Bad start to the day

[john82]

I did my usual check of the tank this morning. To find my group of l201s all dead for no apparent reason the male was sat on eggs. My remaining fish and last two remaining plecos. My bristlenoes are all hugging the filter so closely they are virtually in it.
Iv tested my water all param are good and iv also tested the tap water no issues there either. All filters are working fine and plenty of air in there also.
Took me a few secs to realise they were dead as they were all sat in there normal hangouts.
Words can't describe how annoyed I am at the moment. Well not the ones I can write here anyway.

[N0body Of The Goat]

Sorry for your losses, losing fish with no obvious cause is never easy.

The temp is ok, isn't it? Only asking because the one time my Garra Flavatra started hugging the FX5 intake strainer was when I lowered the temp in the 5x2x2 below 20C, as I was under the impression at the time that the Garra would still be fine. Moved the fish to another tank that was at 24C and it was relatively hyperactive!

What's the plan? A massive water change to see if that perks up the survivors?

[john82]

The temp is steady at 28 iv just done a large water change.
And stuck some carbon in my filter for a few days just in case.
And see what happens.
Gives me the chance to increase my panaques to a group may replace them with a group of l204s. Will be giving it some time before I do though

[smitty]

Sorry to hear about that. That is puzzling.

[Jools]

What was the last thing they ate?

Jools

[john82]

New era pleco pellets that I stuck in last night.
My last four plecos are sat at the top of the tank behind the filter still. Really wiered.
As there is plenty of air etc in the tank. My nanacaras and black widow tetras are still swimming around normally.
With the exception of one black widow tetra that has just started hovering at the surface.

[dw1305]

Hi all,

All filters are working fine and plenty of air in there also. .......My last four plecos are sat at the top of the tank behind the filter still. Really wiered

I'm sorry for your losses, it is a horrible thing to happen. Keep up the water changes, whilst it may sound counter-intuitive the visible air bubbles you see won't have much effect on the level of aeration of the water.

If you have bottom dwelling fish near the top of the tank, you should always suspect that it is an oxygen issue. L201 are rheophilic fish, they never experience low oxygen levels in nature and have no ability to survive sub-optimal oxygen levels that won't immediately kill fish from less naturally oxygen rich water.

Oxygen deficiency very frequently relates to biological filtration, the conversion of NH3 - NO2 - NO3 is an oxygen intensive process. We had a lot of problems in the winter of 2010/11 in the UK, where emergency chloramine dosing of the tap supply, following water main damage, caused loads of people to lose fish.

This happens quite a lot, so have a look here: <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =4&t=33918>, <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... xygenation> & <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =5&t=33883>.

Best of luck, cheers Darrel

[bassgenie]

The last comment makes sense. I recently lost 3 of 7 of my 204's for a similar rreason. There was no obvious apparent reason for it. Really stinks, sorry.

[john82]

That's the only thing I can think of as well
Is there any way of stopping this happening again.
I can't really get any more agitation of the surface water it would be like a set of rapids.
I lost another catfish this morning.
Really not happy.
I'm not going to do another water change as I think that is making it worse.

[Barbie]

When did you last add new fish? Examining the newly dead under a microscope for parasites would be my first suggestion. Continued losses screams oodinium or chilodonella infestations, IME.

Barbie

[zeebo]

so sorry for you loss, been there ,so I can assure you I know how you feel. So if oxygen is the suspected culprit,and someone said air stones are not adding much , then why do we use them, are they only adding a little bit of oxygen and not enough to maintain the tank? I use one air stone, but also drop the water level a few inches as I have 2 hob, ac70's on my 54g. I keep a marker where I want the water level to remain after wc/vacuums, so I don't forget and overfill. But I read this and don't see the sense in having a stone now. I removed the hydra-sponge ,which gave a lot of surface movement, should I put it back in ?

Again,sorry for your loss and appologies for stealing your thread, it is just confusing. Hope you can get things rolling again soon.

Georgie

[john82]

It's been over a month since iv added any new fish.
I'm confused about the oxygen as well not sure how i can get any more agitation.
I don't have a O2 test kit so can really check it at the moment.

[Jools]

Have you recently disturbed the substrate and what is it / how deep?

Jools

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Do you have another source of water? rain water? or RO from a LFS? It may be that the water supply is being treated with chloramine, constantly adding NH3 to your tank and over-whelming the biological filtration. A useful clue is if there is any water main work in your area (road works for pipe replacement, new houses being built etc.)

I wrote an article specifically about oxygenation for plec keepers,it is presently housed at: "Aeration and dissolved oxygen in the aquarium" <http://plecoplanet.com/?page_id=829/>

It is really difficult to measure dissolved oxygen, or the demand for oxygen from the (chemical and biological) processes in the tank. Good places to start are to place your filter return above the water surface (as Zeebo suggests), and ensure that the media in the canister filter aren't restricting flow. I usually have a sponge pre-filter, and then just 1/2 fill the canister with ceramic rings. Pipes that need a clean are another major cause of slow flow.

This oxygen demand parameter has a name, the "Biochemical Oxygen Demand" or BOD, and it is the method that scientists use to quantify the level of pollution of streams and rivers. There are some "estimation of BOD" details in "wood for tanks?" - <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =4&t=35930>.

The easiest ways to increase the oxygenation of your tank are:
1. To add growing plants, some details here: <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... e&start=20>
2. To use a filter with a very large gas exchange surface, by this I mean a "wet and dry" trickle filter, where the water film area is very large as it flows over the biological media.

Have a look a this post:
"higher temps/oxygenation levels"
<http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... ir+bubbles>

I hope that helps.

cheers Darrel

[Scleropages]

If you have bottom dwelling fish near the top of the tank, you should always suspect that it is an oxygen issue.

This is not necessarily accurate. A substantial pH drop should be part of your differential diagnosis.

[wrasse]

Hi John82,

Its a puzzle and a sad loss of fish for you.

From your description, I'd say there's plenty of oxygen and current in the tank.

It does sound like poisoning to me... either the water or the food.
If you use a water conditioner, make sure it says that it neutralises chloramine, as not all of them do. The thing is, chloromine would affect your other fish too...?
Have you recently fed your fish frozen bloodworm?

- Richard

[minkweir]

I had the same thing with my 12 dwarf chain loach...all 12 died..the tank is completely taken over by plants and 2 sources of oxygen(I test my water every week and the perameters are ALL great) and has been running a 13months with only the odd fatality(5 cardinals over a 9mth period)....the other fish...40 cardinal tetras and 5 torpedo barbs are fine(no losses).I'm particularly upset for 2 reasons.1 they were hard to obtain(espensive). 2 when I removed the corpses 1 female burst its abdomen as I grabbed it and was full of eggs.
The only thing that was different was I fed them a different brand of frozen bloodworm to the usual.
I'm thinking there was a contaminent in the worms(bacteria/fungus/or some other toxin)Maybe the shop had allowed the worms to defrost and then refrozen the worms?
I have 16 other tanks and 0 losses in them since I acquired any new fish.
Most perplexing!

[minkweir]

Oh I just read Wrasses comment about bloodworm......Wrasse what made you ask about feeding bloodworm?

[Scleropages]

Based on john82's description and follow up answers, one can not rule out poisoning and/or bacterial infection. The fact that they all died within a short period of time (overnight) makes me suspect poisoning rather than infection. It would have to be a very virulent strain of bug to kill that many specimens that quickly. However, there could have been an infection AND a change in water parameters causing shock leading to death. Still, poisoning seems more likely, especially since a new food was added prior to the mortalities. Have you fed the New era pleco pellets to fish in any other tanks? Maybe your food came from a bad batch? Just diagnosing "out loud" here.

[Birger]

Don't leave out the possibility of it being as simple as someone doing you a favor and cleaning the glass...with a poisonous cleaner of some kind.

What is the cleaning routine?

Birger

[wijnands]

On land a virus that kills overnight is extremely rare because it would be self-defeating.

In my (limited with L-species) experience fish that die from PH or low oxygene levels are not likely to be in their normal spots, they'd go looking for a way out of the bad water. So.. poisoning of some kind would be my first hypothesis.

Personally I'd never get new fish unless I'd figured out the cause of the loss. I'd be way to scared of it happening again.

[krazyGeoff]

Sorry for your loss.
I was thinking poisoning too.
Was there a gas heater? (produces CO2) near the intake for the air pump?
Was there any painting, or fly spray, or glass cleaner?
Flea bomb, or something outside that affected the air?
I'm also wondering if there was any special treatments made to the water supply, for the Olympics or some random thing like that.

I hope an answer is found.
Cheers

[wrasse]

@ minkweir... feeding frozen bloodworm to pleco species can be risky. This was confirmed for me some time ago, in a conversation with Neil at Pier Aquatics. Whether its due to a bad batch, I don't know, but he's lost plecs after feeding it, while other fish are unaffected.
Well-established fish are probably less at risk.

[john82]

Hi guys
Thank you for all your responses.
It was my wedding yesterday hence no responses.
Iv come back today to no more losses.
Which makes me think poisoning from some thing the water company has put in the water.
In regards to substrate there is about 2 inches oh small gravel I vacumme the tank twice a week when doing my water changes. I do a 40 litre water change and vacumme the top surface of the gravel. Then every Sunday I do a 60 to 70 litre water change and give the gravel a good turn over round the tank.
Once a month I remove all caves and give all the substrate a turn over.
Iv been feeding the new era pellets for a while no new tub or any thing. So dont think it was them.
Only thing I can think of is the water. All water parameters are spot on.

Stopping water changes seems to have stopped the losses my three remaining plecos are back at the bottom of the tank.
I'm going to leave the changes for a bit now as the tank is so lightly stocked.
I'm going to look into HMA filters and set one of them up to try and stop this happening again.
Does any one have any experience with this are they easy to set up and run. I plan to run it off the mains then fill 25 l drums for wc.
Does the filter effect ph etc.

[Jools]

I did something very similar once (with a tank of prized clown loaches). If found out later I had disturbed gases in the substrate which poisoned the water. The loaches kept the top layer over gravel turned over and the external power filter kept the tank spotless but the gravel was rotting away - quite harmlessly until it was disturbed. It only killed the loaches, other fishes survived.

Just seemed quite similar to your misfortune.

Jools

[john82]

That could be the reason. I always try to make sure I turn the gravel over completely once a week though and iv had no spikes in and readings.
I plan to have multiple tanks set up In the near future so I think I'll give HMA a go and see how I get in from there. Hopefully I can prevent this from happening in the future

[Scleropages]

Yes, the gases that anaerobic bacteria can produce can be very detrimental to the fish if they are suddenly released into the water column. That's one of the reasons why I am leary of canister filters. If, for some reason, the power goes out and a canister filter does not turn back on when the power comes back (and goes unnoticed for a while), it will start to build up with anaerobic bacteria and the products of their metabolism. If the filter then randomly comes on after a few days, it will pump your water full of noxious gases.

john82, can you collect rainwater? You can always use that for your water changes. I use it with all of my tanks except for my African rift lake tank.

[john82]

Did think about rain water but I was recommend not to.
Do you just test it and put it straight in the tank

[Scleropages]

No testing needed. Assuming your gutters, funnels, hoses, collecting bins, etc. are clean, the rainwater you collect should be able to go right into your tank as long as the temp is close. I have no data to back this up but I believe rain water will not vary much in pH and will have very little, if any, mineral content. It is nature's very own RO system.

[john82]

Cool may look into setting up a collection tank then