OMG tell me what you what you think about this

[tropicfishman]

alright heres the situation, my brother and his wife have been fish keeping fish for a few months, they are as novice as it comes, they havea 55 gallon full of mollies, guppies, platys, a bala, and all there plecos have died after 24 hours of being in the tank. they have had over 30 fish die in 5 months!!!! including 6 plecos!!!! well they still agianst my advice take there water to the LFS to have it tested, after about the 60th time, I guess the store got sick of seeing them and told them there water was fine becuase it was CLEAR!!! how ridiclous right? anyways they brought me a water samplee and with my AP test kits, here's the results

PH 7.8
ammonia 2.0 PPM !!!
Nitrates were off the charts, over 160 ppm
nitrites about 1.0 ppm
and phosphates were way off the charts

I offered my ammonia detox immediatly and they said the lfs said not to use it, but to do 10 % water changes!!! not even 50 %, so I forgot about it, well an algea bloom breaks out and they go back with a another water sample, one was tank water, one was tap, the tap showed normal results, the tank was out of control, so the LFS actually takes osme of their tap and uses START RIGHT, whihc is what my brother uses, the LFS then claims its the START RIGHT causing all the ammonia spikes and they begin removing it from the slefs, has anyone heard anything about start right doping this?

 

[chotie]

start right isnt doing it.

-possible overstock.
-overfeeding.
-filter hasnt been cleaned since start.
-no/too infrequent water changes.

stop adding chems to water. start getting them to do 30-50% W/C daily. now if they are as stubborn as it seems, leave it be. obviously they dont care how many fish they kill, so they wont do frequent W/C.

if you really care about those fish, i guess the only thing you can do is W/C yourself and ask them for a small fee to take care of their fish. once the tank is cycled you can probably go with 2x weekly W/C.

 

[tropicfishman]

It kills me becuase his wife wil lcall me panicing and asking my advice and then when I tell her what to do, she says the fish store told her not to, I'm just gonna start being a jerk about this whole contradicting me with what the fish store says, apperently waht the fish store says is wrong since she still has problems and my tanks is doing great, my brother is the only guy who can kill a pet rock lol

 

[chotie]

dont be a jerk. she just doesnt think you know. refer her to websites like this. barring that, let them kill their fish or take my suggestion.

 

[TomK2]

Water changes are the solution to most polution, so next time you just don't know what to get them, get them a python! That tank likely needs a serious cleaning, filter maintenance, and of course, water changes.

 

[MarkP]

Far be it for me (I'm returning to hobby after a 10plus year break) to offer any definative advice, but I think I see what the LFS was seeing.

Start Right is a dechlorinator (Among other things), right? If you have chlorine in your water, you add it and the chlorine goes away. If you have chlorimine in your water (I do, so do many other places), the dechlorinator breaks down the chloramine in ammonia and something else- I forget what, but I beleive it's pretty harmless. If this is what is happening, ANY dechlorinator will do the exact same thing. I know for a fact I can take a gallon of water from my tap, drop in two drops of the AP Dechorlinator, and test extremely high for ammonia immediately afterwards

In a tank with good biological filtration or live plants, not a huge deal (In my opinion, at least), but in a new tank it can suck.

The answer is as previously mentioned- Change the water to get that Nitrate level DOWN. Use a dechlorinator on your water- Ammonia is bad, but proper filtration and it goes away, chloramine is bad and will hang around for a while. Incidently, I've heard you need to double the amount of dechlorinator you use if you have chloramine- Chloramine has 2 chlorine molecues.

Why do I know this? I used a dechlorinator when I started my tank, and my ammonia levels were off the chart. So I dug around for some stuff. Do a search for "chloramine" and probably ammonia, some good articles are out there on it. I know the spelling in quotes is correct, I may have spelled it wrong elsewhere.

Incidently- If this is the case, and if you LFS didn't know this, it should give you some serious ammo to use in your arguement that the LFS doesn't know everything.

 

[tropicfishman]

thats what gets me, on the back of the package it says to breakdown chloramine and remove ammonia, use the ammonia detox they make, I'm guessing they prolly never read it, and the tank is in bad shpae, they clean the gravel once every few weeks, never clean the filter, etc. this is just like when she called jungle labs and tore them a new one because she claimed the test strips she bought showed her ammonia levle was ok, when it was incredibly high, she felt pretty dumb when I told her they didn't even have an ammonia test patch on them lol

 

[MattAquaBio]

Well, from the sound of things they kind of jumped in over their head. They arent deliberatly killing fish, she appears to be trying, but fishkeeping is hard if youdont know what you're doing. A lot of these stores are in it just for a quick buck and wont be a lot of help to you, and she's liable to believe anything they tell her b/c thats what their business is.
So rather than argue with her and try to convince her that your right and the lfs is wrong. You could just try what i did with my stepmom.
Go to their house and do a water change for them, while your doing it get them to help you and teach them about the good natural bacteria and cycling and ammonia and everything. Explain the bioload and pretty much anything you can think of.
Go over to their house once or twice a week until the tank is cycled and the levels are good. When the tank is finally healthy you just showed them that you knew what you were talking about and now they have a healthy tank AND knowledge to keep it that way.
Like my creative writing teacher used to say- show me, dont tell me.
sorry for the long post.
-matt

 

[JustOneMore20]

2 ppm of ammonia isn't as bad as 160ppm of nitrAte. The ammonia is more toxic, since the pH is higher though but not as bad as the nitrAtes are for the fish.

I suggest they do a 50% water change initially and then do about 20% changes every other day until the nitrates are under 40ppm.

Make sure they aren't over feeding and are not overstocked. A bala shark gets too large for a 55g. They need a 125g minimum IMO and get to about 14 inches.

Do they do regular water changes and gravel vacs? I am guessing not since the nitrates are so high. They should do weekly 40% water changes.

 

[TomK2]

MarkP:

yep, chloramine water always needs a dechlorinator as a minimum. Most municipal water supplies strive to have mono-chloramine in the pipes, so there is one chlorine molecule per chloramine. Di and tri chloramine are very effective antimicrobials too, but they are not as safe for human consumption. After dechlorinating, the chloramine is broken into ammonia and chlorine. The chlorine diffuses out, the ammonia must be metablolized by the tank. Chloramine does not readily diffuse out with aeration, which is why you always need dechlor to get rid of it. Many dechlorinators have the "ammonia binding" end of the molecule, but thiosulfate is a dechlorinator and dechlorinator only.

Chloramine water tests positive for ammonia on an AP kit wether you use dechlor or not, because the AP kit measures ammonia by the amount of mono-chloramine it can be converted into (first bottle is chlorine and stuff to make chloramine if you have ammonia, second bottle is the indicators and stuff). thus, your AP kit is also a chloramine kit. Test your municipal water without dechlor, if it turns color, you have detected chloramine. Very unusual to have a municipal supply that tests positive for ammonia that is actually ammonia instead of chloramine.

 

[tropicfishman]

its amamzing to think I used to just tear a tank completely down, wash the gravel and everything, refill and use dechlor and then flop the fish back in, I did this like every couple weeks years ago when I first started keeping fish, now I'm teasting for this and that, and learning about all these amazing things, I often look back and wonder what I've got myself into lol next thing ya know I'm going to be building my own water treatment facility in my back yard LOL

 

[lovemybarbs]

I know. People think keeping my one tank would be a pain. It is so easy.

I think need to leave and let you step in for a few days. A rescue mission. Can you take the fish until they come to their senses??? 6 plecos??

My brother about flipped when he saw all the different kinds of food I have for my babies.

8O

 

[MarkP]

MarkP:

yep, chloramine water always needs a dechlorinator as a minimum. Most municipal water supplies strive to have mono-chloramine in the pipes, so there is one chlorine molecule per chloramine. Di and tri chloramine are very effective antimicrobials too, but they are not as safe for human consumption. After dechlorinating, the chloramine is broken into ammonia and chlorine. The chlorine diffuses out, the ammonia must be metablolized by the tank. Chloramine does not readily diffuse out with aeration, which is why you always need dechlor to get rid of it. Many dechlorinators have the "ammonia binding" end of the molecule, but thiosulfate is a dechlorinator and dechlorinator only.

Chloramine water tests positive for ammonia on an AP kit wether you use dechlor or not, because the AP kit measures ammonia by the amount of mono-chloramine it can be converted into (first bottle is chlorine and stuff to make chloramine if you have ammonia, second bottle is the indicators and stuff). thus, your AP kit is also a chloramine kit. Test your municipal water without dechlor, if it turns color, you have detected chloramine. Very unusual to have a municipal supply that tests positive for ammonia that is actually ammonia instead of chloramine.

Hmmm... I hadn't heard that about monochloramine. Don't hurt me, but I'm actually using test strips for ammonia right now, my dechlor is from AP. I'm not sure what regents my strips use- They have two pads on the strip that I assume contain regents, and a third pad that actually changes color. My test strips so no ammonia in tap water until the dechlor is added... Or I am 99% sure they do, I'll test again.

But, it certainly explains the Start Right "causing" ammonia spikes. It doesn't explain the nitrate levels.