plants, fish, snails are dying. Very discouraged. (long)

[coolchinchilla]

I'm getting discouraged. My plants keep dying off. My tropical fish keep dying. My snails are refusing to eat and dying off. <sigh> (long rant -- not expecting answers, just understanding.)

Planted tanks. Two of my tanks are planted with hearty low-lights (amazon swords, vals, anachris, java fern, java moss, hornwort). My 15 gallon has about 1 wpg and the 30 gallon has about .7 wpg. I put in root tabs and once or twice I dosed with a liquid fertilizer. The plants in both tanks still look lousy and I originally paid $55 to get a plant assortment. I Buy $2-$3 plants at the fish store every now and then and they die too. Why are my plants dying?

Tropical fish. The 15 gallon is a community tank. It started with 7 neons, 6 danio glofish, 2 zebra danios and 3 skunk botias. After 6 months or so I'm down to 5 neons, 1 glofish, 1 zebra and 2 skunks. I change 30% or more weekly. I feed sparingly. When I've tested the water it's always ammonia & nitrites are zero and nitrates are never over 40 and usually more like 20. Why is everyone dying? :|

Snails. I have a 20 gallon tank dedicated to snails. I started with 4 canas, 8 brigs, 1 ramshorn and 1 spixi a couple weeks ago. Half of the snails are lying on their sides on the substrate and the other half are floating at the top of the tank. No one is eating. No one is out exploring. Today I took out 3 dead ones. Water params are great (ammonia & nitrite are zero, nitrates are 10-20 and pH is about 8.0). I took my water to the LFS to test in case my test kit was old or something and they tested exactly the way mine was. I have a thread going on applesnail.net for help any they don't have any ideas why things are amiss either. Why are my snails dying? :|

Goldfish. My goldfish are doing great. At least somebody is living.

Thanks for listening.

 

[joannde]

I feel your pain and I'm so sorry for the heartaches. I know what's it's like to have these mystery deaths. I've had the same fate / curse. I wish I knew how to help you.
I just treated the entire tank with maracyn 1 and maracyn 2 in case I had some sort of evil bacteria that wasn't showing up with any physical symptoms. Of course my biofilter died as a result - lots of water changes and Bio-Spira to recycle.

Somehow we'll get through this - hang in there and don't give up hope

 

[zenkatydid]

at a pet shop i used to work at, we couldn't do snails. there was nothing wrong with our parameters, and they always arrived alive and healthy from the supplier, but within a few days they'd all be floating or just lying there. we tried everything. we figured that there was just something in our local water (copper, perhaps) that snails didn't like. it was frustrating, and there was nothing we could do about it. maybe you're just not for snails?

 

[Devilishturtles]

The first thing that popped into my head was copper. Maybe you can get your tap tested for it?

Also, are you getting your fish from a reputable LFS? It could be your original source.

Regardless, sorry to hear.

 

[sherry]

even for a low light tank your light is low.. YOu should have at least 1.5 watts per gallon.

that could be hurting your plants.

as for the fish, if you are doing 30 percent weekly water changes and still registering between 20 and 40 nitrates, you may be overstocked or your defination of feeding sparingly isn't mine. that's a lot of nitrates for a low light tank where you aren't dosing them in purposefully.

finally if your snails are dying, what is your gh? you may need a little calcium and magnesium in the water.. (greg watson sells a gh booster that has both).

 

[plecoperson]

coolchinchilla, didn't I see on applesnail that your water goes through a softener? I was just skimming posts this AM and thought that's what was said--?

EDIT: Just re-read that thread; that your water is usually softened but the softener ran out of salt, question of stuff being released when that happened, question of whether the snails had "adjusted" to the soft water.

 

[DepotFish]

Another note, the goldfish probably love the high ph, but the tropicals don't.

 

[JustOneMore20]

IME vals, amazon swords, and anacharis are more medium light or like around 2wpg or more. 1 wpg is very low, so I'd see about upgrading the lighting. Maybe that will make the plants a little happier.

Sorry about your losses. I hope you can figure out what is wrong!

 

[IceH2O]

Dead snails don't float or at least I've never seen it. Before you go throwing away floating snails give them a good snif. You'll know if they're dead.

 

[JRagg]

Agree on the too low of lighting. I had that 15W bulb over a 10g tank, and anything that was medium or higher light died very very fast. Nothing was growing. I upgraded my lighting a little bit, and now I can't keep up with my plants.

 

[coolchinchilla]

WOW. Thanks everyone for the encouragement and the troubleshooting ideas.

Plecoperson: It is true that my water softener ran out of salt and that may be cause of the snailain problems. Today I changed 50% with non-softened water and the snails are still not doing so well. I'm set up to do another 50% change with nonsoftened water tomorrow. Not too hopeful at this point.

Devilishturtles: Not sure how to figure out if I have copper in the water.

Sherry: So my lighting is too low for my low-light plants? Hmmmmmmm.... <sigh> I thought low-lights were ok with 1 watt per gallon. Will have to improve lights. Glad to know what's wrong with my plants. For the snails I do add Kent's liquid calcium to the water and today I did a 50% water change with UNsoftened water. That will put some good minerals in the mix. My water is VERY hard.

IceH2O: I'm careful about deciding if the snails are dead. I give them a good sniff. Today I picked up one and her wounded little body fell out of the shell in my hand. Poor little sweetie. I hope she was already dead. What an awful way to die. I took her to my garden where I have other pets who have passed on.

Thanks for the help guys. I'll keep you posted.
Linda and the zoo.

 

[JRagg]

Here is an excellent site for figuring out how much light you need to be "low light".

Just enter in the dimensions of your tank (scroll down a bit) and it tells you how much of what kind of bulb is required to meet the low light standard (and all other light standards for that matter).

Good luck!

**EDIT**
It would certainly help if I posted the link wouldn't it?
Here you go

 

[Tong]

Agreeing with all the planted tank people. I think you simply don't have enough light in your planted tanks. I'm going to guess that your lighting for your 15 gallon is actually more like 0.5 wpg when take into account some of Wizzard~Of~Ozz's ideas and some of my own too. Your 30 gallon is probably more like 0.45 wpg.

Now IME, I did grow plants with 0.5 wpg, but I had to buy those really expensive hagen bulbs to do it and inject CO2. Without CO2 you'd probably need 1 wpg minimum. It'd be easier just to add more bulbs.

Also are you using the right kind of bulbs? Most bulbs that come stock with light strips don't work.

 

[coolchinchilla]

I purchased the bulbs new at home depot. They're labled for aquariums and plants.

 

[JustOneMore20]

They are probably normal fluorescent bulbs that have the right Kelvin rating for plants. NO fluorescents are not usually high wattage. I use compact fluorescents on all my planted tanks.

You can get around 2wpg with NO fluorescents, but you'll need alot of them.