Fish died as soon as I put them in the tank

[Caliban07]

Interesting discussion here guys. Here comes my spanner into the works.....

The water at my place of work is hard and alkaline.... pH 7.8 to 8.2. When we receive our fish, we do not have 5 hours, let alone 5 days for drip acclimatisation. The water in the bags does not allow for this either as ammonia is often high. If we open the bags for dripping, we lose the remaining oxygen and fish may start gasping, so consequently..... and brace yourselves......... we have to basically open the bags and pour the fish into a net and add them to our tanks. PH shock?..... we do this with cardinal tetras - last week I lost one fish a week after I added them.

We do drip certain fish, but not because of pH. Tiger barbs, tinfoils, rosy barbs, silver dollars and a couple of others seem to go into shock due to adjustment to oxygen levels..... they spin wildly then die quickly with mouths wide open! Addition of tank water to the bags over a period of ten mins or so alleviates this. Other than this, we have few problems adding fish.

OP, if you are still reading, what sympoms or actions.do your fish display once released? Also, are the bags filled with air or oxygen when you buy the fish?

Pip do you believe in nitrate shock? How difficult is it maintain a lower level of nitrates in your place of work?

 

[Delapool]

Interesting discussion here guys. Here comes my spanner into the works.....

The water at my place of work is hard and alkaline.... pH 7.8 to 8.2. When we receive our fish, we do not have 5 hours, let alone 5 days for drip acclimatisation. The water in the bags does not allow for this either as ammonia is often high. If we open the bags for dripping, we lose the remaining oxygen and fish may start gasping, so consequently..... and brace yourselves......... we have to basically open the bags and pour the fish into a net and add them to our tanks. PH shock?..... we do this with cardinal tetras - last week I lost one fish a week after I added them.

We do drip certain fish, but not because of pH. Tiger barbs, tinfoils, rosy barbs, silver dollars and a couple of others seem to go into shock due to adjustment to oxygen levels..... they spin wildly then die quickly with mouths wide open! Addition of tank water to the bags over a period of ten mins or so alleviates this. Other than this, we have few problems adding fish.

OP, if you are still reading, what sympoms or actions.do your fish display once released? Also, are the bags filled with air or oxygen when you buy the fish?

I must admit I don't do the drip method
and rarely lose a fish newly bought. I would think the shock potential could be high except I know the lfs uses the same town water I do. Still wonder though.

Where I have lost fish is on a water change - I assume where the temperature is too different but ?. Fairly certain there is something they don't like even though I would think the change to new fish going in would be greater than a water change (which is around 30% each time).

Edit - actually I should change that. On newly bought fish, I've lost say 3 out of 45 in total. Loss was probably over night.

 

[Hobgob]

Drip is needed for more sensitive fish. I wouldnt drip a kribansis but I probably would a Gbr.

 

[pip walters]

Pip do you believe in nitrate shock? How difficult is it maintain a lower level of nitrates in your place of work?

In a facility like ours where some water is changed every day due to bagging fish, the nitrates don't tend to build to dangerous levels. Besides, as I have posted before, I don't worry too much about nitrates as I have never had a fish with problems I would attribute to nitrate poisoning. It used to be advised to do a partial water change if nitrates reached 50ppm, now it seems to be 20 or 30 depending who is advising. The truth is different fish have different tolerances and some fish will tolerate 1000 ppm!

Fish are far more able to adjust quickly to changes than the hobby would have us believe. In a natural lake, water pH will vary between 5 and 9 during the course of 24 hours.....fish are living with this, but it is important to remember that this change is gradual, even though 24 hours seems like a short time. It is possible that when a fish swims from a deeper part of a lake where the oxygen levels are lower, into a shallower part where more oxygen may be available, that the pH is going to vary (oxygen is alkaline)...... that won't stop him getting his breakfast!

During heavy rain, pH can drop rapidly as all rain is acidic at a pH of around 5 to 5.5, so a small pond for instance could suffer a drop of 3 to 4 ppm over a short period, which is a change of 30 to 40 times the acidity.

 

[Caliban07]

In a facility like ours where some water is changed every day due to bagging fish, the nitrates don't tend to build to dangerous levels. Besides, as I have posted before, I don't worry too much about nitrates as I have never had a fish with problems I would attribute to nitrate poisoning. It used to be advised to do a partial water change if nitrates reached 50ppm, now it seems to be 20 or 30 depending who is advising. The truth is different fish have different tolerances and some fish will tolerate 1000 ppm!



Fish are far more able to adjust quickly to changes than the hobby would have us believe. In a natural lake, water pH will vary between 5 and 9 during the course of 24 hours.....fish are living with this, but it is important to remember that this change is gradual, even though 24 hours seems like a short time. It is possible that when a fish swims from a deeper part of a lake where the oxygen levels are lower, into a shallower part where more oxygen may be available, that the pH is going to vary (oxygen is alkaline)...... that won't stop him getting his breakfast!

Yes I always thought fish were more adaptable than we give them credit for but since joining this forum I've been treating them a bit differently.

What I meant was do you think going from 100ppm + to 5ppm could cause issues.

 

[Hobgob]

1000ppm seems really high. I have seen 160 ppm but that's as high as I've ever seen. Took a while to slowly bring those down lol and the new fish kepted dying for the tank to. Nitrate shock? Finally the person understand that the debris in your filter and gravel adds to your trates.

 

[Hobgob]

Yes I always thought fish were more adaptable than we give them credit for but since joining this forum I've been treating them a bit differently.

What I meant was do you think going from 100ppm + to 5ppm could cause issues.

Drastic problems most likely. just like going from 5 to 100 I watched fish die after I put them in my father tank to hold them. My breeding tanks stay around 10 ppm his tank was like 80-160. A few of my hy511 passed. My gorgeous breeding male bnp, and a few albino kribs. I've noticed the same thing when I removed them and put them into clean water.

 

[Katrinag]

Interesting discussion here guys. Here comes my spanner into the works.....

The water at my place of work is hard and alkaline.... pH 7.8 to 8.2. When we receive our fish, we do not have 5 hours, let alone 5 days for drip acclimatisation. The water in the bags does not allow for this either as ammonia is often high. If we open the bags for dripping, we lose the remaining oxygen and fish may start gasping, so consequently..... and brace yourselves......... we have to basically open the bags and pour the fish into a net and add them to our tanks. PH shock?..... we do this with cardinal tetras - last week I lost one fish a week after I added them.

We do drip certain fish, but not because of pH. Tiger barbs, tinfoils, rosy barbs, silver dollars and a couple of others seem to go into shock due to adjustment to oxygen levels..... they spin wildly then die quickly with mouths wide open! Addition of tank water to the bags over a period of ten mins or so alleviates this. Other than this, we have few problems adding fish.

OP, if you are still reading, what sympoms or actions.do your fish display once released? Also, are the bags filled with air or oxygen when you buy the fish?

Hi PIP. I started the original thread so I assume your question is for me. When I put the denison barbs in they darted around the tank then started to kinda jerk around then die. what I dont get is I would take them out and put them back into the container where I added my tank water over 2.5 hours and they would come back to life. The bags were filled with air. I still do not get what happened to them and would like to buy them again but dont want the same thing to happen.

 

[Delapool]

Drip is needed for more sensitive fish. I wouldnt drip a kribansis but I probably would a Gbr.

Good point, these are pretty common. Thanks, I'll have to look into it.

 

[BettaMan01]

Did you make sure your heater/cooler was working? Iv seen fish die just almost instantly because people didn't realize their temp controller wasn't actually working

 

[Hobgob]

Hi PIP. I started the original thread so I assume your question is for me. When I put the denison barbs in they darted around the tank then started to kinda jerk around then die. what I dont get is I would take them out and put them back into the container where I added my tank water over 2.5 hours and they would come back to life. The bags were filled with air. I still do not get what happened to them and would like to buy them again but dont want the same thing to happen.

Honestly it was probably because you didn't add your water into there water slowly and causing a sudden change in parameters in general not meaning ammo, trites, trates, or ph but there are other things to look into the may have caused this. I would just add a bit of water into the bag slowly while it is floating in your tank. Just scoop it with a cup and poor it in. This way the store water still doesn't come into contact with you tank. Just do it slowly.
I thought you said you didn't add water to the bag?

 

[Hobgob]

I see you purchased another school and it happened again although your rosabora survived

 

[Katrinag]

Honestly it was probably because you didn't add your water into there water slowly and causing a sudden change in parameters in general not meaning ammo, trites, trates, or ph but there are other things to look into the may have caused this. I would just add a bit of water into the bag slowly while it is floating in your tank. Just scoop it with a cup and poor it in. This way the store water still doesn't come into contact with you tank. Just do it slowly.
I thought you said you didn't add water to the bag?

Yes I replaced the school. I added water to the denisons slowly, after an hour, put 1 of the denison's in and he started to die, removed him and put him back in the bag, he came back. Did it again for another hour, same thing happened. Did it for another hour and the put all 4 in the fry net thing I have that hangs on the side of the tank in the tank water and the same thing happened. 3 out of 4 died.. removed the one that lived and put him in the tank and he died. I did this with the 3 rasbora I had to replace and it worked.

 

[Katrinag]

Did you make sure your heater/cooler was working? Iv seen fish die just almost instantly because people didn't realize their temp controller wasn't actually working

Yes, the heater is fine. I have 2 thermometers in the tank, 1 digital and 1 mercury style. I thought maybe the co2 was the issue. That is the only thing I could see what different but I think that may be a stretch.

 

[J.Mcpeak]

Some of you are confused, to drip for five days! I've have said its ridiculous and impossible.

Not sure where that came from. Not from me. Hob gob I think? May be wrong (it's been a long week!)

I have never drip acclimated any of my fish. I have adjusted water prior to purchase and acclimated temp over 15-30 minutes. The process of adjusting the water from purchase point standard to my standard in a qt may take five days or five weeks. (There is a period of acclimation, not by the standard drip convention though)

The qt is almost the same as purchase point.

Pip, glad you arrived, you will know more, or maybe less
Cheeky! (That's for the canon/nikon quip)

 

[J.Mcpeak]

Rhetorical, why must every word be a word.

I'm not sure what you are asking here. Are you asking me to suggest another reason for the death? Osmotic shock (TDS shock)

I don't see why is assumed to be pH shock

No I'm not asking you anything! Or for a suggestion either. You're high on TDS shock. Others would say it's some other shock, O2 or temp. Depends what you fancy. The current consensus is aiming toward a new catch phrase that's all, give it ten years and some other term will be fabricated.

TDS is too varied to be deemed a cause (that's my opinion) within TDS it is one or more of the elements involved. My money would be on chloride. TDS is just a handy way to say it's those things there. 8-10 elements and some other stuff.

It was just a statement.

The assumption is pH difference endearingly termed pH shock. It isn't my term it's been around for years. It was an example.

I don't see why it is assumed either, but that's the point of part of this thread.

Edit;- found this,

TDS is basically everything dissolved in the water: chlorine, chloramine, ammonia, phosphate, salt, hard minerals (GH), bicarbonates (KH), etc. And almost every substance added to the water will increase TDS: water conditioner, fish foods, plant fertilizers, calcareous substances, medications, water adjustment products, etc.

 

[threnjen]

I have not read the last couple of pages, just logged on, but I just came from a LFS where the fish guy is a biology major at our local university. He happened to be chatting with a different customer about osmotic shock when I came in. I asked his opinion on pH shock being a myth, and he agreed wholeheartedly and said that his biology professors at the university teach that pH shock is a myth and is actually osmotic shock.

It's very "he said she said" but there's at least some other academic professional biologists out there who think the pH argument that is perpetuated by the hobby is not relevant.

 

[Katrinag]

I have not read the last couple of pages, just logged on, but I just came from a LFS where the fish guy is a biology major at our local university. He happened to be chatting with a different customer about osmotic shock when I came in. I asked his opinion on pH shock being a myth, and he agreed wholeheartedly and said that his biology professors at the university teach that pH shock is a myth and is actually osmotic shock.

It's very "he said she said" but there's at least some other academic professional biologists out there who think the pH argument that is perpetuated by the hobby is not relevant.

Thanks Jen, so that being said how can add the fish and avoid the osmotic shock

 

[Delapool]

I have not read the last couple of pages, just logged on, but I just came from a LFS where the fish guy is a biology major at our local university. He happened to be chatting with a different customer about osmotic shock when I came in. I asked his opinion on pH shock being a myth, and he agreed wholeheartedly and said that his biology professors at the university teach that pH shock is a myth and is actually osmotic shock.

It's very "he said she said" but there's at least some other academic professional biologists out there who think the pH argument that is perpetuated by the hobby is not relevant.

Lol I need to find a better class of lfs (sigh). I wish we had experts like that here. Did he say any elements in the TDS cause problems? I read an interesting article on oscarfish saying the same but I'm not sure how that ties in with when I have treated with salt ( which I assume would rocket the TDS up).

I can't think of anything (apart from stray electricity but there were already fish present) for the OP.

 

[pip walters]

Some of you are confused, to drip for five days! I've have said its ridiculous and impossible.

Not sure where that came from. Not from me. Hob gob I think? May be wrong (it's been a long week!)

I have never drip acclimated any of my fish. I have adjusted water prior to purchase and acclimated temp over 15-30 minutes. The process of adjusting the water from purchase point standard to my standard in a qt may take five days or five weeks. (There is a period of acclimation, not by the standard drip convention though)

The qt is almost the same as purchase point.

Pip, glad you arrived, you will know more, or maybe less
Cheeky! (That's for the canon/nikon quip)

Numpty muppet