Won the battle, but lost the War, learn from my mistakes...

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JDogg

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Sep 10, 2005
Messages
2,294
Location
Rapid City, SD
to read the fight with BBA that lead to this http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?p=728791#728791

well bleach dipped my plants, then treated with peroxide...big mistake...

Water is "cloudy" reading .5 ammonia, doing LARGE (75%) PWC as i type (got to love that python)

this is my 75 gal planted by the way, check my info for plants and animals originally in it...

swords look ok, Elodea has White tips, Primrose has white/gray leaves, Aponogeton leave are kind of red/brownish :(

BBA has turned gray, dieing???

this is over night after dosing 1 oz per 10 gal peroxid...

Lost all my otos, three out of 6 rummy-nose tetra, MTS and ramshorn snail still lying on gravel :( Dead??? or just reacting to ammonia?)

Thought angel would die, he was lying on his side on gravel, when light came on this morning but looks and is acting fine now.

GBR and Bolivian are fine as far as i can tell, Tank God!!!

hope plants will recover :?

not sure if ammonia is caused by dies off or if my filter bacteria was affected....

will clean a couple of filters pads from other tanks in this tank to hopefully reintroduce, bump up bacteria to avoid cycling all over again.

will also add a little extra prime to help with ammonia...

anything else i can do?
 
I mentioned this in your other thread but I am confident that the peroxide was not the cause of this catastrophy. Peroxide in the stated amount will not harm fish, inverts, the plants, and definately not your biological filter to the degree you saw.

Your results are textbook chlorine toxicity. Somehow, somewhere, chlorine was introduced into the tank which resulted in the death of those fish and as important the destruction of your biological filter. I do not believe the ammonia you are detecting is the result of the fish decomposing, you did the peroxide/bleach at night and discovered them in the morning. It normally takes a bit longer for them to start rotting in the tank and causing ammonia levels. And frankly with some plants and your tank being as established as it is I wouldn't expect to see an ammonia spike that quickly (maybe 24-48hours after the death but not 8-12 hours).

Also I would clean the other filter pads in another container of tank water (from the tank you got the filters from) and then dump it into your 75. The last thing you want to do is cause problems for other tanks if the toxin is still present in your 75.

I am horrified by your loss, but please do not blame the wrong chemical.
 
again, sorry for your lose. dead BBA will turn blood red when it dies. It may take a day or two before the red comes out.
 
My BBA turned white when I bleach dipped it and stayed that color until it dissapeared. The staghorn algae that I peroxide treated turned that blood red color that rkilling1 mentioned. I don't know if different species of BBA react differently to the same treatment type, but it might just stay that color until it is either eaten by the fish or rots off on its own.
 
Im wondering if the chlorine killed the filter because I cant figure out where the ammonia would come from otherwise. I remember from the peroxide experiment I was participating in, that I was dosing a couple times a day and did not have one problem like this.
 
7Enigma said:
I am horrified by your loss, but please do not blame the wrong chemical.
i do not know which chemical to blame, i merely stated the events in the order they happened, did bleach dip at approximately 1 pm, everything appeared fine until 9 pm, when my timer turn my lights out...
dosed peroxide at approximately 9:15 pm into outflow stream from powerhead for max and fast dispersion to all corners of tank.

at 6 am this morning timer turns lights on and my alarm went off. checked on tank and found casualties, could not do much at the time because had to be to work by 7:30 and it is a 45 min commute.


so what ever it was, chemical, virus, bacteria, soap...di its work between 9pm last night and 6 am this morning... my understanding is that chlorine will kill faster then 8 hours(1pm to 9pm), maybe i am wrong... :?

also i added a full dose of pime to the tank before adding plants...
 
from the Krib:
"> Is there a rule-of-thumb for dosing H2O2 to a planted tank that has fish? 1
> tablespoon per 10 gallons daily maybe? What about for dosing a planted tank
> without fish. I used half a bottle of H2O2 on my tank (29 gal) yesterday
> and it seemed to adverely affect the plants. Nothing major though. The
> upper leaves of my hygro poly seem to be wilting, but I'm sure they will
> bounce back in a couple of days (I hope. Also, the leaves on my E. tennelus
> have all of a sudden developed whitish streaks and are pearling like mad.
> All my nutrient levels are in check.

I posted guidelines for dosing, and the consequences of over dosing
three days ago (check the archives).

You weren't very specific, so I'm going to make some assumptions.

1) Hope this was standard 3%, drug store stuff.

2) If this was a small (16 oz.), bottle, you dumped in approximately 8
oz. If it was the large, 32 oz. bottle, forget it, everything in your
tank is dead.

3) If the tank was fishless, the maximum you'd want to use is 6 oz. (1
oz/5 gallons). Even with that, you'll kill snails, and set the plants
back quite a bit.

4) If the tank contained fish, but no Otto's, you can use 2.5 oz. (1
oz/12 gallons). If it contained Otto's, 1.5 oz (1 oz/20 gallons).

People, please don't arbitrarily dump this stuff in your tank. Hydrogen
peroxide is a very strong oxidizer, it can, and will, kill everything in
your tank if not used properly. Read! Read! Read! Check the archives.
Check the Krib. If all else fails, post a question before, not after the
fact.

Augie Eppler
Green Cove Springs, Fl"

http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Algae/hydrogen-peroxide.html

from this you can see that otto's are more sensitive and that explains thier death. H2O2 has also been known to kill the bateria in your tank. IE the NH3 increase. Once your plants get back up to speed the NH3 will go away very fast.

EDIT: i am not pointing any fingers here. S...tuff happens.
 
rkilling1 said:
from the Krib:
"> Is there a rule-of-thumb for dosing H2O2 to a planted tank that has fish? 1
> tablespoon per 10 gallons daily maybe? What about for dosing a planted tank
> without fish. I used half a bottle of H2O2 on my tank (29 gal) yesterday
> and it seemed to adverely affect the plants. Nothing major though. The
> upper leaves of my hygro poly seem to be wilting, but I'm sure they will
> bounce back in a couple of days (I hope. Also, the leaves on my E. tennelus
> have all of a sudden developed whitish streaks and are pearling like mad.
> All my nutrient levels are in check.

I posted guidelines for dosing, and the consequences of over dosing
three days ago (check the archives).

You weren't very specific, so I'm going to make some assumptions.

1) Hope this was standard 3%, drug store stuff.

2) If this was a small (16 oz.), bottle, you dumped in approximately 8
oz. If it was the large, 32 oz. bottle, forget it, everything in your
tank is dead.

3) If the tank was fishless, the maximum you'd want to use is 6 oz. (1
oz/5 gallons). Even with that, you'll kill snails, and set the plants
back quite a bit.

4) If the tank contained fish, but no Otto's, you can use 2.5 oz. (1
oz/12 gallons). If it contained Otto's, 1.5 oz (1 oz/20 gallons).

People, please don't arbitrarily dump this stuff in your tank. Hydrogen
peroxide is a very strong oxidizer, it can, and will, kill everything in
your tank if not used properly. Read! Read! Read! Check the archives.
Check the Krib. If all else fails, post a question before, not after the
fact.

Augie Eppler
Green Cove Springs, Fl"

http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Algae/hydrogen-peroxide.html

from this you can see that otto's are more sensitive and that explains thier death. H2O2 has also been know to kill the bateria in your tank. IE the NH3 increase.
yeap that is pretty much what happened... take this as a teachable moment, i screwed up, i did not do all my homework, i can except that, i just hope someone learns from my mistake...

by the way, one of my rubbernose plecos just dies, and the other one is lying on the bottle (turned yellow and breathing heavy) this is after the 75% pwc... :puppydogeyes:
 
from what i have read, a lot of deaths from H2O2 are not appearent at first. The H2O2 burns the gills and may take days to kill the fish.
 
That absolutely bites the big one! Sorry to hear about the losses and I hope the ones that are left make it. I would turn on a couple airstones full blast to try and save the rest although it might not help. Melafix might help. Kinda grasping at straws but worth a try.
 
Going from personal experience, dosing with moderate amounts of peroxide did not affect any fish or the filter in my tank. 3 or 4 weeks later they are still alive and fine. But the lesson I learned from this thread, along with my own experience, is that chemicals and fish should never be mixed, including h202. The only chemical I see a need for is the one to remove the chemicals added to city tap water. Another lesson I learned is that if a plant has a problem and looks bad, it will get yanked and replaced with a new one.
 
Wow JD, that bites big time. FWIW, you are to be commended for sharing this experience with others so they can avoid making a similar mistake.

Now that you've experienced this, start over. I'd be more than happy to help.
 
Jchillin said:
Wow JD, that bites big time. FWIW, you are to be commended for sharing this experience with others so they can avoid making a similar mistake.

Now that you've experienced this, start over. I'd be more than happy to help.
i will and thanks!

well day two...

no further fish deaths this morning, and some of the snail are up and about (none of the mts :cry: ) 1/2 ramhorns are still looking dead. not to worry more are already coming thanks to Zezmo!

plants are another story. I have not experience with this so i am not sure if the will recover....

i will try to post some pic so you can all see and advise on plant damage. if they look to far gone i will just pull and replace, but if anyone think they will recover i would like to give them that chance...

as you can see what is still cloudy...
 
aquarious said:
Going from personal experience, dosing with moderate amounts of peroxide did not affect any fish or the filter in my tank. 3 or 4 weeks later they are still alive and fine. But the lesson I learned from this thread, along with my own experience, is that chemicals and fish should never be mixed, including h202. The only chemical I see a need for is the one to remove the chemicals added to city tap water. Another lesson I learned is that if a plant has a problem and looks bad, it will get yanked and replaced with a new one.

We had the same results. I dosed 1oz/10gallons for 3 days straight at lights out at night (this was even before I had a powerhead installed so just the HOB filter was mixing), and didn't see this at all. I have 2 Oto's and a cory catfish (and 10barbs) and none showed any signs of stress.

And I've read several stories of shrimp breeder tanks using the 1oz/10gallon rule without problems....I'm just wondering if it was a different problem than even the bleach/peroxide. Heavy metals or detergents?
 
Like so many things there are a lot of variables in an aquarium. It's quite possible that something about JDogg's water made the Peroxide more toxic in his aquarium than it would be in someone else's. Something as simple as difference in pH can have a vaste effect on how toxic Ammonia is. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the same was true of many other chemicals. This would go a long way to explaining why people have had such drastically different results on both fish and plants when using Peroxide to treat algae.
 
Purrbox said:
Like so many things there are a lot of variables in an aquarium. It's quite possible that something about JDogg's water made the Peroxide more toxic in his aquarium than it would be in someone else's. Something as simple as difference in pH can have a vaste effect on how toxic Ammonia is. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the same was true of many other chemicals. This would go a long way to explaining why people have had such drastically different results on both fish and plants when using Peroxide to treat algae.
my PH, KH (when not altered by my CO2) and GH are through the roof, water is like cold magma (liquid rock), perhaps DIY CO2 had an effect too...
 
Yeah I had originally thought if you had really REALLY soft water that maybe the peroxide dropped the pH suddenly which could stress the fish but then I saw your water parameters and thought that hypothesis was wrong.
 
still getting .25 ppm ammonia, i think i am stuck in a with fish cycle :cry:

even thoug i added enough bacteria from the filter on my 28 to turn the water in my 75 brown :oops:
 
Did you first get the bacteria into a bucket of water from the smaller tank and then add it in? Or did you put the filter pad directly in the 75? If the latter, you need to check your levels in the other tanks as well because its possible those were damaged when you put them in the main tank...

I wouldn't feed your fish for a couple days to lessen the amount of waste they produce. And hope for some GW to help with your ammonia issues (only if you have a UV sterilizer or diatom filter).
 
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