Recently added a piece of Mopani Drift wood purchased fromt he LFS. Soaked it over night in a bucket of water treated with prime. He told me it was some of the original pieces of wood he purchased over 3 years ago and had just been sitting on the shelf with lots of other pieces. I have been doing daily 50% water changes for the last 4 days except for last night i wasnt able to. I have also been religious about doing daily water testing. The tank has not yet cycled but i have been adding Stability and Prime with every water change.
My setup for now is a 55 gal with 2 Fluval Aquaclear 110's on it. 1 has active carbon and the other has the ammonia remover. The ammonia has been staying around 1.0 ppm to 2.0 ppm, pH has been around 7.4-7.6, Nitrite is 0 ppm, Nitrate tonight was less than 5.0 but wasn't 0. The water temp is 84 and i have a marineland 1200 set up as a power head helping keep the top water circulating. I have 1 bubble wall and 2 airstones.
I rinsed the wood in aquarium temp water after pulling from the bucket it was soaking in and added it to the tank. At 5:15pm I added the wood and a 4in spotted high fin pleco from a 10 gal holding tank i had him in for a few days after i got him from the LFS. I removed about 5% of the water before adding the wood and pleco added some aquarium temp water dosed for the whole tank with prime and watched them for about 20min. Everything seemed fine fish look good healthy no issues. I turned the lights off on the tank and went and watched the UFC fights. Went to look at the tank after the fights at about 10:00 and the fish looked bad. I had 4 peacock bass 2 bala's and a pleco. All the bass had lost all of there color they were very very light colored. I had problems with one of the bass last week but he had bounced back fine. I observed them for about 20min and got out the test kit pH 7.6, already had dosed with prime for the full 55 gal at 5:15 ammonia was at 2.0 ppm possibly 3.0ppm, nitrite 0, nitrate not 0 but less than 5.0 ppm. Now i wasnt able to do a water change last night so I immediately did a 50% water changed doesd with prime for the full 55 gal again and added the stability. The bass i was having problems with last week died. The others looked not so good one was at the bottom of the tank gasping a lot. One of the Bala sharks decided to just stay swimming in the bubble wall. Now 2 of the bass seem to be fine one still slowly coming back the Bala sharks seem to be ok and the Pleco well its a pleco do they ever die.
Any guesses as to what might have caused this problem?? Fish stressed from the addition of the drift wood and Pleco maybe. How long does it take from the free ammonia to become Toxic again. I mean they went down hill really fast. I thought it might be a rapid pH change from the mopani driftwood but pH is fine. I'm lost. No signs of ich. My hands were clean, wood was clean pleco looked fine. Could it have just been an Ammonia spike the common signs did not appear to be there and the reading was only 2.0 possibly 3.0 but wasnt 4.0 on the API master test kit. My ammonia alert and pH alert in the tank look normal as well between safe and alert for ammonia.
Anyways any ideas would be great i'm stumped.
My setup for now is a 55 gal with 2 Fluval Aquaclear 110's on it. 1 has active carbon and the other has the ammonia remover. The ammonia has been staying around 1.0 ppm to 2.0 ppm, pH has been around 7.4-7.6, Nitrite is 0 ppm, Nitrate tonight was less than 5.0 but wasn't 0. The water temp is 84 and i have a marineland 1200 set up as a power head helping keep the top water circulating. I have 1 bubble wall and 2 airstones.
I rinsed the wood in aquarium temp water after pulling from the bucket it was soaking in and added it to the tank. At 5:15pm I added the wood and a 4in spotted high fin pleco from a 10 gal holding tank i had him in for a few days after i got him from the LFS. I removed about 5% of the water before adding the wood and pleco added some aquarium temp water dosed for the whole tank with prime and watched them for about 20min. Everything seemed fine fish look good healthy no issues. I turned the lights off on the tank and went and watched the UFC fights. Went to look at the tank after the fights at about 10:00 and the fish looked bad. I had 4 peacock bass 2 bala's and a pleco. All the bass had lost all of there color they were very very light colored. I had problems with one of the bass last week but he had bounced back fine. I observed them for about 20min and got out the test kit pH 7.6, already had dosed with prime for the full 55 gal at 5:15 ammonia was at 2.0 ppm possibly 3.0ppm, nitrite 0, nitrate not 0 but less than 5.0 ppm. Now i wasnt able to do a water change last night so I immediately did a 50% water changed doesd with prime for the full 55 gal again and added the stability. The bass i was having problems with last week died. The others looked not so good one was at the bottom of the tank gasping a lot. One of the Bala sharks decided to just stay swimming in the bubble wall. Now 2 of the bass seem to be fine one still slowly coming back the Bala sharks seem to be ok and the Pleco well its a pleco do they ever die.
Any guesses as to what might have caused this problem?? Fish stressed from the addition of the drift wood and Pleco maybe. How long does it take from the free ammonia to become Toxic again. I mean they went down hill really fast. I thought it might be a rapid pH change from the mopani driftwood but pH is fine. I'm lost. No signs of ich. My hands were clean, wood was clean pleco looked fine. Could it have just been an Ammonia spike the common signs did not appear to be there and the reading was only 2.0 possibly 3.0 but wasnt 4.0 on the API master test kit. My ammonia alert and pH alert in the tank look normal as well between safe and alert for ammonia.
Anyways any ideas would be great i'm stumped.