Rip Apistos X

[BethK]

I am really annoyed! I had a mega fish die out yesterday, lost all 3 apistos, 2 khulis and 4 corys and I am kicking myself. I personally think it was to do with the easycarbo i added, on the basis that everything went down hill from adding it.

I thought i would add a couple of pics of my poor apistos, that i had taken, before this episode;

 

[walkers101]

as said before i believe it was the apisto's also those air pockets under the sand wont help things

 

[BethK]

i spoke to the breeder, he flat out said it was my fault

tank is back to normal now, whatever it was apistos or easycarbo, neither are going back in that tank again

 

[ChilliPepper]

#128### you only got them yesterday didn't you??

As mentioned before, you really need to stir the sand occasionally to stop pockets of noxious gases building up. I'm surprised your Khulis or Corys didn't stir it up more, though it does look to be very thick.

 

[BethK]

got them tuesday morning

corys won't be stirring the sand up anymore i do it daily anyway. substrate is 2" thick, which is the advised depth for planted

 

[ian]

the bubbles under the sand wont have caused this, i very much doubt the easycarbo did either, how much was you dosing Beth?

 

[jacko32]

MTS ive found to be great for turning the sand over and they will give you a heads up on water quality if there out during the day and crawling up the glass to the top then your water is dodgy most likely new tank syndrom which killed the fish
sorry about your fish

 

[ian]

it is rather old school thinking about the noxcious gasses produced by the non stirring of sand sand doesn't really need stirring. The gas will gas off itself and rise not causing any problems. I have never stirred my sand and its been in the current tank 8 months and previous i have never stirred sand in old tanks. Never lost fish.

Apistos are notoriously sensitive fish, they need water conditions just right.

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

I can't see your pics but looked them up online and they are nice.

Hope you have better luck from now on

 

[ChilliPepper]

The point about the gases pockets is that they can become harmful over time, then once aggravated they release the gases into the water.

I wasn't implying it was the gases that had caused this particular problem. Obviously the gas pockets are still under the sand, so can't have been released. It was just advice on general maintenance (as well as making the tank look better) that may have been useful for the OP.

What are your water stats? The tank may have been teetering on the balance already, and the newbies just tilted it too far.

 

[ian]

^^that is what i believed happened.

 

[BethK]

ammonia and nitrite 0, nitrate 5 (planted tank), pH 8.........now, i know apistos need a lower pH but this guy said he has had, bred and raised his apistos in a pH of 8, maybe i was a tad foolish to believe that? However, the pH wouldn't have killed 2 khulis, 4 corys and as of this afternoon, 2 amanos (water change, found them under rocks).

bettas are looking a lot better, other khulis are swimming about like normal.

i really liked those apistos

I'm going to monitor the tank, think i'll be hitting another cycle, as i've just added another new sponge filter.

lessons learned, i'll gear up better for the next time round

 

[ChilliPepper]

There's definitely something going on. If it were just the Apistos died I'd put it down to poor quality stock, but the fact that your other fish and shrimps are dying is very worrying. 8 fish and 2 shrimp? Or did you have 3 Apistos?

Your stats look OK, though ideally everything would be 0. How much water do you take out when w/c and how regularly? Do you match the temp when you add it back in? pH fluctuations can be very harmful to some fish, if you have done a particularly large change this could happen.

When you say you have added a new sponge filter, do you mean as an addition to a mature filter or have you replaced it? It is generally OK to replace up to a 1/3 of old media with new, but I wouldn't do this when adding new stock, just in case,

 

[BethK]

it's alongside the current filter, not taken any mature media out.

i did a 50% water change yest, done a 50% change today. i've been doing 50% changes every 2 days, since this new tank has been up. i've never had an issue with anything like this prior

 

[PDSimon]

You had an ammonia spike yesterday though? But if you dose TPN+ it may have been a false reading.

If it was a spike though, you probably had a spike before hand. The ammonia that comes from waste would not have been brought into the tank with the fish straight away hence the time delay...

I do waterchanges with my apisto cacatuoides 30% and the tap water is 7.5 whereas the tank is 6.5. I also use easycarbo...

Those stingray filters are well known for being..awful