Fish Dying

[iKon]

Hello, Im pulling my hair out here.

I have just put in an undergravel filter system in my 4'x18"x18" tank with 3mm gold gravel, the tank has been established for 5 months now and it was starting to get on top of me(cleaning wise) hence putting in the undergravel.

Now i have lost 6 discus in 7 days.
I had slight ammonia but according to the test kit it was in the green so it was not so bad. The ammonia has pretty much gone now and it has no nitrite or nitrate. The temp is 29degrees and the ph is 6.8.

Im doing a 20% water change every 2 days adding cycle, hard metals remover and a cap of melafix to minimise stress.

I have some corydoras (bronze and albino) and 2 bristlenose in there as well. They are feed once in the morning around 8:00am and then when i get home at 6:00pm and then again when i goto sleep around 11:00pm.

Within 10 minutes of feeding them there is no food left at all they are picking at the gravel trying to look for more, occansionaly i will give them some more.

PLEASE HELP ME, WHAT AM I DOING WRONG....

[flukes]

omg dont tell me that i love your fish!!! damn!!
Well any ammonia is deadly, nitrite is not so bad but still a concern. You left an established filter running while installing the undergravel didn't you?? If so then the ammonia/nitrite peak shouldn't have started again as the bacteria from the other filter would have just spread to the new under gravel filter. I was reading your posts on installing this undergravel, the other day. And it all sounded like things went well.
Well i can't see any obvious cause other than the ammonia but i dont think it would have been a problem over 6 days if you already had an established filter. You didn't give the established filter a clean when you put in the undergravel did you??

I cant think of anything else maybe someone else might be able to help.

Scott

P.S - To prevent any more dying, give them too me.....actually id probably increase the fatalities, better not...

[Annie]

Now i have lost 6 discus in 7 days.
I had slight ammonia but according to the test kit it was in the green so it was not so bad. The ammonia has pretty much gone now and it has no nitrite or nitrate. The temp is 29degrees and the ph is 6.8.

When it comes to ammonia, it is never "not so bad"...Any ammonia is not a good thing. Each fish has it own tolerance levels that it will except with ammonia or nitrite toxins. Discus especially, can be extremly sensitive to these toxins. Even at 1 ppm it can be lethal and kill the fish.



Im doing a 20% water change every 2 days adding cycle, hard metals remover and a cap of melafix to minimise stress.



Why are you adding CYCLE? If you are using it for bacteria...it has no live nytrifying bacteria in it. If you want to use something that will work, use Bio-Spira. It does contain the live nytrifying bacteria. I would toss the CYCLE, it is garbage.
And you are using hard metal removers...what is it you are using?
Do these hard metal remover also dechlorinate? You need to be using a dechlorinator of some kind. There are many brands, like Kordon Novaqua, Aquarium Pharmecuticals Stress Coat, Tap Water Conditioner, Hagen Aqua Plus, Tetra AquaSafe Water Conditioner..There are so many out there..

Also, when you have toxins in your tank, you will want to do daily water changes and not every two days..You want to dilute those toxins as much and as fast as possible. Water changes are the only way. :wink:

I know that you said the tank had been running for some time, but reading all of this I am confused...Is the tank fully cycled? You have no nitrATES. And in an established cycled tank, there are always going to be nitrATES.


As flukes had asked, did you start with a new filter? If you have then, I think maybe you could be cycling again, you distrupted the biologial filtration.

Please post back, we are here to help you.

[flukes]

Naa annie i been following this on another forum, he had the tank setup and wanted to install an undergravel filter while still runnning the tank. He did and every thing was put in but i am FAIRLY (ask him for sure) that there was a established filter running the whole time. If so i can see there being a problem with the ammonia/nitrite peak again would there?? I dont think there was any fish added so there would have been no larger bio-load on the established filter.

Id love to see anyone's response to this because i am very intrested to see if installing the new filter, WHILST the established was running, would cause a problem.

The only other thing i could think of would be if you cleaned the established filter, when or close after installing the UG.

Well other then finding an answer i totally agree with Annie on the water changes, as many as you can do, DO. Even if you can do 2 a day, one in the morning and one at night, at least this will lesson the amount of ammonia going into your tank.

One other thing test your tap water it might have some ammonia in it. Also test the hot and cold tap, as i noticed that my hot tap water has a lower ph, there must be something in the hot water system that is making it more acidic but just an idea.

Scott

[Annie]

One other thing test your tap water it might have some ammonia in it. Also test the hot and cold tap, as i noticed that my hot tap water has a lower ph, there must be something in the hot water system that is making it more acidic but just an idea.

I did not know this...I will have to test my self and see the out come..

And thanks for explaining in the above post...but I still am wondering about a "cycle" weather it be a mini cycle or not. It is not safe for thoses Discus in the tank. Especially with the toxins at even small levels.

Water change...Water change...Water change...Water change... :wink:

[flukes]

yeah i wouldn't be adding the cycle.
With the hot and cold tap, it might be just mine, its an electric system so see how things go and i tell me because i want to see if this happens with others..

[iKon]

Ok a little update on whats happend. :(

I did a water change on all my tanks from the tap like I normally do (adding water conditioner, cycle & melafix).
My fish looked terrible within minutes so i tested the water again, I had a HUGE amount of ammonia in the water that was not in there 30 mins before. So I tested the water directly out of the tap. And to my suprise it was a HUGE amount of ammonia in the water. So I drained 40% of the water so the filters would work more efficiently (made sense to me at the time). Called up south east water and they said they don't use ammonia in the pipes. They sent out a guy to test the water and saw that there was ammonia in the water and also a HIGH amount of iron (20 times the normal amount Great for the plants). He flushed the mains at the top of my court for 2 hours and then flushed our pipes and the ammonia was gone, but was still left with a slightly higher then normal iron level which I hope shouldn't be to high for the fish. I only have 8 left of the 24 fish that were effected, they are all looking fine and eatting well, but 1 does have a cloudy eye.

So pretty much crisis over, ammonia was coming from my taps.. WATCH YOUR TAPS !!!!!!

[Proteus]

ikon...

A couple of suggestions (only wish I could have advised you sooner)...

NOOOOOOOOO to the UGF... down the track it will cause you more headaches than it is worth, plus it gives the nasties a nice place to hide... loads of gunk... ewwwwwwwwwwww....

The other thing is go to BIG W, Target, K-Mart etc and get a $40 tap filter (cartridges are usually about $10) they have a switch on them to activate the filter, I use one on top of adding Dechlor and other goodies, and it works a treat...

other than that invest in a RO unit 2,3 or 4 phase would work well... not cheap but when you think about the loss you have sustained... it would pay for itself.

[Mattzilla]

under gravel filters are NOT good for discus tanks. like proteus said they trap all the craps and nasties IN YOUR TANK...when it comes to discus you want to get all the crap and nasties out of the water. not stuck inside some sort of filter.

for discus tank filtration i reccomend sponge filters and a canister filter with a pre filter sponge on the intake pipe.

works for me.

[Pyroman]

Let me not be a proponent of UGF's here... but I wanted to clarify something. A UGF is one of the BEST bio-filtration mediums we have. No, I'm not crazy, I did say BEST *LOL*. But, as has been noted, they trap all kinds of nasties underneath, and unless you are absolutely religious about backflushing your plate, and cleaning it on a really regular basis, it can soon become your worst enemy.

A UGF with standard air lift tubes, is basically a sponge filter. You have moderate water flow through a medium, the substrate, that collects debris and forces water to pass over it.

A UGF with powerheads, in essence, is a large canister filter. Your media is the substrate, and the pump(s) are the powerheads.

Now the nasty part...

The difference between that UGF, and a sponge or canister filter, you can't take out the media and rinse it clean. Imagine that "canister" or "sponge" filter you never EVER cleaned... dark, low oxygen levels (as it begins to clog), lots of nasty organics breaking down, and anerobic bacteria just having a party in there.

This introduces all kinds of great stuff into your water, things like hydrogen sulfide and nitrates galore. Not good.

That's my two bits... and I'll step off the soapbox now...

I just hate to rant about how bad UGF's are and not clarify what I mean. Something about sounding like your parents when they say "Because I said so..." or something :wink:

[flukes]

Well i currently have a ug in my 3fter and it seems to be ok, i clean the gravel every day with a gravel vac when doing water changes. But iam sure there still must be nasties underneath the plates, how would i go about back flushing?? Should i stick a power head down the uplifts?? iam guessing this will throw all kinds of dirt and mess into the water and will have to give the filter a good clean afer it cleared??

I think i might wait till iget the new 4fters so i can clean under it proberly with the fish out of the way.
But do i have the right idea of back flushing??

Cheers
Scott

P.S - This is not the only filtration i also have a ehiem canister 2213 and a small sponge filter.

[luvfishies]

Scott, just get some flexible hosing and stuff it down the uplift tubes and under the plates. Siphon as usual.

I think you will be surprised at the goop that comes out :P

I will never use UGF in any of the tanks here.