I'm stumped... :(

[eco23]

Any ideas, guys? I hope I haven't worn out my welcome.

Sorry man, I'm not ignoring and you certainly haven't worn out your welcome..I just don't have any answers for you . I've been following though. I wouldn't expect major impact from switching filters as long as you moved your media...there's definitely some mysteries. Have you checked ammo levels in the tap water a few times? I know they can fluctuate.

 

[wrmiller]

Sorry man, I'm not ignoring and you certainly haven't worn out your welcome..I just don't have any answers for you . I've been following though. I wouldn't expect major impact from switching filters as long as you moved your media...there's definitely some mysteries. Have you checked ammo levels in the tap water a few times? I know they can fluctuate.

Well, I'm of course really discouraged about my tap water ordeal as a whole. I'm waiting on the RO/DI to show up so I can start experimenting with it. I'm currently seeking out a clean 35 or 55 gallon barrel to store my water in down here in the basement so I can mix, heat and prepare it. I will be doing lots of experimentation to figure out a good mix of tap and RO water.

It looks like the Nitrate in the tank is about 80 ppm. I cant really make a dent in them though using my tap because even if i remove 50% of the water and replace I'm still putting 40 ppm back in anyway. I think I'm going to have to make the trip to my folks place and get some of their public water and bring home to do a water change or two. Hopefully it has 0 migrate or very little if any.

Im feeling bad for my fishes. I wish they could tell me if they are having issues. They seem to be acting normal although my pleco over the last two days out of nowhere lost his fins and passed last night. I have no idea what happened to him. He was fine and the all of a sudden had no fin issues and did eat yesterday and was dead this morning. I'm thinking that he maybe had had enough of the heated water and salt to treat the Ich.

Do you think I could maybe stop the Ich treatment now that it has been five or more days since I have seen any signs of it at all? Or do think I should ride it out until Sunday which will then be 2 full weeks of treatment?

I was looking online and saw some kind f filter called a denitrator filter. Have you heard of and do you have any experience with those?

I also saw some sort of nitrate reducer for aquariums but you have to feed the bacteria actual food or something. It's some sort of drip system or something.(?)

 

[eco23]

Unfortunately (but fortunate for me) I haven't dealt with ich in years and don't really know what to tell you. I'd definitely follow the guides because the last thing you'd want to happen is stop treatment and have the ich pop back up.

I've heard of the nitrAte removal stuff...but I've never used it. Maybe it's worth a new thread? I'm sure someone will be familiar with them. Something like that may not be a bad move in your situation.

 

[wrmiller]

So, with this New AquaClear 70 filter I have, it has this piece of sponge media. Does it hurt to actually squeeze that out in a bucket of old tank water to remove debit or is squeezing not a good idea? Does it hurt the bacteria or wash them away to do this?

I'm getting ready to do a PWC and am going to do the filter maintenance so could use some advice on this.

Thanks!

 

[wrmiller]

Today is the last day of the salt/heat Ich treatment. I haven't seen any spots for well over a week now so I think all should be good there. During the process I lost one cory and a small Pleco but neither deaths I am sure were because of Ich or the treatment.

Ever For about a month or so now I have had a small Convict in with my tiger barbs, clown barbs and corys. He used to show no aggression at all but the last couple of days I could see him getting very aggressive and harassing the other fishes. I have had to stick him in a breeder box until I figure out what to do with him. I'm thinking he will be my QT tank inhabitant and when I have to put sick fish in that tank I will isolate him in a breeder box. Do Convicts normal get aggressive all at once?

 

[wrmiller]

fish seem to be happy that the temp is coming down in the tank and that I have cycled out some of the salt. What do I know though. How do I know if fish are happy or not? LOL!!!

Here is a link to a short video of my tank: http://db.tt/R6k44lo. I wanted to try out the iPad linking features and give them a go.

I still can't figure out why I have so may floaters in the water. At the end of the video you will see what I am talking about. Filter is only 2 weeks old and I have cleaned the media once by dipping in bucket of removed tank water. Should I do it again but do some squeezing of the sponge? I am always worried that I am going to remove the BB from the filter. Being the the filter is only 2 weeks old though and as you can see I don't have that many fish, I wouldn't think it should be that filthy. Maybe I need some additional media or something to catch the stuff passing through? Any advice is appreciated!!!

 

[eco23]

The tank looks great and the fish certainly appear happy .

To me...it just looks like air bubbles, not debris. It's obviously hard to tell from the video though.

If you're sure it's floating particles, you can run a bit of Poly-fil (pillow stuffing) in your filter as a water polisher.

 

[wrmiller]

The tank looks great and the fish certainly appear happy .

To me...it just looks like air bubbles, not debris. It's obviously hard to tell from the video though.

If you're sure it's floating particles, you can run a bit of Poly-fil (pillow stuffing) in your filter as a water polisher.

Hi, eco!
You are right that some of it is indeed air bubbles but a majority of it is definitely floating particles.

Check this out: http://db.tt/QuwxMaF

Pillow stuffing. Hmmmm, who would have thought? Just regular pollyfill? There isn't anything in there to hurt the fishes? How much and where in the filter would I put it exactly? I have the AquaClear 70 HOB filter now. It is a stacked media filter where a sponge is on the bottom of the stack, a sack of carbon in the middle on top of the sponge and then on top of the carbon sack there are bio-beads or something like that.

So, do you recommend against squeezing out the sponge media or is that okay to do. When I clean the sponge (dip up and down) I get a lot of what looks to be like black dust and the water turns almost black. I hope that isn't my BB going bye bye on me. LOL!!!

Thanks again!!!

 

[eco23]

Hi, eco!
You are right that some of it is indeed air bubbles but a majority of it is definitely floating particles.

Check this out: http://db.tt/QuwxMaF

Pillow stuffing. Hmmmm, who would have thought? Just regular pollyfill? There isn't anything in there to hurt the fishes? How much and where in the filter would I put it exactly? I have the AquaClear 70 HOB filter now. It is a stacked media filter where a sponge is on the bottom of the stack, a sack of carbon in the middle on top of the sponge and then on top of the carbon sack there are bio-beads or something like that.

So, do you recommend against squeezing out the sponge media or is that okay to do. When I clean the sponge (dip up and down) I get a lot of what looks to be like black dust and the water turns almost black. I hope that isn't my BB going bye bye on me. LOL!!!

Thanks again!!!

Hmm, still hard to tell...are you sure none of that is little white worms (Planaria)?

The Poly-fil works great. Just make sure it's natural and not the fire-retardant type which contains chemicals. I run it in my canister filter, I'm not sure hoe to get it in a HOB...I know people do it though.

I'm actually a bit rough cleaning out my bio-media...but I have a lot of it in there. I don't think there's anything wrong with swishing it and wringing it out a bit to remove debris...just don't go crazy with it. Since you're on a well you don't have to worry about chlorine...but since I'm basically OCD I'd still use water from the tank anyway.

 

[wrmiller]

Hmm, still hard to tell...are you sure none of that is little white worms (Planaria)?

The Poly-fil works great. Just make sure it's natural and not the fire-retardant type which contains chemicals. I run it in my canister filter, I'm not sure hoe to get it in a HOB...I know people do it though.

I'm actually a bit rough cleaning out my bio-media...but I have a lot of it in there. I don't think there's anything wrong with swishing it and wringing it out a bit to remove debris...just don't go crazy with it. Since you're on a well you don't have to worry about chlorine...but since I'm basically OCD I'd still use water from the tank anyway.

WOW! I don't see anything that look like worms. Looks like dust to me. Do I need to break out a microscope? LOL!!! I don't have one so I guess I can't do that.

i will check with the wife and see if she has any of the polly fill stuff. if not, I will have to pick up some tomorrow at the store. I'll find someplace to shove it in the filter compartment. As long as it doesn't interfere with flow it should be fine regardless where I put it I would think.

Thanks again!

 

[wrmiller]

Well, no stuffing but I was able to cut up on of the old filter inserts that was for the TopFin filter and stuck in there as a layer. It is sort of the same consistency as the polly-fill stuff. I'll use that for now and pick up a bag of polly at the store when I get to wal-mart later this week. For now I will see if the filter padding I put in there will help any. I think I also need to get a new netting for my bioball things. They are sort of in a lump and don't cover the entire surface area so that water runs through them properly. I think when I put them in their netting I drew it a little to tight and they don't lay how they should. I may also get some more and add some before I net them up again.

I am definitely seeing the benefits of what a canister filter would provide with being able to pick and choose the media. The AquaClear filter is leaps and bounds above the TopFin that came in the kit with my aquarium though.

Thanks again!

 

[wrmiller]

So, the lady from the Health department just left. The neighbors probably think we are in quarantine or something because she showed up with a jacket that had HEALTH in huge letters across the back. LOL!!!

I showed her the results I get when testing the water straight from the tap and she said that if my test kit is right then we will be the winners of the most nitrates in water that she has ever had tested. LOL!!! She said that in our area usually 20ppm is about the number that shows up and most people are less than 10 which is the EPA standard. My testing shows at least 40ppm using the API Master Test Kit. It will take about a week to get the results back. They are also going to check for bacterias and also Ammonia.

We shall see what comes back. I always say, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen to me. Now, I just with that lottery thing would happen!!!

 

[eco23]

How long have you guys owned the house? Around here, having the well tested is part of the home inspection when selling a house...if you moved in recently it should have been notified at the very least. I'm not sure what the requirements are when you want to SELL the house in the future...but it might be worth looking into.

Fish seem happy at least. Did the lady comment on the tank? Haha

 

[ldaniel]

One thing you can try, shop vacs have a foam "screen" on the in take, I cut one down and zip tied it to the intake of my HOB filter. It has been collecting all the particles from the tank. My filter media in the filter hs not gotten near as dirty as it was before.
From talking with Eco in the past he said this can also be a great place for bb to live. I will post a pic once i get to work tonight.

 

[wrmiller]

How long have you guys owned the house? Around here, having the well tested is part of the home inspection when selling a house...if you moved in recently it should have been notified at the very least. I'm not sure what the requirements are when you want to SELL the house in the future...but it might be worth looking into.

Fish seem happy at least. Did the lady comment on the tank? Haha

No, she didn't comment on the tank because she didn't see it. The tank is down stairs in the basement in my office. She just used the water from upstairs in the kitchen sink.

We built our house 11 years ago. We are on old farm land which I'm sure is a contributor to the issue with nitrates. We have about 1.5 acres and the septic is out front and runs away from the well and the well is in the back so the well isn't being polluted in any way by the septic.

I have been looking for any of the paper work that we got when we built the house. I know they did water testing of course before we moved in to the house way back when. My goodness, I was only 26 when we built this house. Hard to believe. anyway... back on subject (sort of).

I'm anxious to get the results back to see what they really are. I don't know why my API kit would be wrong though. I hope it is wrong! It will be much less expensive to buy a new kit than it will be to get the RO system for the kitchen.

The lady probably thinks I'm crazy because I ask all kinds of questions. Like, what about the ice cubes? I'm thinking that we don't need to worry about those because we don't eat them directly and when we do they are in stuff that would dilute them to a safe level anyway. So I'm thinking even if we have 80ppm nitrate in the water, sticking an ice cube in a drink with 8 times the volume of water, we are now at a safe level if we were to eat the ice cube anyway. It's all about concentration I guess. Anyway, that's just how the thing in my head works.

I have been looking at some RO solutions locally just for the kitchen so that I don't have issues with finding replacement filters and such. There are two, one sold at Lowes and the other at Home Depot, that look promising and get good reviews. One is Whirlpool from Lowes and another GE from Home Depot. Replacement cartridges run about $100 for both and should only need to be replaced about once a year hopefully. I am also going to get a good pre-sedimant filter for in the basement also so that should also help somewhat with the RO filter life expectancy. eco: do you have experience with or know about either of the two RO systems from GE or Whirlpool? I know you said you were in that field of work.

I have already gotten the RO filter set that I am going to use in the unfinished side of the basement to experiment with for the fishes. I'm also going to use that filter to fill our 5 gallon water cooler bottles and save some money there too. One thing I didn't realize though is that to produce 1 gallon of RO water you waste about 3-5 gallons of rejected water. I'm not bothered as I don't pay for water and we have a well but I just though that was pretty interesting. Our well is rated at 45 gallons per minute so if we don't use the water it just passes us by anyway.

On another note: I have been contemplating a larger aquarium. I was looking at 60 gallon or 65 gallon. Both appeal to me quite a bit for different reasons. I like the 48" length of the 60 gallon but like the 19" depth of the 65 gallon. A combination of both would be nice but I'm not willing to go that large which would be either 75 or 90 gallons. That being said, I'm not going with either the 60 or 65 gallon. LOL! I have decided to go simply with a 55 gallon. Seems to be a pretty common size and is similar to the 60 gallon that I liked but just an inch or so shorter which is fine. I find the 37 gallon even hard to reach the whole way to the bottom of and the 60 gallon being even deeper would require a step stool to get in to the thing. So, I'm going to do a 55 gallon. Now, if I had just decided that while they were having the $1 a gallon sale at Petco! Arrrrr!!!! I also definitely want a canopy and stand in black. Anyone know of any good combinations out there?

 

[eco23]

Yeah, RO works basically through rejection. There is a thin membrane with teenie tiny holes that only the purest water can pass through, and the impurities are left behind. It's definitely a good idea to have pre-sediment filters and micro filtration before hand because it reduces the amount of impurities before they ever hit the membrane. It increases the lifespan, and results in less waste water.

I'm not familiar with the HD or Lowes filters, but look for a few things. First make sure they're NSF (National Sanitation Foundation) and WQA (Water Quality Association) certified. Also try to find the micron reduction...that's the measure of how pure it actually makes the water. The units we make have a 1/10,000 micron reduction, but that's pretty much an extreme range you're not likely to find in retail. You should also be able to contact the manufacturer and ask for a reduction list. Nothing ever removes 100% of impurities, but they should offer a sheet which shows what materials the reduce and to what level. I've never looked into nitrAte reduction however...and I'm not sure of the effect RO has on it.

 

[wrmiller]

Well, two days ago I got two tinfoil barbs. Doing my daily inspection today I noticed a white spot on one of their tails. I of course started jumping up and down and cussing like a goon. I just got finished the two week Ich treatment in my 37 gallon. I immediately removed both of them and put them in temporary holding, ran to the pet store and bought a 10gallon kit to use as a QT. I hope no other fish in the 37 show any signs of Ich. I hope I caught it in time that it didn't or won't spread to any other fish in the 37.

So, I guess this is why folks have QT tanks? So not to introduce issues to their existing fish when brining new fish home? What causes Ich? Is it just from stress? Even if I treat them in the QT tank, won't they stress again when I move them to the 37 and start the who process over again? Is this something that I will have to worry about again after I treat them and move them back to the 37?

So, I know I am going to keep the tinfoils in the QT tank for the next couple of weeks but what then? I know I will be doing daily water changes on the 10 gallon QT tank. Maybe twice daily if necessary. After I am finished and move the 2 tinfoils to the 37, should I just go out and get a couple of feeders to complete the cycle? Or should I move the filter to my 37 and continue running it on there? I don't necessarily like moving it to the 37 though because I don't want to risk introducing something from the QT tank to the 37. Oh my the way my brain works. Now I'm going to be up all night thinking about this stuff. I'm thinking I would like to get a couple feeder fish (minnows) ton keep in the QT tank. I will look at it as a heroic act as saving them from being something's dinner.

My main question is regarding the Ich and. will I have to worry about it again when moving the fishes to the 37? I guess I should ask if I already have to worry about the 37 being reinfected now also or is it probable that I caught it in time and I removed what there wad with the two new fishes? I guess all new fishes all come home and put in the 10 gallon for monitoring before going to the main tank. Correct?

I moved my old heater from my main tank to the QT tank and bought a new heater for my main tank. Do you think that there might be some BB on the heater that will help out with the cycle in the QT tank? I'm hoping so. I'm also considering taking a scoop or two of gravel from my main tank since I have the same in both. That should really help out. Right?

Okay, that's enough for tonight. I'm looking forward to replies though.

P.S. - I'm taking off of work tomorrow and will be taking a trip to Lancaster with my wife, daughter and folks. I can hardly wait to stop at That Fish Place on the way home.

 

[eco23]

Bro, I'll make this easy and save myself some typing. You've got to take them back to the store.

Tinfoil Barbs get well over a foot long and should be kept in schools of 5+. They've got absolutely no business in a 37 gallon tank. I would call 70 the absolute minimum...even then they're not a great idea IMO.

 

[wrmiller]

Bro, I'll make this easy and save myself some typing. You've got to take them back to the store.

Tinfoil Barbs get well over a foot long and should be kept in schools of 5+. They've got absolutely no business in a 37 gallon tank. I would call 70 the absolute minimum...even then they're not a great idea IMO.

LOL!!! You have me cracking up with your reply. These are really small and before or around Christmas I'm going to be getting a 90 gallon. That's part of the reason for the trip tomorrow, to scope out what exactly I want. I was trying to hold off on buying a QT until then and was going to use the 37 as QT. But I'm glad I got the 10. Makes the water changes a lot let painful.

Even if I cart a couple fishes home tomorrow I will have the same QT questions. LOL!!! I'm thinking of maybe getting three Oto dwarf cats.

 

[eco23]

LOL!!! You have me cracking up with your reply. These are really small and before or around Christmas I'm going to be getting a 90 gallon. That's part of the reason for the trip tomorrow, to scope out what exactly I want. I was trying to hold off on buying a QT until then and was going to use the 37 as QT. But I'm glad I got the 10. Makes the water changes a lot let painful.

Even if I cart a couple fishes home tomorrow I will have the same QT questions. LOL!!! I'm thinking of maybe getting three Oto dwarf cats.

If you've got to treat ich again...don't add more fish with the Barbs (if that's what you were planning). For one you don't want to expose other fish to illness...and Otos are sensitive to salt and do not tolerate it well because they are scaleless fish. Personally, even though ich is easy enough to treat (scaleless fish and inverts complicate things)...but if I buy sick fish...they're being taken back. The store should also be notified because chances are the other fish will also have an outbreak and need treatment.

Also, if you've bought all these fish from the same store...find a new store.