what am I doing wrong??

[jdsunflower]

Once again, when I have put my fish into my large and cycled tank, my fish have gone into respiratory distress, and I lost one--I have no idea what the problem is, but am frankly afraid to try again without fixing the problem.
Recap:
first time: 40B tank cycled x 2 months with plants only, to nitrites 0, trace nitrates and ammonia. pH from the tap is 9, so I use vinegar to stabilize it at about 6.8. (I've done this for years and never had a problem--I feel 9 is just too high for fish.) I slowly started adding Epsom salt and potassium as well as baking soda. I finally put 5 corys and 5 rasboras in there that had done very well in the QT tank, and noticed at one point some microfilamental worms in there. Tank has lots of bogwood that I neutralized and dechlored beforehand. Fish went into major respiratory crisis (at surface, corys coming up for air ++), I had to pull all the fish out and the corys survived (barely) but a large snail and all rasboras died very quickly. I tore the tank down thinking it was nematodes. Also lots of green spotted algae and bogwood fuzzy algae of indeterminate type that seemed of increasing amount.
Filter is Eheim (2215?) with ceramic beads and porous stone, with large bore small filter but no filter floss. Lighting is 2 bulbs of I believe 25w, on for about 10 hours. Substrate is black flourite. I threw out the (dying) plants as they were in very rough shape.

Yesterday: Tank had been cycling very slowly for over one month with only the 5 rescued corys, and no plants yet (local options were raggedy and unhealthy looking). Readings were 0 nitrites, below .25 ammonia and nitrates. Same setup otherwise (bogwood +++, algae) but lights off. I added 5 neon tetras and 2 ABN. I was again managing pH with vinegar (store pH for neons was 6, as I only discovered upon arrival home). Tank pH was about 6.8 or 7... I had no trouble keeping the fish happy in QT tank (minor bogwood for bacteria, intank canister with biological material from the larger tank), slowly raising pH.

I did add some baking soda to the big tank, hoping to help buffer pH (KH never higher than 3), could that be it? More algae than before (blue tinge water, fuzz on bogwood, green spots all over the walls). Again, major respiratory crisis within hours with nitrites 0, ammonia and nitrates below .25. (I had also bought zebra danio but because they are rather hyper they will stay in a separate and formerly (2nd) QT tank--they seem fine, too, same water parameters, vinegar, pH about 6.8...)

I was devastated to lose more fish. The smallest tetra didn't make it. I've put all livestock into a QT tank again with same parameters (vinegar, Prime, but NO soda). The fish seem stable (if stressed from the smaller space, new environment, and what they've been through). I may keep all the rest, they survived the night.

What the heck??? I feel dreadful that I can't figure out what I am doing wrong. For now I have left the water in the tank and left it running, and am keeping the tank covered completely (blackout) hoping to kill off any algae. Will do this for 5 days unless counselled otherwise. I should have left the bogwood in (algae), but will use permanganate, then major dechlor.
FYI, I did order a whole whack of warm water plants and they'll arrive in 2 weeks. I had much better luck starting with plants the first time, maybe this will help +. For now of course my co2 system is off-line. I have never dosed with ferts yet, minerals in my water are 0 naturally, so will need to increase slowly to get fish used to it...
ANY advice would be welcome.

 

[Purrbox]

How are you acclimating the fish when you try to move them to the new aquarium where they are having problems?

The vinegar and baking soda seem to be working against eachother. One is meant to bring down the KH/pH while the other is meant to bring it up (if I'm remembering the purpose of adding vinegar correctly). Unfortunately anytime you work to adjust these numbers using chemicals it's very easy to run into issues resulting in stress for the fish.

Also having the cories dashing to the surface for gulps of air is perfectly normal behavior. If their gills are moving more rapidly than normal it could indicate a problem, but the dashing to the surface does not.

 

[jdsunflower]

Thanks for your response.
I try to acclimate the fish by making sure they are going into water that is as similar as possible. So, pH, temperature, hardness. The corys were indeed breathing very fast, but they also seemed to be coming up more often than usual. For the tetras, I think I increased the pH too fast even though I tried to do it over 2 days (6.2 or .4 to 6.8 or 7 over 2 days....is that too fast?)
Vinegar is used to lower the pH (as per Walsted's suggestion that it is preferable to commercial pH adjusters). The soda increased the KH so that the pH is less volatile. It does seem to perhaps be part of the culprit, but lots of people use soda I'm told. Could a difference of less than 2 degrees of hardness make that much of a difference to fish (at low end of scale).
Could my algae problems be bad enough to kill my fish even if the tank appears quite clear (except on surfaces?)
My worry is that a QT tank that is small and in some ways more stressful (less space per fish, more water movement because of the internal filter, no food, white environment (vs black substrate and see-through walls) is harder on the fish than a larger, calmer, safer-feeling tank.

 

[dskidmore]

I think purrbox is refering to drip acclimation.

Acclimation

My first reaction to your post is AHHHH!! The Chemistry!!!

I suggest you either buy bottled water or get an RO/DI unit to dilute your strong tap water rather than adding more stuff to the water.

Algae is unsightly, but it does not hurt your fish. It absorbs ammonia and creates oxygen.

What do you have for oxygenation in the larger tank? Could the water just be stale? As much as the overboard chemistry bothers me, if it's the same between the two tanks and the other tank is fine, then it has to be either the cycle in the new tank or the oxygen levels in the new tank.

 

[jdsunflower]

hmmm
well, I use an Eheim 2215. I did notice the output had really slowed over 2-3 days. I subsequently found an almost complete kink in the output tube from the filter. Of course when I unkinked it I got a flood of gunk into my tank and then had to do a major pwc (80%(, but I did match pH and temperature. Could a cycled filter flood the tank with high nitrates?? If so, it might have been that. I didn't realize that fish could react badly to a sudden decrease in nitrates. Not sure why that would be.
Another confusing factor is that the first time this happened, I don't recall such an event (but can't rule it out--could it be I do too many water changes? I didn't think that was really possible if pH and temperature and hardness were the same).
To Dskidmore: if my water is naturally high pH low alkalinity with no minerals, you are suggesting using bottled water, but I'd still have to be supplementing plant minerals and some hardness, right? How is that different than starting with my own tapwater and adjusting pH?
thanks for you thoughts on all this, I know the posts are long...

 

[jdsunflower]

Re bottled water, do you mean mix it with my own tapwater? Or replace all tank water with bottled water--$$$... I'm not familiar with how people do this.

 

[Purrbox]

Okay... if you've got a high pH and a low KH, that means that you've got something else buffering the pH other than the KH. Most likely Phosphates. I really think you should leave the pH and KH alone if at all possible. Otherwise only add the vinegar or the Baking Soda, not both. They are meant to achieve the exact opposite things in an aquarium, so using both is just making things harder on yourself.

If you really don't like the parameters of your tap water, it's probably better to see about aquiring a RO Unit and then reconstituting the water to get the exact parameters that you want/need. This gives you control of the water, instead of fighting what is already there.

As far as acclimation, how are you actually moving the fish from one aquarium to the other? Are you just netting them accross, placing them in a bag and slowly adding the new tank water to the old, using drip acclimation, or what? It could be that switching acclimation methods will allow your fish to make the transition easier.

 

[jdsunflower]

thank you for those suggestions,
Monique

 

[dskidmore]

Re bottled water, do you mean mix it with my own tapwater? Or replace all tank water with bottled water--$$$... I'm not familiar with how people do this.

Depends on how bad your tap water is. If you can get a suitable pH, alk, KH, and GH from a mix of bottled and tap, that's what I'd do to save a little money. If your using more than 4 gallons a week, it's generally cheaper to invest in an RO/DI unit. For a little more than the basic aquarium unit, you can add a tank and a tap to make it available for drinking/cooking water for the whole family.

Whatever you do, I wouldn't go replacing all the aquarium water in one setting. The fish need to acclimate to the new conditions. Just tune up your water change water to be your ideal conditions, and continue regular water changes. Parameters will slowly come into line without shocking the fish.

 

[jdsunflower]

thank you.
A few further questions on this...
My tap water is 9 pH, < 3 kh and gh, ammonia about .25, nitrites 0 nitrates 0. It appears to be treated with phosphates...
Wouldn't RO require me to reconstitute decent aquarium water practically from scratch, which is what I'm dealing with now?
And would commercial pH adjuster to 7 be better than vinegar? Vinegar seems more gentle....
Thanks for your help!
Monique

 

[dskidmore]

Diluting bad tap is fine, don't need to reconstitute. If you have to use 100% RO, then something like RO right will have a much better mineral balance than the stuff you're adding.

 

[jdsunflower]

excellent suggestion, thank you!