Omg Omg Omg

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

MisticX

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Apr 21, 2008
Messages
263
Location
Montreal QC CA
today is the "major cleanup of the tanks" holiday,

started with a major gravel removal (am boiling it to remove all dirt from it)

removed all plants (btw i have some plants to giveaway)

and in the end i removed my air stone.
by mistake i removed the under-gravel plastic, that allows the under-gravel vacuuming.

****ed mistake ...
a cloud of poop invaded my whole tank, water went from PERFECT conditions to ZERO visibility (didn't check water conditions yet)

and now the OMG SURPRISE

i have fish under the gravel

the fish on top of the gravel are dying because of unknown disease, and the fish UNDER the gravel thrive.

am seriously thinking to remove the gravel filtration
 
by taking your gravel out and boiling it you effectively killed the colony of beneficial bacteria that lived in there... that was not a very good idea youre going to have a nitrogen cycle now... not many people run under gravel filters they seem to be more nuisance than help in alot of cases... how big is the tank? planted? what were the water parameters before the "big cleaning" and what are they now?
 
OK I'm a bit confused by the post. Tell me if I'm getting this right.
Fish started to die.
Decided to break down tank including boiling gravel.
Accidently dislodged undergravel plate while cleaning.
Found fish under the gravel and/or undergravel plate.
You're considering changing filtration methods.
Is that correct?

A couple of quick comments and questions:

Unless it's rocks gravel shouldn't be boiled if they're going to be reused. At the very least it destroys the resin on the gravel and can wreck havoc with the PH. Washing rincing the substrate also removes all the benificial bacteria and the tank will need to be cycled again. If you've already boiled it probably best just to replace it with a new substrate.

A HOB or similar filter will work much better that the UG. As you've seen if UG's are displaced they can be a mess. There are numerous other reasons the UG don't work especially in planted tanks. Canisters work well with planted tanks. I like Aquaclear HOB's, much cheaper than canisters and work very well.

What were the fish that were under the gravel? Kuhli loaches are one that can live undergravel and and UG filters and are often found alive and well when the tanks are broken down.

What was happening to your tank that prompted you to break it down? A total breakdown of a tank is usually done when all else fails since the tank will need to be restarted. At least the UG will be out of there.
 
FWIW, I had a baby guppy that insisted on swimming down the tube of a UG filter in a little hexagon tank I had. Had a heck of a time getting him out of there....
 
do not worry about a new cycle, i am monitoring water conditions every 6 hrs and everything is perfect up to now,

i did not intend to breakdown the tank, i only wanted to boil SOME of the gravel in the middle of the tank that presented dry algaes on it.
i also have had a LOT of extra plants and i wanted to get out the old ones and leave only the new ones.

basicaly the roots of the plants were so deep under the UG that when i pulled the mother plant i pulled the whole UG with it (remember half the gravel was out due maintenance)



my main OMG is not the maintenance of the tank, i've done this with success in the past, a lot of times ...
my OMG is about the fish that were actually living under the gravel,
1 platy 1 guppy and a few babies (3 that i can count)
specially the platy is HUGE, it's about 5cm long (2 inches)
means he was under there for at least 4-6 months

ZERO light
ZERO food
ZERO aeration.

and he survived, while my other fish are dying (guppy and moly mainly)

again ... water conditions are fine .
nh 0, no2, 0 no3 0, PH stable at 7.5,
fish are more active then ever.

[edit]
p.s.
patricia, i own a aquaclear HOB 50 galons (tank is 30), and i have 2 sponges in it + 1 sponge extra in the hospital tank ... the cycle is just about to be fine ... i am not going to overfeed them this period.
 
I don't find it especially surprising. every few times I do filter maintenance on my cichlid tank, I find a baby fish. Apparently they get sucked in as babies (about 1cm) and I've found them as big as an inch and a half before. Somehow they come out looking alright, seems like they'd become mutant humpback mole-people fish.
 
Back
Top Bottom