Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)
Hi,
John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.
I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.
With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.
I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.
If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.
I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.
I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.
Thank you
Darragh Sherwin
fish loss
- robert (robert carter)
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- robert (robert carter)
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- Blue Land (Brian McGeever)
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The issue I ahd was there was no surface agitation of the water. This is where the exchange of oxygen and CO2 occurs in a tank.
If the the tank surface is flat and calm, it reduces the exchange, reducing the available oxygen and consequently causing the fish to gasp at surface.
The fact that you/ve installed a powerhead with venturi should help the issue.
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- Q_Comets (Declan Chambers)
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Gasping could be low o2 or ammonia spike did you test?
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- gunnered72 (Eddy Gunnered)
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Also test your PH...It may have crashed!
I would do a 50% water change but thats just me....(I swear by 50% water changes both as a weekly regime and in an emergency)
Because Biotopol is a dechlorinator its very hard if at all possible to overdose...I dont think thats your problem...
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- robert (robert carter)
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- alan 64 (alan)
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- robert (robert carter)
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- robert (robert carter)
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- robert (robert carter)
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- ger310 (Ger .)
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If what you say is correct regarding Co2,nothing changed in the tank etc. then these things just don't happen (i'm assuming you do weekly 15-30% water changes and maintenance)........Even if there was rotten food/fish in the tank somewhere you could not see it would have to be a lot to cause this much trouble in a 350L tank but would be worth your while checking behind wood-stones etc. at the back of the tank ......Them 2 externals your running would cause easily enough water agitation to create oxygen in the tank so unless your pointing the outflow nozzle towards the substrate it's highly unlikely it's a lack of water agitation that's causing the problem!!
Continue to do daily large water changes or if you can find the time do smaller water changes 2-3 times a day
These things don't just happen for no reason after 4-5 months of a tank being running ok so there is something your doing or not doing that needs to change ok or this will continue i'm afraid!!
Ps.i hope i'm not coming across as a dick as like the others who commented we are only trying to help you from our own experiences ok
Ger
What do you call a three legged Donkey?
A Wonkey....duh ha

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- robert (robert carter)
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- robert (robert carter)
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- Blue Land (Brian McGeever)
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When this occurred with me, it was on a long established discus tank.
I was doing and still do 25% water changes on a weekly basis. But at the time there were work and other issues at play, which stalled my filter maintenance. I think it may have gone out to 3 months.
When I thought about it afterwards, all was set up correctly originally, with the water agitating the surface, but as time went on the filter slowly got choked up with all sorts and the water flow decreased, resulting in less and less agitation of the surface.
Is it possible that you may have set your filters to perhaps barely break surface in the 1st place with the passage of time, the filter becomes less efficient in water thoughput reducing or eliminating the agitation.
I hope it makes sense.
If its any consolation, at the time, I just turned the outputs on the filter to really stir the surface and all settled down thereafter.
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- robert (robert carter)
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- robert (robert carter)
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- derek (Derek Doyle)
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30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish
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- robert (robert carter)
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- lectru (Lech)
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One of the factors that should be considered is that plants produce co2 during night. If You push limits of co2 injected in to tank during the day there is a chance that co2 from plants could rise it to toxic levels for fish.
Regards
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- robert (robert carter)
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- gunnered72 (Eddy Gunnered)
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Somebody correct me if im wrong?????
Im now wondering Robert if your Co2 system didnt switch off that night and if maybe this led to the oxygen depletion you think your fish died from?
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- robert (robert carter)
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- lectru (Lech)
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What it was about that if you had been saturating the water with CO2 during the light hours, when you turn them off, the plants stop generating O2 but still breathing, which can kill the fishes by lack of oxygen or saturation of CO2. Surface turbulence and/or airstone helps to avoid the problem, by injecting O2 into the tank, in one side, and favouring the removal of CO2, in the other side. And I would thrust drop checker to be very accurate all time but rather check Ph drop curve during co2 injection for saturation of it in the water column.
Regards
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