Emergency In 4 Of My Tanks! Mysteries Too

[ArauraDiscus]

Hey guys, often I may be the one trying to help others but this time I find myself out of answers, so any help is appreciated. All four of my tanks are reading high Nitrites. Heres a synopsis of all four and whats in them.

Tank 1 55 gallon tank:
Has 2 breeding angelfish, 4 ctenopoma acoustirostre, 5 clown loaches, 2 angelicus loaches, 4 plaetus cory cats, 2 common plecos,1 Emperor/Flash pleco, and 1 Black Molly
Filtration: Magnum 350 Canister and Whisper 80 gallon filter
Water Quality: Ph 7.4, Ammonia 0 ppms, Nitrite .5 ppms, Nitrate 40 ppms

Tank 2 46 gallon tank:
Has 4 various rainbow fish, 2 angelfish, 2 common plecos, one opaline gourami, 2 Chinese Algae eater
Filtration: Jebo Oddysea CSF4 and Penguin 50 gallon filter
Water Quality: Ph 7.6, Ammonia 0 ppms, Nitrite .25 ppms, Nitrate 40 ppms
****One of my angelfish is dyeing in this tank, which prompted me to check the water quality!

Tank 3 35 gallon tank:
Has 7 juvenile Discus and 1 bristlenose pleco
Filtration: Rena XP3
Water Quality: Ph 6.4, Ammonia 0ppms, Nitrite .25 ppms, Nitrate 20 ppms

Tank 4 10 gallon tank
Has angelfish fry
Filtration: One homeade sponge filter
Water Quality: Ph 7.8, Ammonia 0 ppms, Nitrite .1 ppm, Nitrate 20 ppms


Heres the backstory. Yesterday I did a 50 percent water change on all my tanks as I try to do every weekend, but lately I've found the time to do it about every 3-4 days. Shortly after doing a water change, I noticed thousands of planaria had come out of the water from my hose in 2 of the tanks. The last two tanks that I added water to. The 55 gallon and 35 gallon both were cloudy with little white worms foating and wiggling throughout the tank. In the 55 gallon tank, the loaches took care of the worms, but in the 35, I added coppersafe, which killed them all within about an hour.

Now, about an hour ago I see one of my biggest angelfish in my 46 gallon tank, who's about 6-8 years old, and measures 8.5 inches tall and about 7.8=-8 inches long, a massive fellow, but still youngish IMO. He was floating upside down. Fearing the worst I approached the tank to see he was still alive and breathing. He and the other angelfish in the tank are covered and I mean covered in air bubbles.
This is what strickes me as pecular above all else thats happened today. They are definately air bubles because my upside down floater's bubbles pop off and rise to the surface as I touch him. THe other one is swimming normal and acting fairly normal but has tons of bubbles attached to him. The larger one has bubbles covering his eyeballs. I am very confused and disturbed by this atm.

However these guys have acted strange before. A few people may remember me posting a while back in this forum about my angels acting weird after someone painted our room. However they fully recovered. They had been floating upside down and barely moving. And even before the painting occured, they always had odd issues. They would ram themselves into the gravel as soon as the light turns on, as many angels and discus may do. But they would do it so much more vigorously. I wondered if they inflicted brain damage somehow, and this nitrite spike was the trigger for the final straw.

What is really odd is that I didn't have nitrite last night nefore the water change that seemed to introduce a swarm of planaria into my 55 gallon tank and my 35 gallon tank. But my 10 and 46 gallon tank are not afflicted by the swarm. Then the next morning, all of my tanks register absolutely no ammonia, but a high nitrite. And now a fish in my 46 gallon tank is dyeing and everyone else seems right as rain. Can planaria kill nitrobacter? Can my water source be killing my nitrobacter as well? It's not chlorine as I add dechlorinator after every water change, before I turn the filters back on. Or is it? Can dechlorinator fail at it's main job? Did the weaker nitrobacter die from chlorine poisoning, while the stronger ammonia nitrifying bacteria survived for just another day? WHy the heck would massive amounts of air bubbles be sticking to my two angelfish, with one being sick and the other not?

And today is the eve of when I recieve my 6 new juvenile discus from discus madness. Their adult colors of that of the fish in my avatar. I can't have any nitrite spikes with these guys acclimating!

PLEASE HELP

 

[DiscusKeeper403]

My guess, would be that the tap water could possibly be carrying the Nitrites. I would check the water directly from the tap. How old are the pipes? Where is the water coming from? The Planaria may have came out into the open due to that reason, being the high Nitrites. Although I don't know why the Angels got the bubbles on them, maybe it would benefit them to gently rub them off. Even though this may damage the slime coat a little I hear that the bubbles expose the scales to air, which can do just as much damage. I would add some aquarium salt, and a little stress coat, or slime coat promoting chemical, once you get the bubbles off.I would do a big water change, and maintance the mechanical filter. I recommend maybe some Nitra-Zorb, it takes out any part of the Nitrogen Cycle, either that or some new activated carbon.

 

[ArauraDiscus]

I did that too, Nitrites are zero, and forgot to mention that after the water changes that I just did, the Nitrite in all the tanks is zero as well.

 

[CruX]

Crikey, I don't know what to say. The only things I can think of you will probably have covered yourself. Are there any nitrites in your new water? I add my tapsafe as I am filling, or 50% before and 50% during, but as you have been doing water changes like this for a while I can't see it being that. I read somewhere that tapsafe takes about a second to work.

I am sorry I can't add any more thoughts and I hope someone or something comes good on this for you.

 

[-germ-]

Sounds like the gas issues which can lead to gas bubble diease?
It exists.....

Did you heat the water you added, i'd guess not, if you did then its reasonably unlikely to be this, then again, who knows?
Don't quite understand the science behind it but when cold, gas rich water is heated rapidly it can lead to supersaturation with nitrogen (primarily).
Not sure if this would affect nitrite readings but the best short term solution is to aerate the water yourself just mush your arms around in it for a bit, this should drive off the excess gases....
Let me know what you think, did you water change in all the tanks tonight?
Was the water freshly drawn, even if heated?
Or left to stand as some reccomend?

Could a massive die off of planaria or the waste they produce (if they do ) have lead to an ammonia spikeovernight... followed by the predictable rise in nitrites?

Is the dechlor in date?

 

[ArauraDiscus]

The massiv eplanaria die off is a lead put only sensible for one of the tanks that I can think of. The one that I added coppersafe to yes, but what about the 3 that didn't get meds to kill them, and two of them didn't even have any sign of planaria at all!!!

The water coming in is about 74 degrees, their tank is around 80 degrees, after I'm done it ends up being around 76 or 78 degrees.

The large angel died. Wow, only the second fish I've lost in years, and this is hurting. The only big guy in so long. He was so old. I loved 'im. RIP no name.

Btw I don't name many of my fish, as when I used to they would plop over dead the next day, kind of an anti-tradition.

 

[Danno]

Could you list the chemicals that you have used recently? Also could you list the substrate?

 

[-germ-]

The only illness i'm aware of that associates bubbles with fishy deaths is the one described (then again i'm not aware of much aside from the throbbing in my temples ATM) combining it with the info about your recent increase in water changes makes it seem suspicous....
I don't really now enough about it to go into detail...
Google 'gas bubble disease aquarium' and a fair bit pops up, if the bubbles and death are related then it must be this, but again this doesn't explain the problems in the other tanks.
The simplest conclusion (as mentioned already) would be a problem with your water supply that has manifested itself in a number of different ways.
Then again nitrogen testers are expensive (i think) and i have no idea if this would translate into an increase in nitrite, so it may be hard for you to confirm.
Science is not my thing.
Good luck either way, sorry to hear you lost a fish.

 

[ArauraDiscus]

Chemicals used- Aquasafe Chlorine remover and this goes for all tanks 1-4, the only chemicals I've used in months on all 4.

Also in tank 3 the 35 gallon discus tank, I have used Discus Buffer, and Coppersafe medication.

Also in tank 1 I receieved some plants that I medicated before putting them in my tank. They absorbed the meds, which was acroflavin, which made the water yellow. That may actually be the cause of the spike in that tank now that I think of it, as acroflavin is just like methylene blue and can devestate bacteria colonies.

So far we have reasons for the nitrite spike in tank 1 and tank 3.

1 could be the acroflavin meds that came in on the christmas moss.

3 could be the massive planaria die off and possibly coppersafe, although I didn't think it affected bacteria as much.

However tank 2 was hit the worst and I've lost one fish in there now. That one I can't see a possible cause other than the water source. Just for insurance purposes we may be getting an RO unit in a few days as our water source has always had high nitrates. But now in light of hearing that the planaria came in in my water, my family is scared of drinking the water. Heck now I know they are coming in the water because when I set my 10 gallon tank up, nothing at all was in the tank, yet somehow, there were multiple planaria in there. I didn't think much of it, but the eggs must have been in the water and hatched as soon as the chlorine was removed. Damn, thats nasty!


O and as far as substrate, it's all normal aquarium gravel that I've used for over 5 years. It's old stuff, natural colors in the 55 gallon, and blue in the 46, with bare bottoms for the 35 and 10 gallon.

 

[ArauraDiscus]

OMG now all my fish in the 46 gallon tank seem to be dyeing. They all look like zombies. 2 of my rainbow fish and the other angelfish look like a fish that have been dead for days, but they are swimming around. Their colors are dulled, the large angelfish which is a halfblack is now half white. The two red rainbows are now a nasty pink color and they are all swimming around eating, but they look very much dead. This is very odd. I am so confused.

 

[ArauraDiscus]

Wow, the two rainbows are now white and barely skimming across the surface of the tank. The second angelfish has died. The scales literally just look like they are changing color and slightly dehdrated/wrinkly. Other than that the fish looks fine. This is some sort of poisoning or new disease I'm sure. The Nitrite spike must have been an anomally and the deaths are mupltiplying in this tank. They two rainbows are basically zombies now. They are cruising around the tank not eating, and seemingly mindless. I added copper safe in case they had some sort of parasitic infection. And I added acroflavin to kill bacteria and fungal infections. I will see if this helps. This is so odd. Why...

As soon as symptoms appear, loss of scale colors, wrinkly scales, and mindless bravery and unawareness of the world, they have less than 12 hours to live. This is just wierd.

 

[ArauraDiscus]

The only illness i'm aware of that associates bubbles with fishy deaths is the one described (then again i'm not aware of much aside from the throbbing in my temples ATM) combining it with the info about your recent increase in water changes makes it seem suspicous....
I don't really now enough about it to go into detail...
Google 'gas bubble disease aquarium' and a fair bit pops up, if the bubbles and death are related then it must be this, but again this doesn't explain the problems in the other tanks.
The simplest conclusion (as mentioned already) would be a problem with your water supply that has manifested itself in a number of different ways.
Then again nitrogen testers are expensive (i think) and i have no idea if this would translate into an increase in nitrite, so it may be hard for you to confirm.
Science is not my thing.
Good luck either way, sorry to hear you lost a fish.

======================

A very good theory germ, and I'd say you must be right, but the fish started to die before I did water changes. It had been 4 days since I had done a water change when I found my angelfish dyeing, and with bubbles on his body. SO it seemingly shouldn't have been from a water change, but if it was an actual disease, I'd say that was it.


edit: ooo ok so it is a disease, a bacterial infection that can cause bubbles to form on the skin and can be trapped within the body causing a slow suffication or death. That might be why they are losing color and zombie like, the gas bubbles are forming in their brains!! It's almost like the bends for scuba divers.

http/www.seahorse.org/library/articles/GBD.shtml

Thanks for the help so far, we will see if bacterial meds I put in helped. Supposedly a ridiculously rare but lethal disease.

 

[DiscusKeeper403]

Hey, sorry to hi-jack the thread for a moment, but I get lots of Planaria also, and i'm actually a little scared it too is coming from my water source. Does anyone know if Planaria has any negative effects on humans?

 

[-germ-]

Hey, sorry to hi-jack the thread for a moment, but I get lots of Planaria also, and i'm actually a little scared it too is coming from my water source. Does anyone know if Planaria has any negative effects on humans?

Erm... i'm going to my families tomorrow and i'll ask my dad (pathologist) should be able to give a sensible answer if you've had no further tips on your.... erm, planaria based diet....

Araura not seen it in relation to bacteria before, is that possibly only found in relation to Seahorses?
Again, don't know, just a thought....
Only thing i could think of in relation to the nitrites today, following common sense, is a mass planaria die off in all tanks.
Maybe something in your tanks killed them off, are they thriving in the non copper treated tanks, when the 3 non treated are compared to the treated is there a massive difference?
Wondering if their introduction into the tanks, around the same time, may have been fatal, thus the rise?

 

[ArauraDiscus]

No there don't seem to be any worms in any of the tanks now, at least not any visible ones. ALl the ones in the 35 died. And all the ones in the ten gallon tank have been long gone.

Also now my CAE is attaching himself to my dyeing rainbows who are now looking very bad. What the heck is this. It's onset was soo fast and it's taking down two fish at a time.