In article ,
says...
Gunther wrote:

- as of about 3 weeks ago, my water district switched to chloramine;
I was aware of this and switched from Novaqua to Amquel, at least
that was the plan.

Um... I think you're supposed to use both together... (At least I always
have).

I do as well, but I've always used Amquel as an afterthought:
a couple of teaspoons of novaqua as the main dechlor + 1 of
amquel as insurance. As of Feb 1st I reversed the roles:
2 tsp amquel for dechlor + 1 of novaqua for it's slime effect.


The high nitrates makes me wonder about gunk in the gravel/substrate or
trapped in the filter media. IIRC you are a sand sorta guy, right?

Yes, I am a sand sorta guy, and this tank does have sand.
In this particular tank it's a fairly coarse black sand that's
easy to spot when it's where it oughtn't be. I'm pretty careful
about keeping this particular tank's filters clean also, because
it's one of those #%$&! Eclipse things that I think is poorly
designed. In fact, 6 days prior to the calamity I had cleaned
the filter pretty well, and had seen no evidence of overflow
or clogging.

As for gunk in the substrate.... I suppose it's possible, tho
I'm pretty strict about vacuuuuuming it during PWCs. It's not
deep enough to escape processing.... I'll cogitate on this
awhile.

As of this AM, it would appear that I'm not out of the woods
yet. The real jewel of this tank, a beautiful well-decorated
chubby-cheeked calico Oranda is now acting decidedly stressed,
tho not like the white one, who has always been weak and runty.

Gunther


-D