Dont know why everything died.

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Hollywood

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Dec 1, 2004
Messages
82
Location
Ontario, Canada
So my tank has been cycling for 6 weeks now. Last week I tested my water and everything look good. Ammonia, ph, nitrite, nitrate, salinity. Brought a sample to LFS and they tested and confirmed I was good to go. Bought a maintenance crew Blue legs, snails, and a cleaner shrimp. Acclimated them for over and hour and let them go. Turned off the lights and went to bed. Woke up and everything was dead. Back to the LFS and was told might have a bit of ammonia left. She coverd my bill and said let it be for a bit longer. Tested again on Friday was good, had someone test it Sat, and was good. Brought a sample today to the LFS and good to go. Again bought a maintenance crew and within an hour of release everything died. Just dont understand it. Hep!
 
Who tested it? How? How did you cycle? Details on the system? They should have never sold a shrimp for a new tank... bad business there.
 
Too many 'random' minerals IMO without any test.. Fish maybe, inverts you should use RO/DI with zero TDS to mix your water up.
 
Total dissolved solids. The amount of everything and anything in your water. You want to use rodi or distilled. With a tank that size a rodi unit would be my vote.
 
What are the actual numbers of your water parameters? Did you condition your well water before introducing? How are you acclimating? How did you cycle? Maybe try another LFS, how do the aquatics look, are they reputable, how long did you watch them at the store before buying?
 
Total Dissolved Solids..
Fish may be fine in your well water [they may not either?] but inverts are more demanding in their water parameters.. If your well water runs through copper pipes in your house you likely have copper just from that..
Any copper will kill inverts.
There is no easy way telling what is your well water..
 
Yes I did condition the water. Cycled 6 weeks with filter on. Skimmer off.
Water temp is right around 80
Ammonia was 0
ph was 8.2
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
LFS is good.
 
well water can contain

magnesium
copper
iron
lead
sulfur
calcium
lime

it all depends on where you live of what minerals are in your well water minerals are different in all parts of the country

you could also have other contaminants from run off

the best way to find out is to pick up a water test kit from your local home improvement store that you send out and you will get a list of everything in your water it costs like $45. you will also get a referral for a recommended filtration system

I was amazed of all the minerals and other thing that were found
 
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Hi there.
This statement doesn't really tell us anything. Usually when everything dies quickly, you have a system that isn't properly cycled. By the time it happens, you don't even see the ammonia or nitrite readings. You said you cycled for 6 weeks, but how did you accomplish this? Was there a continued amount of ammonia supplied to measure that it was being consumed in a 24 hour period?
Besides cycling the system, be sure that there is 1 lbs per gallon of both sand and rock. This will provide enough area for the beneficial bacteria to colonize so that you can support the nitrate cycle in your system.
As these were inverts, these are the most sensitive to changes. How were they acclimated? You said they were for over an hour, but was this just to temp or were they drip acclimated?
 
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The "its good" was an answer for the question about salinity. My tank cycled fine. I think I know what it is. I will share after the lab results.
 
The "its good" was an answer for the question about salinity. My tank cycled fine. I think I know what it is. I will share after the lab results.

The question about salinity level is because inverts can be extremely sensitive to salinity changes, especially shrimp. So, "It's good" tells us that is probably exactly what went wrong.

A 1 hour acclimation is not enough to handle a large salinity change.
 
How do you test SG?
I have found the swing arm test really can be off quite a bit.I had three and the 20+ year old was closest..The 2 new ones were off by over .05 .
A refractometer is usually sufficient ,I use a Hanna digital refractometer which is pretty pricey to most.
 
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