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
Help please 3 fish down!
- alan.s (alan)
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Could do with some help. 2 mollies died on me today and 1 neon. In the last hour or so all mollies tigers an neons are at tha surface of the water. Iv checked parameters and did a water change. 96 ltr tank.
Ammonia-0
Ph-6
nitrite-0.3
nitrate-10
I have changed to another air stone to increase air flow and removed hood. I also last week instaled an external filter(to get rid of internal) and both still running. I have a bad cold at the min is it possable they could have caught something from me through feeding or anything? Is there anything elce I can do?
Thanks in advance.
Al
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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How long have you had the fish? and how long has the tank been set-up
What temp is that tank at?
What is the source of water, and is it conditioned correctly?
How many fish do you have in the tank, and what type?
Does the water have any cloudiness?
Are any fish shimmying?
Normally, I would say that mollies and acidic water is not a great mix, but if other fish are ill then that may be a red-herring.
ian
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- alan.s (alan)
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Since posting lost 1 tiger but all fish back at normal spots in tank now so I must have done something right. Would happen when i only bought a qt tank the other day( not set up yet)
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- Ma (mm mm)
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If they're at the surface it can mean they are trying to get air, so that could mean a problem with the gills, you havent accidentially sprayed something near the tank like polish of window cleaner, or something on your hands when doing maint.
Your setup has been running months without adding new fish, sudden deaths usually means though not always, that parameters have changed suddenly, be it toxins or ph level.
No new decor added lately, new filter and media was cleaned out first?
How are you controlling PH?
Mark
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- alan.s (alan)
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I think worst is over now they all seem back to normal thank god. Thanks for your quick response guys!
Could only happen whilst I'm I'll!
Al
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- Ma (mm mm)
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Mark
that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to find out why:)
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- Damian_Ireland (Damian_Ireland)
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- Ma (mm mm)
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I had 85 tetras 30 corydoras 3 BN 1 whiptail 100s of cherry shrimp in a 300L heavily planted
Required two filters and water changes from hell but naer a problem except a bit of algae.
Mark
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- alan.s (alan)
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Thanks for your help mark fingers crossed no more problems in the morning

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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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If your pH were alkaline (well above 7) then there is always the possibility of ammonia poisoning; but there is still the high potential of ammonia poisoning (and a water ammonia test of zero means nothing really) in acid conditions if certain conditions exist.
Of course it may be that there is lack of oxygen in the tank....that is why I was asking if you have a cloudiness (biological overload).
The bog-wood.....are there any bubbles coming from it? does it have a microbial growth on it?
Check around your tank for decaying food and remove it. Do a partial water change and use something like tetra AquaSafe or other with a Vitamin B1 addition. Clean out the filters...and get rid of any mulm build-up in the tubes etc.
As for overstocking? well, maybe maybe not. I'd have to do some calculations first.

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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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Main thing is to watch the tank in the coming days.How much of a water change did you do?
Ease off the feeding for the moment and increase the water changes. Also aerate the water if you can.
I wonder could it be some form of metal poisioning or something like that? Often the test kits wont show those results.
The fact the plecos are at the surface could suggest lack of oxygen,but on the side of caution perhaps remove the bogwood and give it a good boil in water while increasing the oxygen content.
Keep an eye on it,its only 3 fish but its enough to be concerned I would think. Was interesting that the tiger barb found a new lease of life,good idea!
Keep us posted on it.
Gavin
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- alan.s (alan)
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Cheers Al
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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The PH,are they tap water and tank water the same PH ?
Gavin
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- alan.s (alan)
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Thanks again guys and I'll keep ye posted

Al
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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How much of a water change did you do tonight ? Id probably do another water change tomorrow night if you've only done about 20% tonight.
The PH,are they tap water and tank water the same PH ?
Gavin
Yep. No harm in a water change again.
I forgot to ask, what colour were the gills filaments of the deceased fish? Pink, Brown, Red, White, very pale?
Now, the other thing is the possibility of a gill infection.....I wouldn't normally bring that one in too soon as the most common causes are the ones already mentioned in this thread (99.99% of deaths in a tank are rarely due to some new alien disease..if you see what I mean.) Checking for disease would come way down on the list in such cases.
ian
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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Check the taps PH and compare to the tanks PH. I wouldnt do abit on the PH front until you can compare,if they are the same Id leave it alone for now. Also check the test kit expiry date and finally let us know what test kit you are using (is it strips?).
Oh and mind that cold!!!!!!
Gavin
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- alan.s (alan)
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well bad news is barb did not last the night. good news is everyone else is grand

test kit is a nutrafin test kit (it chemical)bbf:31/12/12
today's results before today's water change
ammonia 0
ph 6.5-7
nitrite 0.1
nitrate between 5-10 (its not very disguisable)
gills were a little pinky and pale on deceased but was hard to tell to be honest.
did another water change today and did not feed today and left light off,does this sound like the right course of action?
Cher AL
PS Cold is a lot better today

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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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. one thing i did realise was my water softener was empty on salt could that have had an effect? (i did refill it today).
Hi Alan, IMO this could be the problem, or at least part of the problem.
The salt used to soften water is not good for fish. But you dont seem to have had a problem with it so far so i'm thinking it was when the salt ran out it had an effect on the fish.
I think for this to happen you would have to change a lot of water in one go or a lot over a few days.
Since you have added salt again to your water softener i would leave the water changes for a few days untill your fish get used to the water you added with no salt.
When you start changing water again in a few days only change about 5-10% every few days untill they get used to the salt again.
I hope that makes sense.
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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alan.s wrote:
. one thing i did realise was my water softener was empty on salt could that have had an effect? (i did refill it today).
Hi Alan, IMO this could be the problem, or at least part of the problem.
The salt used to soften water is not good for fish. But you dont seem to have had a problem with it so far so i'm thinking it was when the salt ran out it had an effect on the fish.
I think for this to happen you would have to change a lot of water in one go or a lot over a few days.
Since you have added salt again to your water softener i would leave the water changes for a few days untill your fish get used to the water you added with no salt.
When you start changing water again in a few days only change about 5-10% every few days untill they get used to the salt again.
I hope that makes sense.
Aagh, that bit of kit wasn't mentioned at first....I'd agree with Platy now that that bit of info is available.
Is the water softener a Permutit type one ( a single ion-exchange resin)? (a bit like a domestic water sofetner for washing machine installations).
Your water will be lacking magnesium and calcium buffering (and redox)....the mollies would not like that.
You'll also make the water unstable, and small changes in various things like lighting or filter activity can make transient large pH swings.
And, if the water softerner is a Permutit style then you could be getting a sodium/potassium if your tap water is quite hard.
ian
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- alan.s (alan)
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Will take your advice lads thanks. Things seemed to have calmed down a good bit thank god. And with my time off sick iv been making preparations for the other tank to get going (one advantage to being sick ).
Sorry never thought of softener in the beginning guys, and thanks again for all the help makes me glad I joined this club

Al
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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Do you know the hardness of the water before it goes through the salts to be softened?
I would avoid the softener if at all possible.
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- Jim (Jim Lawlor)
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Ive just been through all this with softeners.
One thing to try is bring a sample to your Lfs to see if there's much salt in the water. Depending on how hard the original water is, how old the softener and whether it's been serviced, there might be a lot of salt in the water or almost none at all. I brought a sample of mine to FFF and there was no detectable salt.
Also, are there other filters on your water? Some of them, even if not RO, take a lot of minerals out and as Ian said, will make the water unstable.
An option, until you establish everything, is to get remineralised RO water from your lfs for water changes until you know exactly what's going on.
Jim
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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This water softener issue is bugging me a bit.
Do you happen to know what type of water softener it is? (make or model or style or even what salt exactly is being added).
Is this attached to the main cold-water supply?
There is a possibility that the unit is not actually a 'water softener' proper, but a de-ionising or RO-based water system. (although complete de-ionisers soften water, they are not specifically called a 'water softeners').
ian
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- alan.s (alan)
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Cheers Al
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- alan.s (alan)
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- aoife (aoife tansey)
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- Ma (mm mm)
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ok i give up cant re-size pics an not able to concentrate on it :)name on softener is Crisma. oh and no other filters attached.
Hi matey, Photobucket is rubbish slow and messy and resizes your pics upon upload to a small size.
Register on www.postimage.org/
When you upload pictures wont resize
Also when you upload pics, when they finish uploading the links will appear at the bottom of the web page and all you do is copy and paste onto your post here, easy as, no editing of the code and pics are posted as small until you click on one and it will pop up full size. Very handy site.
mark
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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The principle is that the ion-exchange material is a sodium based resin, and when you pass hard water of it the resin will take the calcium and magnesium ions out of the water and replace them with sodium ions.
So....effectively, the concentration of sodium pumped out of the water softener is twice the concentration of the calcium or magnesium in the original hard water. ie if the incoming water is hard, then the sodium content will increase in the output.
But, the sodium concentration itself is not the only problem. A bigger concern (for me) is the removal of the calcium and magnesium......removal of these remove pH buffering and redox buffering as well as an inbalance of divalent electrolytes (needed for normal function).
Although something else might be wrong, these points alone will cause symptoms you mention.
I'd add some stuff to harden the water a bit...be careful of course.
ian
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