Whole Tank Is Dying!

[blackers92]

Last week one of my yoyo loaches died, reducing them to 4. Since then they have all been hiding inside my bogwood.

Just tonight I came home from work to witness the most dramatic and disheartening death of my bristlenose catfish which I loved to bits

Now my female keyhole is almost completly black showing obvious signs of stress.

my water stats are
0- ammonia
0- nitrite
5- nitrate
6- pH

I came to the conclusion that the pH must have dropped as it has been constant at 6.5 since i can remeber cycling. but surely my fish would adapt to a 6. this made me think that 6 is the lowest my API freshwater can show, does this mean that it could possibly be lower?

My tap water comes out at like 7.0 but changes to about 6.5 in my tank.

I am so depressed my tank is literally dying and there is nothing I can do. I have done two water changes over the past two days to no avail. This week is exam week at school and I am working 4 night shifts at work so I literally cannot do anything. I dont have a quarantine tank so I cant transfer my fish. To make things worse i am going away for like two weeks interstate so i would hate for the whole thing to collapse when i am away

In between exams, and parent teacher interviews I am going to take a sample of my water to a LFS to see what the pH really is.

Now what i realise is that if it is really low I will have to raise it, my question is how do I go about doing this, i dont want to add chemicals and my LFS will no doubt try to convince me otherwise

I have come to the conclusion that my fish are probably going to die, the only positive thing I can try to get out of this is keeping my tank cycled so i dont have to do the tedious 50% fish in changes daily due to the unavailablity of ammonia in australia.

why does this happen to me? it really would put most people of keeping fish.

 

[WILDER]

List everything you have in the tank.
Bogwood lowers ph. How big is the piece of bogwood.

Also if your tap ph is higher you can't preform large water changes.
Small water changes are the best.

If ph alter fast it can cause ph shock.

Get you some info on ph shock.

pH Shock

As its name suggests this condition occurs when a fish is introduced to quickly into a new environment which has a very different pH from the one it came from, when the pH is adjusted to quickly and the fish have little or no time to adjust themselves, or when the pH is to far outside the fishes normal range.

It is very important that any change in water chemistry is made slowly and fish should never be exposed to changes of pH greater than 0.5 of one unit on the pH scale in either direction.

Avoidance is by far the best solution because in most cases the symptoms don't appear until the second or third day by which time the damage has been done and the fish will probably die.

A fish suffering from this condition will show all the typical signs of shock -

Lying on the bottom and paying little or no attention to its surroundings and ignoring potential threats.
It may even lay on its side or go upside down completely.
There could be other signs to, related to Acidosis and Alkalosis
Excessive mucus production.
Rapid breathing.
Swollen abdomen. (Alkalosis only).
If the condition is allowed to go on for one or two days then the chances of a successful remedy are greatly reduced because a lot of damage will have taken place. If the symptoms are spotted early enough there are a couple of things that will help.

Begin to return the pH to the original pH in steps of 0.4 of one unit on the pH scale and allow 3 hrs in between the adjustments. Make these adjustments until the pH is returned to a safe and satisfactory level.
Treat the tank with a broad spectrum anti-Bacteria/Fungus compound to prevent secondary infections of the Skin and Gills.
Prevention is easy. A successful treatment isn't!
PH SHOCK LINK
http/groups.msn.co...th/phshock.msnw
http/puffernet.tri...acteriosis.html

 

[blackers92]

The things in my tank are,

bogwood, it is about a foot long, mabey 5 kgs. Not too big.
grit substrate
live plants, hygrophilia and two random ones, i use flourish to fert.
there is also a thermometer
and that is about it.

I had,
5 Pakistani/Yoyo loaches
6 Zebra danio
1 Bristlenose
2 Keyhole Cichlids

In am testing my water tonight at a lfs to get a accurate reading.

I accumulated the fish very slowly addind each type at about 2 week intervals and letting them climatise for about 1 hour before adding them into the tank.

could my filter affect my pH? the tank has been running for about 3 months so I didnt really think that i would need to replace the filter media, should i clean the impeller? or rinse the media.

how should i raise the pH naturally, i dont want to use chemicals

thanks so much for the help so far

 

[blackers92]

update,

went to my LFS and tested my water

turns out the pH was either 5 or lower

I bought a API GH and KH tester and surprise surprise my reading was 0-1

so I bought some KH+ 7 Generator and yes.. I know I shouldnt be using chemicals but this is an emergency. My lfs told me to add 15 teaspoons, each spoon treats 10 litres (140 Litre tank) to bring the pH to 7-7.2, so I am going to add 5 spoons over the next two days and from now on I need to add 3 spoons with every change.

i know this will be a pain, but it is the best for my fish at the moment.

I will keep posting my results and hopefully everything will be ok

thanks for all your help

 

[WILDER]

Plecs and loaches don't tolerate to much salt. When using salt you have to consider the other fish you keep.
I would remove the bogwood for now.
The grit substrate, can you explain in more detail. Does it alter ph.
Do you have any rocks in the tank?

Don't know much about kh.
Going to member truck if he can help you with ph and kh.

 

[rdd1952]

It is odd for it to drop that much so suddenly. Have you had any issues with high nitrates?

I would try to raise the pH via daily (twice daily maybe) water changes rather than using the chemicals. The chemicals most often cause too much up and down variance in the pH which is usually worse on the fish than a constant low pH. And a sudden swing that may be caused with the initial use (from 5.0 to 7.0 in a short time) could be more than they can handle.

If the problem continues, you can look at adding a small amount of crushed coral to your filter media or placing some type pH altering rocks in the tank. Those would raise it and keep it steady without having to add something on a regular basis.

 

[blackers92]

nope I have tested every week since cycling and never had high nitrates.

the grit is just a normal substrate, like 2mm stone, think of thick nautral sand its hard to explain.

I might add some rocks to the tank for my cichlids anyway so if that raises the pH it will help.

I cant easily remove the bogwood without upsetting all of my plants and I would never be able to get my loaches out of it

my water has no buffer capacity/ hardiness.

thanks so much for the help so farrdd1952 and wilder you guys are some of the most helpful people on this forum

 

[WILDER]

Ok.
I would follow rdd1952 advice.
Let us know how you get on if you don't mind.