Sos Help Please

[harcsa]

Anybody can help me please??
Ilive on a small island of the coast of sth queensland Australia, we only have rain water from the local catchment area, heavily cloririnated and dissinfected with warius chemicals. my problem is in my 3feet thank is that all my cats are loosing their whiskers after about 6 weeks introduced in the thank and they all die after about 6-8 weeks. Have tryed c. aneus , paleatus, julyi, archuatusand all died . Even the glass catfish from Asia lost their feelers [whiskers] but still alive after 6 months without them. I have emperors , cardinals , silver sharks redtail sharks living happyli in the thank without any problem but my poor cats are gone , i am using a U/G filer with medium gravel feeding with frozen brine shrimps daphnia, and flakes
The water has been neutralised by WARDLEY'S aquarium quick start , the ph around 6.8-7.2 , changing a 1/3 of the water every 3 weeks.
Anybody got any suggestion how to rectify this terrible waste?? I love my fish and i am very upset when they die without any reason
Thank you in advance
Tom

[Barbie]

Cats can be more sensitive to high nitrate levels. You mention the fish are losing their whiskers, and that can definitely be a sign that you have high nitrates. I would do a 30% water change every other day for a week or two, and see how they all act after that. Nitrates is the end product of the nitrogen cycle, and a 1/3 water change every 3 weeks or so is probably not keeping up with the levels. You might also take a sample of the water in to your LFS and have it tested. The partial water changes can't hurt though, and they sometimes really help.

Barbie

[Coryman]

I find Cory's definately prefer a sandy substrate, the problem with sand is it is not suitable for UG filtering. Your medium gravel I am guesing is about 4-or 5 millimeters diameter, which will give all your Cory's a problem wnen it comes to getting at the food particles that have penertrated deep. They end up wearing their barbels away in an effort to shift the gravel to get at the food. Other problems arise from food getting into the gravel that cannot be reached, it decomposes and causes nitrate surges, as Barbie mentions this can and does cause serious barbel damage. It may be that you are simply over feeding. Heavy water changes should go hand in hand with heavy feeding. I would change 30% of the water every week as a norm but while the problem persists I would increase it to every other day. How much and how often do you feed?

I would be inclined to change the whole set up, but then again I have never been a lover of under gravel filters. As an alternative I would put a shallow glass dish, something like a small flan dish, into one corner of the tank, put a layer of fine river sand in it and use this as the Cory's dining room putting their food into the dish, some of the food will get scattered but the rest of the tank mates should take care of that.

Ian

[ZeroZ]

Im using gravel that is 0.8-1.2mm in my breeding tank, is it good?