# HELP ASAP - Something went BAD wrong with last water change!



## FTLOSM (Mar 20, 2007)

My main 75 gallon (established 2+ yrs now no big issues) gets about a 40-50% water change every 3-4 weeks, I have 2 HOB Aquaclear 110's running that I alternate clean one every 3-4 weeks, then the other the next 3-4 weeks, both contain the fliter media and bio bags, and one has a charcol sack/bag in it, nothing new in the tank fish or rock wise, and i use a python to do the water changes.

The fish in this 75 gallon are 1 adult yellow lab male, 3 medium sized red shoulder peacocks 1 M 2 F, 1 Demasoni (baby) and 17 Synodontis Lucipinis (my favorite catfish!) and I feed them shirmp pellets, and a flake formula mixed custom of 1/3 of each - color enhancer/spirulina/pro balance cichlid nutrition.

Started out the day as normal sucking out any bottom waste with python, everything fine fish in tank fine, all is well, got distracted by the kids so water level went to about 25% (more than my normal change out).

When it was time to refill, temps were 78-81 range, and I added in seachems "PRIME" adjusting it slowly to the amount in the tank (not all at once), once the tank was full and filters running, I then added 2 more chemicals that i always do, Kent's AF cichlid Buffer (adjusted to 75 gallons) and Brightwell Aquatics Cichlid Code Trace and Minor Elements (adjusted to 75 gallons).

Everything about this water change was routine, except the amount of water taken out and returned due to the kids having a major meltdown while dad was working on the tank.

Once I was done and cleaning up putting python away etc, i noticed a few of my catfish were sitting on the bottom vs their normal scurrying around, I thought maybe they were a bit stressed from all the "in tank" activity so i turned the lights off and figured I would let them all settle down.

About a half hour later one of the kids said "DAD THE CATFISH ARE DYING!" sure enough I came in and most were swimming all weird sideways and acting weird, but the fish seemed fine, just the catfish were acting weird.

I have other tanks in the house that are all established, so i quickly scooped up the catfish and ran them into other tanks, this DID seem to help about half the batch after a few hours of being in another tank, so I thought ok somethings weird with this water and before I lose my fish in that tank (altho they seemed fine) I decided to run some tests.

Here are the freshwater test results

Ammonia 0
PH 8.2
No3 Nitrate (between 5ppm and 10ppm) wife says its 5ppm from the chart - i say its a hair darker yet not as dark as 10ppm so maybe 7-8ppm - ish.. 
No2 0

After seeing the Nitrate No3 was high, i remembered reading something about using air stones, so i decided to add in 4 circle sized airstones and turned them on high (will this help i dunno) but figured it can't really hurt).

We have well water that is filtered by a GE inline whole house filter before it hits our faucets, and we do have a water softener but i always bypass that before even starting the drain part of the refill, so by the time I am refilling the tank everything in the hot water tank and cold water lines are running fully on bypass for the softener and all of it being inline filtered.

I buy the higher filter strength (filters out more) and the filter is ok (not full or clogged) we have a meter and also can tell when its getting full due to pressure drop.

Anyways this all happened last night around dinner, this morning i checked on my catfish i have 9 of the 17 left in my daughters room tank and they all seem to be swimming fast and fine now.

In the main 75 tank i did leave the fish in there since the tests seemed to be somewhat normal and they all still seem fine today.

I'm thinking of putting one catfish in just to see how he reacts, if he lives and does ok after half a day or later tonight might put another in etc etc, if they are adjusting ok, just hate to lose anymore...

If you have read this far THANK YOU for your time and advice, i'm just frustrated beyond belief to lose so many of my favorite fish here today (and they werent cheap!) and am hoping to find some answers as to why.

Thanks for any input or help.

Bill


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## corrie22 (Oct 11, 2008)

Bill, if you are on well water, why are you using Prime at all?

The only thing that sticks out to me, is a larger water change.
And waiting almost a month between water changes.

You tank might be getting more acid in a month, and your well water might have a higher pH.

Since you are checking temp, pH is about the only thing I can think of that might have been different. Of at least different enough to have that fast of an effect.

You can get a good pH pen and calibration liquid on Ebay for about $20.

Corrie


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## Robin (Sep 18, 2002)

Hi Bill,

well you're right in concluding that it was probably something to do with the water change.

I don't know exactly what happened but I'll run some ideas by you.

Doing water changes every 3-4 weeks is not ideal. Over time the ph in your tank will drop especially if your kh is on the low side. Not a huge problem since the ph drops gradually and the fish are able to adjust to the gradual change. Problem comes in when you do a large water change. If the new water is a higher ph, and it quite often is if you're keeping Africans, then the fish experience a sudden Ph hike with the water change. That stresses them. What can make it fatal is if you have the above scenario and there is also ammonia present. At lower ph levels ammonia is not toxic to fish but will turn extremely toxic with a sudden rise in ph.

Whenever you have deaths or near deaths directly after or during a water change you have to consider the possibilty that some sort of toxin entered the tank while you were doing the change. Gasoline or soap residue on your fingers, detergent in a changing bucket--there's so many things that are toxic to fish in very small amounts that it could be almost anything.

Where you're on well water there's also the possibility that something toxic got into your well. If you did water changes on your other tanks at the same time then it's probably not the well water.

If there was a build up of waste in the substrate and you did a vigorous siphoning and moved rocks and decorations around then it's possible that you released an an-aerobic pocket of bacteria. Would have smelt like rotton eggs/sulpher. This can kill fish instantly.

Sometimes during a water change a filter can get turned off or become clogged causing all the beneficial bacteria to die and this can cause a harmful ammonia spike.

It's normal to have a nitrate reading in an established tank. As long as it doesn't stay consistantly over 20ppm you should be okay. Ammonia and nitrite should always be 0.

Really sorry that you lost so many fish. Please post back with any additional questions or concerns. It really doesn't sound like any kind of illness.

Robin


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## lloyd (Aug 24, 2005)

IMO + IME, as i have also experienced this 'phenomenon' too many times, this is an oxygen deprivation occurrence. why it occurs still escapes me. i have recognized some suspect scenarios: 1) stirring up established tanks during substrate cleanings after a delay from regular maintenance, 2) larger than average water changes, 3) dosing prime with 'other' chemicals simultaneously, 4) better than average cleaning of filtration devices, 5) unpacking/acclimating new shipments, 6) leaving fish in container with little/no circulation, 7) more than one of above at same time.
i have written off 'water at source' of any guilt. i had done multiple water changes the same evening, and had one of those tanks follow your trend within minutes. my geophagus were all panting (lost a male overnight after it started to twirl) in one tank, while my pleco tank and tropheus tank both showed no reaction at all. i did filter maintenance on the geo tank only...

if your fish react...what to do? best reaction is to move all fish to other water asap. second choice is to continue adding new water to the system to dilute the reaction. adding aeration devices help, but IME, not fast enough. 
the tank should be well recovered, within a few days, if you continue to offer new water. most fish will regain appetite, color, and relax their breath within the week. a few might react as stressed for a while longer. if a slight clouding does occurs, monitor for trace ammonia. HTH.


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## FTLOSM (Mar 20, 2007)

Thanks for the quick replies, sounds like my water changes need to be more frequent (maybe every 2 weeks 40%-50%?

When i change one or the other filters (I never do both at once) they really arent that dirty even, i don't overfeed, I skip days even (on purpose) and heck there are hardly any fish in that tank besides the small catfish (which now will be down to less than 10).

I think ill redo the water tests again tomorrow and confirm all is ok, but that No3 Nitrate at 5-8ppm isnt too bad?

My Ammonia comes out as 0, i never change both filters at once and always leave the bio bag floating in the tank while i rinse out the one filter in a 5 gallon bucket (used only for the fish filters using extracted tank water).

Overall I have had fantastic results in breeding and even having a few dozen fish in there at the same time, no alge issues, no huge deaths, the tank itself at this point has the least amount of fish ever even, and the fish that were in there (1 lab - adult, 3 red shoulders - mid sized, 1 demasoni - baby) all look and are acting fine, just those catfish reacted bad to whatever happened.

Think i might even see if i can't get a copy of our local water results as well, but in terms of anything getting into the tank from me or anything i use the python direct from faucet, so there isnt even much contact of anything beyond the hose that feeds off the faucet.

While cleaning the substrate (i use 3m colorquartz) it didnt see or smell anything out of the norm, the tank didnt even look dirty really, just thought ok its been almost a month here I better do a water change.

Just odd this hasn't happened to me before and even more odd how it effected the catfish right away but didn't effect the fish in terms of appetite, color, swim patterns, they all seem great in there right now, today ill add one catfish in to see how it reacts if it starts acting funky ill pull it right away so i dont lose one more, but this one has me a bit stumped and super bummed.

Bill


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## FTLOSM (Mar 20, 2007)

corrie22 said:


> Bill, if you are on well water, why are you using Prime at all?
> 
> The only thing that sticks out to me, is a larger water change.
> And waiting almost a month between water changes.
> ...


I use the prime because we have a water filtration plant that processes our water for the entire community of 400 homes, they add all the stuff to make the water as they say "safe", I know there is a high iron/rust sorta look if you fill the white tub up (without the filter or softener on) and the water itself to me tastes blah so we buy bottled, but for laundry, baths etc we filter it and use the softener, when i do fishtanks i just bypass the softener and use only the inline filter.

Bill


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## FTLOSM (Mar 20, 2007)

Ok now I am really stumped, went in to check on the catfish the ones that lived (9 out of the 17) all seemed to be doing really well, so i decided to take one and put him back in the main tank just as a test.

Within about 5 mins it was doing the same thing as after the water change, just aimlessly floating half swimming, lost direction, just on the verge of dying.

Pulled it quickly returned to daughters room tank (which didnt get a water change yet btw) and after about 2 mins hes back to normal again.

So something in that main tank is making these catfish react weirdly, altho all the fish in the main tank are fine, good color, normal swim patterns, eating well etc.

UGHH!


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## corrie22 (Oct 11, 2008)

hydrogen sulfide

catfish farms have a big problem with iron well water because channel catfish are very sensitive to it.

Sounds like synodontis are too.

iron + anaerobic (wells) + desulfovibrio bacteria = hydrogen sulfide


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## FTLOSM (Mar 20, 2007)

Should i try my next water change with the softener ON (to help reduce the iron and rust content)?

Just assumed the salt tablets from the softener would be worse to put in (complicate the balance even more) vs the in=line house filtered / well water that they supposedly "process" to add chemicals to make it safer for us to drink etc.

Bill


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## corrie22 (Oct 11, 2008)

Bill, if you don't have a clue what's in your water, no one can try to tell you how to fix it.

If it's just iron, you can aerate the water for a couple of days to oxidize the iron and cause it to precipitate out. When you stop smelling rotten eggs, the water is ready.


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## gtphale (Oct 12, 2008)

I have left my softener on when doing my water changes. My petricola seems to be fine, I just did a 50% water change a week ago before I left for vacation and all is well.


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## FTLOSM (Mar 20, 2007)

No smell at all to the water, not even a bad taste really, just prefer the bottled water.

It comes from a well but we have a water treatment plant that adds the basics to it to make it safe to drink and within the parameters of the city laws (I know there is a good deal of iron or rust in it) because after they do a hydrant flush we get a bit of color that comes thru the lines but thats only one day every 2 months and i never do water changes at that time of course.

After adding in the GE inline filter (that supposedly filters out a ton from the label), I figured it was best to turn off the softener and just let that inline catch most stuff but i didn't have any test for iron or anything in the water test kit I bought.

I'll try to find out from the water treatment guys what a sample reading measures that might help me figure this out too, just odd *** never had this happen before and the only difference i can even think of is how instead of 50% change i did about a 75% change of water.

Thanks for the info tho i do have 4 airstones running in there right now and i redid the testing and the results were the same, the no3 Nitrate was same too a hair darker than 5ppm but certainly lighter than 10ppm, maybe ill see what the fish store or lowes has to possibly test for iron or metals as well.

Bill


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## Solchitlins (Jul 23, 2003)

Your not really on a Well, your on a "Community Well".
Just a way of saying it's not "detroit city water". I wish it was.

I am too, being in Milford.
I hate my water, tastes weird, rusts up the toliet, ect.....

But, I have never had problems keeping fish.
I know it's probally not a good idea but my water softener is usually out of salt.

I have read that the water plants sometimes will have a spike of chemicals, especially after a water line breaks and dirt gets in, they want to add more to kill any germs.

But anyways, you can get a water sample test down at Oakland co. health division, go there and get the sample bottles.

Good luck neighbor.


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