Bad start to the day

[naturalart]

The only thing one has to worry about with rainwater is the surfaces the rainwater is running over before it gets into a barrel. For example some roof surfaces can contain toxic substances. And also, in the past, if you are living near a highly populated area or a major freeway 'acid' rain could be a factor. Nowadays cars are running a lot cleaner though and better air quality regulations have been enacted in many areas.

[john82]

I may just go for the HMA option. Can't decide yet.

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I have had a bit more of a think about this.

substantial pH drop should be part of your differential diagnosis

This really depends upon your water, usually a rapid pH drop and dead fish are both symptoms of the same problem, rather than the pH drop being the cause of the fish death.

n 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.

This is a good point, and I would agree with this for the L201, but the behaviour of the Ancistrus certainly points towards oxygen issues.

Wrasse what made you ask about feeding bloodworm?

Again I would keep away from frozen bloodworm. I've fed live blood-worms, ranched in buckets of rainwater with grass clippings in for several years without any problems, but there is a lot of examples of total wipe-out following frozen blood-worms, as suggested both decomposition an heavy metals appear to be implemented.

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.

No, they just plumb in very easily, my friend Bob,(the late much missed "Macvsog23", possibly the most clued up plec breeder who has ever lived), was a great believer in HMA filtering, using it for for the tap water that he cut his RO with (our tap water is about 17dKH). It doesn't remove carbonate hardness or effect pH.

I've used rain-water without any problem since the 1970's, and I would recommend it. If you are worried about contamination you can carbon filter it before use. I use a simpler technique, the "Daphnia bioassay". This just means you have Daphnia in your water butt, as long as the water has swimming Daphnia it is good to go. I didn't invent this method, it is actually one used by the water industry. <http://www.ibridgenetwork.org/warf/daph ... -disrupter>.

cheers Darrel

[john82]

Cheers darrel
Thanks for the info.
On a plus side no more losses now so hopefully in a while I can start restocking.

[john82]

Well iv got my HMA filter set up and started doing some water changes.
No more loses for over a week now and all looks good.
Going to give it another week before I slowly start restocking

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Pleased to hear that, sounds like it was a water issue, possibly "emergency dosing" with chloramine. Hopefully the HMA filter should stop that happening again.

I really don't like straight tap water for aquariums, even if it is good quality supply you are still reliant on the water company not adding anything toxic to fish.

Best of luck.

cheers Darrel

[john82]

My luck goes from bad to worse.
Seems I now have callimanus worms in the tank.
These must have been there for a while as I have not added any new fish for over a month.
Iv managed to source treatment for these just waiting for it to arrive.
The treatment is almost as bad as the worms though so I think I'll be losing more fish over the coming weeks.

[victoriaz24]

Sorry for your losses, I just had something very similar happen to me at the beginning of the week, I woke up in the morning to find my L142, a Featherfin Syno, all my neons, glowlight tetras, silvertip tetras, all but 2 Zebra Danios, & my bloodfin tetras all dead. Then the next morning I found my Yoyo loach, & L205 dead as well. My other Featherfin was on her last legs & my Stripped Rapheal catfish was also on it's last legs, so I took those 2 out & put them in a different tank, where they recovered in a few days.

I too narrowed it down to some kind of poisning. I think it was from a knife I had in the tank that I used to hold down a large peice of zucinni the week before then the plecos burried it & I forgot about it. The L205, L142, & Featherfin all had blood blotches on their bellies & my Raphy, her stripes were red from blood instead of normal beige. The knife was just a old dull butter knife that was stainless steel & was washed before using.

Everything is now fine in the tank & haven't lost any of the remaining fish including the other plecos but I sure lost alot in 36 hours.