fish emergencies

[smellyfish]

hi everyone, i have a problem that i have never had before, first let me tell u about my tank, 55 gallon, medium planted with red & green plants mediu stocked with mostly raindows, 3 loaches, 17 fish altogether, i did my usually water change on saturday, do one every week, take out a good third, done my medicating as usuall & fertilizing, everything as usuall except i put in some old purigen in one of my filters, thinking i would take some pics & polish the water, i woke up sunday morning & my roseline sharks where both dorsal fin down, dead as a door knob, they have been very hardy fish, plus my 2 shrimp, wood & flower, but nothing else is wrong, i took out the purigen & done another water change, & just done one tonight but the permaters of my tank r as follows, NITRITE---.08,NITRATE----20 ppm, & AMMONIA----0.6 now iVe never had my nitrite this hi before & my nitrates have been around 10-20 & my ammonia is hi too, so whats going on, is it because i used that old purigen i found in the back of my storage or something else, i haven^t added nothin lately or done anything different except add the old purigen. i was injecting c02 by a home made bottle lastweek but stopped it last thursday, so if anyone can give me any ideas of what i should be or not be doing i would certainly appreciate it, thanks for reading & repying to my post.

kirk

[aquatica]

Hi

Any idea what the ph & kh of the water is? Also have you ever recharged the purigan in the past. You mention that it was "old" had you recharged it or was it just waiting for that to be done? Also wondering what happened with the C02 why was it discontinued. Sounds like a crash of some sort but more info required before one can figure out the actual cause.

Rudy

hi everyone, i have a problem that i have never had before, first let me tell u about my tank, 55 gallon, medium planted with red & green plants mediu stocked with mostly raindows, 3 loaches, 17 fish altogether, i did my usually water change on saturday, do one every week, take out a good third, done my medicating as usuall & fertilizing, everything as usuall except i put in some old purigen in one of my filters, thinking i would take some pics & polish the water, i woke up sunday morning & my roseline sharks where both dorsal fin down, dead as a door knob, they have been very hardy fish, plus my 2 shrimp, wood & flower, but nothing else is wrong, i took out the purigen & done another water change, & just done one tonight but the permaters of my tank r as follows, NITRITE---.08,NITRATE----20 ppm, & AMMONIA----0.6 now iVe never had my nitrite this hi before & my nitrates have been around 10-20 & my ammonia is hi too, so whats going on, is it because i used that old purigen i found in the back of my storage or something else, i haven^t added nothin lately or done anything different except add the old purigen. i was injecting c02 by a home made bottle lastweek but stopped it last thursday, so if anyone can give me any ideas of what i should be or not be doing i would certainly appreciate it, thanks for reading & repying to my post.

kirk

[Qattarra]

What color was the purigen? Was it cleaned with bleach before? Could it have still contained bleach? Did you clean out your filter?

It does sound like your filter had a crash , tank going through a cycle again. I'd add some good bacteria from another healthy tank to help reestablish your bacterial colony.

[darkangel]

Sounds like a crash to me. Been there done that bought the T-shirt (a couple times). You had mentioned that you did your medicating. What are you medicating for? Most medications will destroy benificial bacteria and cause your tank to go through a mini cycle, that would explain your higher than normal readings. Scrap the meds, add some media from an established filter, stop feeding for a day or two and 20 to 25% water change daily until it is under control.

[smellyfish]

Hi

Any idea what the ph & kh of the water is? Also have you ever recharged the purigan in the past. You mention that it was "old" had you recharged it or was it just waiting for that to be done? Also wondering what happened with the C02 why was it discontinued. Sounds like a crash of some sort but more info required before one can figure out the actual cause.

Rudy

thanks rudy, the ph is just below normal tap water settings, cann^t remember but it was just a bit below normal water, & the purigan might of been recharged cann6t remember it was at least 2-3 years old, the stuff in the bag was brown & the stuff in the bottle was white, i mixed the 2 together thinking it would be ok, i disconntinued the c02 because i couldn6t control it that well just by a valve on the line between the 2 litre pop bottle & the tank, was afraid i was over doing it with c02 & suffocating the fish,

hi everyone, i have a problem that i have never had before, first let me tell u about my tank, 55 gallon, medium planted with red & green plants mediu stocked with mostly raindows, 3 loaches, 17 fish altogether, i did my usually water change on saturday, do one every week, take out a good third, done my medicating as usuall & fertilizing, everything as usuall except i put in some old purigen in one of my filters, thinking i would take some pics & polish the water, i woke up sunday morning & my roseline sharks where both dorsal fin down, dead as a door knob, they have been very hardy fish, plus my 2 shrimp, wood & flower, but nothing else is wrong, i took out the purigen & done another water change, & just done one tonight but the permaters of my tank r as follows, NITRITE---.08,NITRATE----20 ppm, & AMMONIA----0.6 now iVe never had my nitrite this hi before & my nitrates have been around 10-20 & my ammonia is hi too, so whats going on, is it because i used that old purigen i found in the back of my storage or something else, i haven^t added nothin lately or done anything different except add the old purigen. i was injecting c02 by a home made bottle lastweek but stopped it last thursday, so if anyone can give me any ideas of what i should be or not be doing i would certainly appreciate it, thanks for reading & repying to my post.

kirk

[smellyfish]

What color was the purigen? Was it cleaned with bleach before? Could it have still contained bleach? Did you clean out your filter?

It does sound like your filter had a crash , tank going through a cycle again. I'd add some good bacteria from another healthy tank to help reestablish your bacterial colony.

thanks qattarra, half of the purigenn was snow white, i cann6t remeber if i had recharged it but most likely had, & the other half was a brown colour so i know it hadn^t been recharged, i smelled it to try to see if i could smell any bleach on it & couldn^t, the brown stuff was still in the filter bag, the white stuff was still in the container it came in. i rinse out my filters in between water changes, i use the water from the tank, but now that u mention it i imagine there was some residual bleach in it, but its funny that both of my roseline sharks died & nothin else seemed to be effected, i checked my shrimp & they both had lost one of there filtering claws, don^t know how, but at least i know i didn^t poison them,

[aquatica]

Hi

Hello Kirk I would have to assume that the most likely cause was the purigan still having some active chlorine in it. That said it is often hard to say which fish is the "canary in a coal mine". But given that red line are less likely to have been bred than the others that you mention and are probably the most expensive that would be why their tolerances may be a little lower for a chemical they have never encountered. My suggestion in a case like this is that if you see any unusual behavior in the fishes to undue if possible the things that were done and add bacteria from another filter (ie sponge) to circumvent any further damages. Chlorine usually dissipates after a short while and or becomes "neutralized" by the aquarium contents, gravel, plants etc. Thus those fishes that could tolerate it for a short while were spared. The fact that the talk has been set up for a while and you now have nitrites is also a clue that the biological filter or nitrogen cycle has been disrupted. Nitrite and ammonia are the killers in new tanks and are rarely present in an establish tank. Nitrate and ammonium is another thing altogether.

Hope the info helps for next time

Rudy

Any idea what the ph & kh of the water is? Also have you ever recharged the purigan in the past. You mention that it was "old" had you recharged it or was it just waiting for that to be done? Also wondering what happened with the C02 why was it discontinued. Sounds like a crash of some sort but more info required before one can figure out the actual cause.

Rudy

thanks rudy, the ph is just below normal tap water settings, cann^t remember but it was just a bit below normal water, & the purigan might of been recharged cann6t remember it was at least 2-3 years old, the stuff in the bag was brown & the stuff in the bottle was white, i mixed the 2 together thinking it would be ok, i disconntinued the c02 because i couldn6t control it that well just by a valve on the line between the 2 litre pop bottle & the tank, was afraid i was over doing it with c02 & suffocating the fish,

hi everyone, i have a problem that i have never had before, first let me tell u about my tank, 55 gallon, medium planted with red & green plants mediu stocked with mostly raindows, 3 loaches, 17 fish altogether, i did my usually water change on saturday, do one every week, take out a good third, done my medicating as usuall & fertilizing, everything as usuall except i put in some old purigen in one of my filters, thinking i would take some pics & polish the water, i woke up sunday morning & my roseline sharks where both dorsal fin down, dead as a door knob, they have been very hardy fish, plus my 2 shrimp, wood & flower, but nothing else is wrong, i took out the purigen & done another water change, & just done one tonight but the permaters of my tank r as follows, NITRITE---.08,NITRATE----20 ppm, & AMMONIA----0.6 now iVe never had my nitrite this hi before & my nitrates have been around 10-20 & my ammonia is hi too, so whats going on, is it because i used that old purigen i found in the back of my storage or something else, i haven^t added nothin lately or done anything different except add the old purigen. i was injecting c02 by a home made bottle lastweek but stopped it last thursday, so if anyone can give me any ideas of what i should be or not be doing i would certainly appreciate it, thanks for reading & repying to my post.

kirk