First Post In A While - What Happened?

[nurglespuss]

Dear all,

Everything has been chugging along merrily for months, plants growing great, no algae, loads of happy inverts and fish.

However, a while back I won a bottle of JBL Biotopol from Practical Fish Keeping and - with its excellent dosage rate for removing the usual nasties from tap water, I switched to it when my my usual (cheap) shop bought stuff ran out.

I've had a few 3-4 day periods away for meetings/conferences in recent months and so have not been able to observe the tank on a day to day basis. But maintainance remained the same, water change every 4 days (1/3 the tank) of same temp etc. water.

I noticed my moss was starting to brown, and that snail numbers were dropping (fine I put in assassin snails for that). So I trimmed the moss (as it was overgrown), and my usual water tests were fine (though slightly higher nitrate). I returned yesterday to find most of my moss (previously massive, healthy and a number of species) were brown, ropey and matted, I couldn't see a live snail anywhere, and all my cherry shrimp and hoglice were gone... All of my fish were fine (except for the remaining false juli who is looking very ropey and I'm considering euthanising). I think the cory being ill was a result of stress/bacterial bloom becuase of mass die off of plants/inverts.

Anyway, i test the water and apart from appearing brown, all was fine, no raised ammonia, pH, nitrite still virtually 0, but again raised nitrate. I pulled up the moss (there was loads of it) and it was like brown slime at its core . I still can't see a living snail either. I've done a big water change (and used the JBL stuff again - which 'may' have been the culprit but I haven't got anything else to hand and the java ferns etc./rest of the fish seem fine).

Really, i don't know what happened, the aquarium was looking really pretty, so much growth everywhere, spawning white clouds, very tame bristlenose. Now everything is stressed, the tanks looks really bare (its mostly the wood left now). There is still gunge from the moss I've yet not managed to remove (but I have 2 external filters/2 powerheads so I hope these will shift it).

What do you guys thing happened?

I don't believe either filter crashed, maintainance was regular, everything was healthy and really the only change was the water conditioner....

 

[Juggler75]

Sorry to hear that matey, unsure what caused the moss die off - could it have been any thing airbourne that got into the tank? I wouldn't think the JBL dechlor would cause the issues described.

Only other thing I can think of is that the moss was so dense that it caused an anaerobic area, but that seems highly unlikely.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

If you are 100% certain that nothing has changed but the water conditioner (that means your water company has not changed anything as well), then for what ever reasons it would seem logical to assume that the cause must be in some fashion connected to the JBL conditioner.

-It could be the wrong thing for your tank. That is it reacted badly with something already in your system.
-You might have accidentally misdosed it.
-It might have been a bad or contaminated bottle.

Since you are away a lot of the time, is it possible something else could have been introduced to the tank. A maid accidentally spraying stuff to clean, a child or other person trying to be helpful and putting something into the tank, etc.

 

[tomtomtom1230]

Your Cory is probably looking a bit worse for wear 'cause they're particularly sensitive to nitrates as I understand it, and you did mention your nitrates are a little higher than he might've been comfortable with. A good water change should sort your nitrates out. Where the mass die off is concerned, it would be a number of things. I seriously doubt it would've been your new dechlorinator. I think, like Juggler (although unlikely), you may have developed an anaerobic pocket of bacteria underneath your moss and these bacteria would've released toxic dissolved gasses into the water. As Juggler and I have mentioned, unlikely but it is plausible.

Since you are away a lot of the time, is it possible something else could have been introduced to the tank. A maid accidentally spraying stuff to clean, a child or other person trying to be helpful and putting something into the tank, etc.

This is most likely the most believable explanation I think