# Is Driftwood safe?



## burningout (Apr 21, 2010)

I had an 80 gallon bowfront glass aquarium which I have had great success with raising fish in. However it started leaking severely. This would be the second time this has happen and out of frustration I chucked the glass tank and purchased a beautiful 90 gallon acrylic bow front tank. It has been 9 months since and I have had the worse luck with fish mortality. A fish would be doing fine one day and be dead the next. At first I thought maybe I needed to step up the filtration so I purchased the fluval fx5 and golly does it do a fine job. But still I lose fish. Now I am wondering if it might be perhaps the driftwood. The decorum that I changed from the previous aquarium is going from resin ornaments to driftwood and lace rock and going from colored gravel to sahara sand. Any thoughts on this? Anyone have bad experiences with driftwood? I thought about pulling the driftwood out and replacing it with resin driftwood.


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## Dook (May 13, 2009)

depends on what type of fish you are trying to keep. Driftwood will naturally buffer the water and lower the pH some. It could also have had something in/on it. Where did you harvest the driftwood and what measures did you take before adding it to the aquarium? Also, did you put existing established media into the FX5 from another filter?

Have you checked your water parameters?


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Without more information on how the fish died it would be just a guess what happened. Wood can be a hazard depending on lots of things you've not told us. It is not automatically true that it will change the PH. That depends on your water qualities. If the water does not have good buffering qualities the PH can drift. Even if that were true, you can avoid fish death by monitoring and keeping the water in good shape. Lots of ways for a new tank to go bad if not watched carefully. The new tank might have had oils left in it from manufacture? Could be a bad piece of Chinese painted resin?? Could be just new tank syndrome. Are you up on cycling new tanks?


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## Toby_H (Apr 15, 2005)

I have driftwood in a few of my tanks... I love the way it looks and do not have any problems with it...

As mentioned, there are dozens upon dozens of things that could be your problem. I'm assuming you purchased the driftwood and didn't pull it out of a local environment. If it were collected locally then naturally certain cleaning standards should be followed... As mentioned, driftwood can soften (lower PH) the water. If this is allowed then infrequent large water changes are made the PH can 'pike' back up causing 'PH shock'.

All in all, Driftwood is aquarium safe, but it helps to understand it's effects and work with it as opposed to against it...


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

To me, if the fish are in fact" fine one day and dead the next" it says something pretty drastic is happening. The driftwood should not be a quick killer but something that runs the water quality down over time. For quick killers, I think of other things first. Sometimes simple ammonia spikes or other times things we don't know even happened. Things like a wife dabbling in the tank while kissing you goodbye. Deadly if she has just used handcream or put on her makeup. Kids toys in the tank that they find and remove before you get home can get you. You see the drift? It takes carefull study sometimes to pin down the real cause. My worst case was when a large fish suddenly showed up floating in the tank. The red carpet fuzz sticking to him had me boggled until my son told me he found the fish in the floor and put him back so the cat didn't eat him! :-? Life is a trauma sometimes.


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## burningout (Apr 21, 2010)

Thanks for the replies. Even though I have been raising fish for 10 years I am still finding out how much of an amature I am. So to the best of my knowledge.... I have been using test strips to test the water. This I have done after a fish dies. All parameters appear fine. The water I am using is well water and as far as I know it is a perfect balance for cichlids. The only thing I question is that the water is extremely hard and the alkalinity is high (above 300 GH and 300 KH). Can the water be too hard and the alkalinity be too high? But the fact is that the water parameters and fish raising techniques have not changed since going from great success to bad success. The parameters that have changed is a new tank with ornaments which have been established for over 9 months.

What has me baffled is that the group of fish all appear to be doing fine and just when I think the problem is solved, I will find one dead the next day but yet the rest of the group are all happy and healthy. And it will go on for another month and another one will die for no apparent reason. This can get very discouraging.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Do you have mbuna? With the spaced=out deaths it sounds similar to a bloat epidemic. The original cause may have been long ago but the organism is still in your tanks.

What are the symptoms of your fish just before they die? Eating?


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## burningout (Apr 21, 2010)

This is the diet I feed my fish at alternating sequences twice a day: 
Wardley Tropical Fish Flakes
Cichlid Omnivore Flakes
Cichlid Sticks
Dried Blood Worms
Krill

These are the fish in my tank:
1 Maingano
2 OB Peacocks
1 Labidochromis Caeruleus
1 Altolamprologus calvus
1 Venustus
2 Dwarf Jewel Cichlids
2 Plecos
2 Hifin Catfish
1 Blood Parrot
1 Red Bay Snook
2 Flounders

The typical symptoms I have noticed before the death of a fish is they tend to isolate themselves and no appetite. Sometimes this behavior will go on for days and sometimes it only hours before they die.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Fish behavior is a critcal point to observe when dealing with fish death. If they are "fine one day and dead the next" it is quite different than if they sometimes stop eating and hide for several days before dying. In this case it sounds much like an ordinary fish disease problem as DJ Ransome noted. In this case I would look more closely at what you are feeding and try to relate that to the causes of bloat. Also I would have to ask about the snook. How large is it? If memory serves it may reach a size where he begins to eat the others. Are the fish who die battered and beat up? There may be a simple agression problem here.


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## burningout (Apr 21, 2010)

I knew Tropheus were prone to bloat but I had no idea that mbunas were also. I will have to pay close attention to what I am feeding them. The snook is almost 6 inches. And it has given me concern as to whether or not my problem is an aggression problem. It was a mistake to get him. Anyone interested in a snook?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Well bloat isn't a diet issue exclusively. It helps to think of it as a stress issue. Stress can be caused by poor diet, or by aggression, or whatever.

In my tanks it's aggression. The other tell-tale bloat symptom beside what you are describing is the thready white poop.

Which fish are dying? The carnivores or the herbivores and omnivores? I'd cut out the blood worms for a start.

Anyone lurking near the surface, behind filter intakes, heaters? Nipped fins or missing scales?That's quite a mix you have.

If you decide it's bloat, the treatment I use is in the signature of cichlidaholic, you can do a search. I have used clout and metronidazole with success.


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## burningout (Apr 21, 2010)

Actually my fish death seems to have no specifics for species, size, or diet. I had a gorgeous electric blue at 5 inches which I raised from a juvenile die suddenly (did that one hurt) with no signs of any problems. My recent casualty was an Arroyo Yerbalito that i had for 4 months. It was fine and healthy one day and the next day I noticed it started to isolate at the top behind the filter spill and it was dead the next day. The one before him was a sunshine peacock which did the same thing by isolating but it did this for two weeks before dying. Now I have an OB Peacock doing the same thing. A couple days ago she was spawning so I am hoping in her case she is just trying to recuperate.

The more I research this bloat problem the more doubtful I am that it is the cause because I have not noticed any of these fish showing symptoms of bloat. They all appear very healthy. I am starting to lean towards stress from aggression. I am thinking the snook has to go. All of the fish are too big to fit in his mouth but even so I have watched him late at night go into hunting mode.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Fish seem to sense that they are in danger. Even when they are not actually being chased they may hide to avoid what they know to be a possible danger. Something like we don't go down dark alleys even if we don't see anything, only more advanced, perhaps? I have several guppies in a cichlid tank where they are surviving but I'm sure under great stress. In your tank, I should think the peacocks, then the yellow labs would be stressed. The jewel less and the snook, never. All this is guesswork and without knowing sizes and ages but can you look back at what you have lost and see any pattern of that sort? Difficult to do of course as fish differ even within the same type and size. I don't think of stress as killing directly but causing other diseases to be more of a problem. When I have seen bloat kill, it has been a slower process with more signs of bulging and hiding that you might see. Stress may be bringing on a variety of disease so that there is not a common item to see with different fish.


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## burningout (Apr 21, 2010)

Thanks very much for you help and comments. I am learning a great deal. I know I'm a newbie at this but I was in no way treated inferior. It is very much appreciated. I will hang on to my driftwood and find a home for the snook. We'll see what happens from there. Hopefully it will solve my mortality problem.


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