all my fish died

[chargher]

Alittle info you guys requested I just saw, I started off with a 3-4 inch DSB, I have a 15-20 gallon sump, live rock, and turbofloter 1000, I also have carbon in there, and these white sheet that trap debris, I notice that these have fine netting and need to be changed once a week ( whch is what I was doing) only about 60 pound of live rock in sump and tank.

its a 68 gallon half circle (post pics soon)

 

[KathyC]

Cool & please cut yourself some slack on not getting to the store, you carry a heavy schedule there with school and all...
Happy to hear that group is hanging in -- sorry about the plate & the condi.
Great that you're going to try and make it to the swap!

 

[chargher]

Results

I pickup up some test kits today here are some numbers, I was expecting something different, I got a api test kit i know you guys have different feelings but all petco had ( which i hate petco by the way not sure how you guys feel about them).


Is nitrate or nitrite more lethal to fish? Finding 0 ammonia in my old water was shocking, Still a bit confused why this occurred what do you guys think of these numbers?

I still believe it was an outside factor, like me putting hand in water.



Old Water ( when my fish started to die took a sample)

PH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0 ppm ( this was shocking to me)
Nitrate 160- highest on the card I obtained form the test
Nitrite- .025 ppm

New Water ( tank water currently)

ph:8.4
Ammonia ( 0ppm)
Nitrate- between 80 and 160
Nitrite- 0ppm

 

[ming]

nitrite is more lethal to fish
nitrate will lead to more algae
since you use tap water, you should consider getting an RO filter to purify your water. this may help against the algae when you do water changes in the future

 

[KathyC]

Interesting :scratch:

The first water change you did - that morning before you left for school/work...did you use tap water then too?

Ming..he has an RO but at 50gpd it's slow..but I do think he'll be using it going forward

 

[pmui]

I think any nitrite in the will stress and kill the inhabitants.

 

[KathyC]

I think any nitrite in the will stress and kill the inhabitants.

Considering the fact that fish urinate, at any given time there is probably a very small amount of ammonia in your tank and that ammonia still has to go through the process of being turned into nitrite and then nitrate. Considering his nitrate #'s..I don't see this as an issue in this case.
It is also sometimes difficult at best to tell what color you are looking at on some of the test kits out there :splitspin

 

[morphiii]

The most important thing is how are you testing your salinity?

Are you using one of those swing arm hydrometer or something cheap?

They are not reliable. The 1.019 could have been 1.030 or 1.010.

Get a refractometer.

What are you using to test your pH? Color cards testing are useless.

Get a pinpoint pH monitor. The give you real time pH monitoring.

The salinity and pH swing are probably the reasons why the fishes died.

 

[marrone]

The most important thing is how are you testing your salinity?

Are you using one of those swing arm hydrometer or something cheap?

They are not reliable. The 1.019 could have been 1.030 or 1.010.

You'll find that most of the swing arm hydrometer are pretty close to what a refreactometer comes up with.

Get a refractometer.

For the cost about $30-$40 it's something worth getting.

What are you using to test your pH? Color cards testing are useless.

Get a pinpoint pH monitor. The give you real time pH monitoring.

I use ph color test kits all the time and get reading very close to what ph monitor and pens give me.

The salinity and pH swing are probably the reasons why the fishes died.

A swing in salinity wouldn't be a reason why a fish would die, unless the level drop really fast and close to zero. Most fish can handle levels from 1.004 - 1.035 without any problems. Swings in ph can be a problem, though most fish can handle ph less than 8.0 without any problems, sometimes even down to 7.4 or so.

 

[morphiii]

Initially, maybe but swingarm will get less and less reliable. because of salt build up in the arm.


I can never tell what color is what pH. Too much left to interpretation of the color card in my opinion.


What if the new saltwater causes salinity to go from 1.019 to 1.030.
That would stress most fishes and even kill them.

 

[marrone]

Initially, maybe but swingarm will get less and less reliable. because of salt build up in the arm.

You'll find that most swing arm give pretty good results for quite sometime, also it doesn't take much to clean off the salt build up.

I can never tell what color is what pH. Too much left to interpretation of the color card in my opinion.

Usually the colors are in blue - purple and unlike other tests the ph is pretty easy to read. Then again if you're color blind, which a lot of men are, you may have trouble reading them.

What if the new saltwater causes salinity to go from 1.019 to 1.030.
That would stress most fishes and even kill them.

They maybe stressed out some but I highly doubt it would kill any fish. It would have more of an impact on an invert or a coral.

 

[aznt1217]

Okay I really think... the fact that he used untreated tap and the fact that he didn't pre mix the salt before putting it in the tank did the fish in. That's way too much.

The tap water treatments usually need about 24 hours to kick in as well.

 

[CHEMCHEF]

There are plenty of people that use tap for Fish Only tanks. The point about pre mixing the salt I agree with. But I don't think tap water had much to do with the fish
JMO I hope the RODI police dont come take me away.:lol:

 

[aznt1217]

Chemchef, it said he put untreated tap water inside the tank. So that literally means... nothing to remove the chlorine or anything else.