed with AquaPlus
(good
> 20 squirts) as I've done for many months, and refilled the tank.
>
> 5 minutes later, everything was fine, nice clean tank look again, then it
> happened.
>
> First, my new Tiger loach lied dead at the bottom of the tank. Then two
> Serpae tetra's twitched a couple times, and floated to the surface upside
> down. Then two Bala's (4" and 6") went into spasms, swimming upside down,
> floating to the surface.
>
> First instinct is there's something in the water. Without thinking I
grabbed
> the net and started pulling fish out, dead looking or twitching and moved
> them to another tank.
>
> After moving them, I looked at the Bala's listlessly gasping at the bottom
> of the tank, and noticed the slime. Only two things I can thing of
> immediately... Ammonia poisoning or Chlorine poisoning.
>
> As this tank is cycled, no new fish load, I ruled out Ammonia, had to be
> chlorine. No time to pull out the test kits to make sure. I immediately
> ruled out the bottle of AquaPlus and threw it out. I had to assume it was
> bad (being left open, or something) and had to take it out of the
equation.
> I cracked open a new bottle and didn't even have time to measure the
amounts
> and started pouring it into the tank.
>
> 3-5 minutes, we carefully watched the tank, the remaining fish began to
slow
> their breathing back down to normal, and settling down. One tiger barb was
> still rough looking, so we moved him to another tank as well.
>
> Now to the tank the sick fish were moved to. After 1-2 minutes, the dead
> tiger loach came back to life and swam normally. The dead serpae tetras
lied
> at the bottom of the tank sideways for hours it seemed, then snapped out
of
> it and began swimming around again like nothing ever happened.
>
> The two balas lied sideways or swimming tight upsidedown circles for about
a
> 1/2 hour. The smaller one finally flipped himself right-side up, floated
to
> the bottom of the tank and started eating. The larger bala, a few minutes
> later, flipped himself right-side up and began swimming normally.
>
> It's now 12 hours later, The once dead fish are fully revived, back to
> normal and moved back to their own tank. In all, never lost anyone, all
fish
> accounted for. Our frantic fast actions in a 1-2 minute period appears to
> have worked.
>
> Looking at the new bottle of AquaPlus I opened, only needs 5ml/10g. I
dumped
> over 250ml into the tank when I poured it in.
> This was a close call, we were about 5 minutes from going to bed. Should
we
> not have looked at the tank and continued to bed, 90g's of fish would be
> dead when we woke up.
>
> So, now the question, what went wrong?
>
> I have a couple theories.
> First, the original AquaPlus bottle was left unsealed the day before,
> possibly evaporating the declor properties from it.
>
> My next theory, is in this area, they're really paranoid of samanilla (sp)
> in the water, ever since the Walkerton incident where some people got
really
> sick, some died. Being summer, I'm wondering if they've dramatically
> increased the amount of chlorine or chloramines in the water supply, and
the
> normal dose of declor just wasn't cutting it.
>
> Either way, it was pretty scary for a few minutes, and never want to see
> that happen again.
>
> Cheers
>
>

[RedForeman ©®]

beginner's guess, but educated from experience in a similar scenario....

CO2 shock? - being close to going to bed, photosynthesis may have slowed,
and the introducton of new water may have forced the water into an
unbalanced equilbrium of too much CO2, or maybe not enough pushing your pH
up???

the dechlorinators are said to be safe even when overdosed to 10x the
limit... is it really?? probably varies from mfg to mfg...

Released gases from substrate? - if you vacuumed REAL good, maybe some gases
got released into the water column making it ammonia saturated and maybe
forcing some other chemical reaction?

ok, I'm out of guesses, but let us know what you find out, I"m curious...

[SG]

In article >, Earl D Fitzgerald wrote:
>
>BTW AquaPlus is really not needed if you age your water.

This is only true if chlorine is used. Many water utilities have
switched to chloramin which requires dechlorinator (and usually a
double dose). Chloramin is very stable and will not evaporate off or
precipitate out.

[NetMax]

You use 20 squirts of AquaPlus as a normal routine? That seems like a
lot of dechlorinator. Isn't that something like de-chloring 200g, so in
a 20% water change, you have a 1000g aquarium? I hope my numbers are
incorrect, or you are using Betta de-chlor, which only treats 1/2g per
capful (instead of 10g).

"RedForeman ©®" > wrote in message
...
> beginner's guess, but educated from experience in a similar
scenario....
>
> CO2 shock? - being close to going to bed, photosynthesis may have
slowed,
> and the introducton of new water may have forced the water into an
> unbalanced equilbrium of too much CO2, or maybe not enough pushing your
pH
> up???

I think excess gases would drive the pH down, but the effect described is
the same as Red suggests. Condo water is usually not supercharged much,
as say a deep well source. How big was your water change %?

> the dechlorinators are said to be safe even when overdosed to 10x the
> limit... is it really?? probably varies from mfg to mfg...

I confirmed with my Hagen rep (manufacturer of AquaPlus) that 10x is
non-toxic. It should not vary as the agent used (sodium thiosulphate) is
common to all of them AFAIK. They each just add their own extra stuff
(stress coats, heavy metal binders etc).

> Released gases from substrate? - if you vacuumed REAL good, maybe some
gases
> got released into the water column making it ammonia saturated and
maybe
> forcing some other chemical reaction?

A real likelyhood.

> ok, I'm out of guesses, but let us know what you find out, I"m
curious...

Another possibility, the de-chlor released a sudden dosage of ammonia
from the mono-chloramines.

Chloramine concentrations do vary. When a city is doing any type of
infrastructure construction (cleaning or changing supply pipes), they
always follow up with a super-dose of disinfectants. This is standard
operating procedure.

The pH can also vary significantly (my experience is 7.4 to 7.8, but the
city claims 7.2 to 9.1). Factors which affect the variation are, time of
day, day of week, and exactly how much chemicals were added at the
treatment plant. Doing a water change on a Sunday evening would give you
water which has sat in pipes for much longer, and would probably be safer
(lower pH after soaking in iron pipes). Doing a water change on a Monday
afternoon (after all the morning showers and the industries have fired
up) would give you water which was much fresher and representative of the
water leaving the treatment plants (higher pH and more disinfectants).
If you are worried, test your source water's pH before using it, and let
your de-chlor soak in it before adding it to the tank.

There have also been reports of cities temporarily adding more exotic and
expensive disinfectants (which are toxic to fish), to battle some
particular problem. I think that this is done infrequently, but AFAIK,
without advance public notice.

All good reasons for smaller water changes, done more often.

NetMax

[D&M]

Maybe it was explained to me all wrong, and I've been wasting conditioner.
(in which case I wouldn't be very impressed)

It was explained to me that even though I was only adding 20-30g of
chlorinated tap water, 90g's of water needs to be treated as the chlorinated
water mixes with the tank water. If I were to only treat for 20-30g, the
concentration of declor would be too diluted to be effective. (15ml of
declor would be diluted into 55-60g of water, then an additional 20-30g of
chlorinated water added)

For counting the squirts, I measured that one squirt can range 3-4ml.
Treatment is 5ml/g. As precaution, this dose is doubled as the tap water is
directly being added to the stocked tank, and the unknown possibilities of
chlorimine removal. So I averaged a double dose at 90g's to 20 squirts. The
lfs's in the area say aquaplus is safe in any dose, can't overdose with it.

Anyways, if the treatment is wrong, and I should only be treating for the
amount of chlorinated water added, please let me know, save me on
conditioner!

Cheers



"NetMax" > wrote in message
.. .
> You use 20 squirts of AquaPlus as a normal routine? That seems like a
> lot of dechlorinator. Isn't that something like de-chloring 200g, so in
> a 20% water change, you have a 1000g aquarium? I hope my numbers are
> incorrect, or you are using Betta de-chlor, which only treats 1/2g per
> capful (instead of 10g).

[Stan]

Sometimes during the summer in order to purify our water to the extreme,
water authorities will increase the chlorine from the usually 1ppm to 5 -
10ppm. A lot of the simple declor stuff is expecting the 1ppm and fall
short of these amazing levels of chlorine. Besides, these city workers may
overdose to extremely high levels way above even 10ppm. I guess all one
can do is guess without a test kit.

I remember in Minneapolis the water supply went from well water (TDS 300) to
non-well water (TDS 90) a couple years ago. This really soft water supply
was wiping out aquarium fish all over until everyone wised up. The soft
water's pH was 8 or so, but in a week or so it crashed to around 4.0 - 5.0.
Quite a difference than the normal liquid rock they used to supply.

So, I guess sometimes it pays to test the water to see whats coming out of
the tap this week.

Sounds like your fish got popped pretty good and may still fail in the next
week or two. Chlorine causes lasting damage in many cases.

Good luck!
"D&M" > wrote in message
...
> Decided to post this for feedback and informational purposes. (Warning:
> Long)
>
> Last night I performed my routine bi-weekly tank cleaning. Everything as I
> normally would. I scrubbed the glass, rinsed out the filter in tank water.
> Fired up the Python and vacummed as normal. Double dosed with AquaPlus
(good
> 20 squirts) as I've done for many months, and refilled the tank.
>
> 5 minutes later, everything was fine, nice clean tank look again, then it
> happened.
>
> First, my new Tiger loach lied dead at the bottom of the tank. Then two
> Serpae tetra's twitched a couple times, and floated to the surface upside
> down. Then two Bala's (4" and 6") went into spasms, swimming upside down,
> floating to the surface.
>
> First instinct is there's something in the water. Without thinking I
grabbed
> the net and started pulling fish out, dead looking or twitching and moved
> them to another tank.
>
> After moving them, I looked at the Bala's listlessly gasping at the bottom
> of the tank, and noticed the slime. Only two things I can thing of
> immediately... Ammonia poisoning or Chlorine poisoning.
>
> As this tank is cycled, no new fish load, I ruled out Ammonia, had to be
> chlorine. No time to pull out the test kits to make sure. I immediately
> ruled out the bottle of AquaPlus and threw it out. I had to assume it was
> bad (being left open, or something) and had to take it out of the
equation.
> I cracked open a new bottle and didn't even have time to measure the
amounts
> and started pouring it into the tank.
>
> 3-5 minutes, we carefully watched the tank, the remaining fish began to
slow
> their breathing back down to normal, and settling down. One tiger barb was
> still rough looking, so we moved him to another tank as well.
>
> Now to the tank the sick fish were moved to. After 1-2 minutes, the dead
> tiger loach came back to life and swam normally. The dead serpae tetras
lied
> at the bottom of the tank sideways for hours it seemed, then snapped out
of
> it and began swimming around again like nothing ever happened.
>
> The two balas lied sideways or swimming tight upsidedown circles for about
a
> 1/2 hour. The smaller one finally flipped himself right-side up, floated
to
> the bottom of the tank and started eating. The larger bala, a few minutes
> later, flipped himself right-side up and began swimming normally.
>
> It's now 12 hours later, The once dead fish are fully revived, back to
> normal and moved back to their own tank. In all, never lost anyone, all
fish
> accounted for. Our frantic fast actions in a 1-2 minute period appears to
> have worked.
>
> Looking at the new bottle of AquaPlus I opened, only needs 5ml/10g. I
dumped
> over 250ml into the tank when I poured it in.
> This was a close call, we were about 5 minutes from going to bed. Should
we
> not have looked at the tank and continued to bed, 90g's of fish would be
> dead when we woke up.
>
> So, now the question, what went wrong?
>
> I have a couple theories.
> First, the original AquaPlus bottle was left unsealed the day before,
> possibly evaporating the declor properties from it.
>
> My next theory, is in this area, they're really paranoid of samanilla (sp)
> in the water, ever since the Walkerton incident where some people got
really
> sick, some died. Being summer, I'm wondering if they've dramatically
> increased the amount of chlorine or chloramines in the water supply, and
the
> normal dose of declor just wasn't cutting it.
>
> Either way, it was pretty scary for a few minutes, and never want to see
> that happen again.
>
> Cheers
>
>

[Jim Brown]

You can either treat the new water before adding or just add the correct
amount of conditioner to the aquarium, then fill it up. The water in the
tank has already been dechlorinated, and the dispersal of the new
chlorinated water won't be nuch for the fish to deal with, especially if the
dechlorinator is already there. It mixes just as well as the new water.

Jim

D&M > wrote in message
...
> Maybe it was explained to me all wrong, and I've been wasting conditioner.
> (in which case I wouldn't be very impressed)
>
> It was explained to me that even though I was only adding 20-30g of
> chlorinated tap water, 90g's of water needs to be treated as the
chlorinated
> water mixes with the tank water. If I were to only treat for 20-30g, the
> concentration of declor would be too diluted to be effective. (15ml of
> declor would be diluted into 55-60g of water, then an additional 20-30g of
> chlorinated water added)
>
> For counting the squirts, I measured that one squirt can range 3-4ml.
> Treatment is 5ml/g. As precaution, this dose is doubled as the tap water
is
> directly being added to the stocked tank, and the unknown possibilities of
> chlorimine removal. So I averaged a double dose at 90g's to 20 squirts.
The
> lfs's in the area say aquaplus is safe in any dose, can't overdose with
it.
>
> Anyways, if the treatment is wrong, and I should only be treating for the
> amount of chlorinated water added, please let me know, save me on
> conditioner!
>
> Cheers
>
>
>
> "NetMax" > wrote in message
> .. .
> > You use 20 squirts of AquaPlus as a normal routine? That seems like a
> > lot of dechlorinator. Isn't that something like de-chloring 200g, so in
> > a 20% water change, you have a 1000g aquarium? I hope my numbers are
> > incorrect, or you are using Betta de-chlor, which only treats 1/2g per
> > capful (instead of 10g).
>
>

[Donald Kerns]

D&M wrote:

> Maybe it was explained to me all wrong, and I've been wasting
> conditioner. (in which case I wouldn't be very impressed)
>
> It was explained to me that even though I was only adding 20-30g of
> chlorinated tap water, 90g's of water needs to be treated as the
> chlorinated water mixes with the tank water.

Explained wrong.

Add conditioner enough for the water you're adding, not for the entire
tank. The water in the tank is already dechlored. (Thus doesn't use up
any of the concentration of your treatment...)

My guess is that the conditioner people probably overtreat in their
recommended dose "just in case" and then the aquarium owners overdose
"just in case."

I would bet that in most aquariums there is significant "dechlor" excess
capacity already in the water...

Does the declor stuff age out? NetMax? Jim?

-Donald
--
"When you've lost your ability to laugh, you've lost your ability to
think straight." -To Inherit the Wind

[D&M]

Then I'm really puzzled. I'd really overkilled on the conditioner, and the
fish had a reaction exactly like ammonia/chlorine poisoning. Even if the
city OD'd on the chlorine for summer, I should have put enough in to kill
anything.

New information. The city has done something to the water supply. Our
regular 8.0-9.0 varient water supply has dropped to around 7.0 in unaged tap
water. This amount of change itself isn't enough to cause this type of
reaction as the pH in the tank balances to low 8.0's after the last
cleaning. I put the water in slow enough that none of the fish should have
been in direct contact with the lower pH water. But, what did they do to
drop the pH. New water supply, different chemicals. Next wednesday I'll head
to City hall and get the water reports to know what's up.

Cheers


> Explained wrong.
>
> Add conditioner enough for the water you're adding, not for the entire
> tank. The water in the tank is already dechlored. (Thus doesn't use up
> any of the concentration of your treatment...)
>
> My guess is that the conditioner people probably overtreat in their
> recommended dose "just in case" and then the aquarium owners overdose
> "just in case."
>
> I would bet that in most aquariums there is significant "dechlor" excess
> capacity already in the water...
>
> Does the declor stuff age out? NetMax? Jim?
>
> -Donald
> --
> "When you've lost your ability to laugh, you've lost your ability to
> think straight." -To Inherit the Wind

[D&M]

Added bonus.. City draws from 8 wells in the country, pumped up and gravity
delivered into the city central for treatment. Besides these 8 wells, they
have wells within the city. All combine into one central water plant. Talk
about adding variables.

> But, what did they do to drop the pH. New water supply, different
chemicals. Next wednesday I'll head
> to City hall and get the water reports to know what's up.
>
> Cheers
>
>

[D&M]

Just curious of those that use Pythons, when getting to the top of the tank
and slowing the flow of water with the valve, does heavy cloudy water come
out and into the tank? Like this cloud this thick, can't see through it,
disipates in the tank after about 3-5 minutes, but it's a heavy cloud.


"Stan" > wrote in message
...
> The well water here in my area, both the city wells and my personal
> well, all have high levels of CO2 dissolved in. My unaged virgin water
> is at a pH of 7.0 - 7.2, but after it equalizes its CO2 with the
> atmosphere the pH is 8.2
>
> When I do water changes in a few of my tap water tanks, there are a lot
> of little bubbles....bubbling up.
>
>
> "D&M" > wrote in message
> ...
> > Added bonus.. City draws from 8 wells in the country, pumped up and
> gravity
> > delivered into the city central for treatment. Besides these 8 wells,
> they
> > have wells within the city. All combine into one central water plant.
> Talk
> > about adding variables.
> >
> > > But, what did they do to drop the pH. New water supply, different
> > chemicals. Next wednesday I'll head
> > > to City hall and get the water reports to know what's up.
> > >
> > > Cheers
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>

[coelacanth]

Never had that happen with mine. I do get water with extremely
fine bubbles which looks cloudy, but this is never that opaque
and it dissipates in a minute or so.

-coelacanth

"D&M" > wrote in message
...
> Just curious of those that use Pythons, when getting to the top of the tank
> and slowing the flow of water with the valve, does heavy cloudy water come
> out and into the tank? Like this cloud this thick, can't see through it,
> disipates in the tank after about 3-5 minutes, but it's a heavy cloud.
>
>
> "Stan" > wrote in message
> ...
> > The well water here in my area, both the city wells and my personal
> > well, all have high levels of CO2 dissolved in. My unaged virgin water
> > is at a pH of 7.0 - 7.2, but after it equalizes its CO2 with the
> > atmosphere the pH is 8.2
> >
> > When I do water changes in a few of my tap water tanks, there are a lot
> > of little bubbles....bubbling up.
> >
> >
> > "D&M" > wrote in message
> > ...
> > > Added bonus.. City draws from 8 wells in the country, pumped up and
> > gravity
> > > delivered into the city central for treatment. Besides these 8 wells,
> > they
> > > have wells within the city. All combine into one central water plant.
> > Talk
> > > about adding variables.
> > >
> > > > But, what did they do to drop the pH. New water supply, different
> > > chemicals. Next wednesday I'll head
> > > > to City hall and get the water reports to know what's up.
> > > >
> > > > Cheers
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>
>

[NetMax]

"D&M" > wrote in message
...
> Just curious of those that use Pythons, when getting to the top of the
tank
> and slowing the flow of water with the valve, does heavy cloudy water
come
> out and into the tank? Like this cloud this thick, can't see through
it,
> disipates in the tank after about 3-5 minutes, but it's a heavy cloud.
<snip>

You can achieve this effect by only partially opening a faucet when
filling a tank. I think what is happening is air entrapment. When it
crosses past the faucet's restriction, it goes from high pressure, to
expanding (exploding) into a lower pressure. The trapped air when this
happens makes the water very cloudy with tiny air bubbles. This air
entrapment can be a real nuisance in extreme cases. It is deliberately
done in some filter systems as it oxygenates the water very well, but
getting rid of the bubbles before it goes back in the aquarium is the
trick ;o)

NetMax