My new 1000 liters clown loaches tank (page 22)

[shari2]

I second mikev on the organics being part of the problem.
Remove any dead/dying leaves. Take a look at the wood making sure there's no soft spots or rotting areas. Maybe take a look under your rockwork, one section at a time (with the gravel vac handy in case stuff turns up).
Don't clean too much at once. Do it in sections with waterchanges.

Your tank has only been running since January, so I doubt it is "Old Tank Syndrome" but here's an article on it.
http://www.bestfish.com/oldtank.html

Purigen is also a wonderful thing. I have it running in three tanks now and they are clean and sparkly.
http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fus ... 3/cid/1635

[Vancmann]

Re: nitrates. Purigen.

Cool stuff!! Mikev have you or anyone use this? It is ineresting.. Do you still have to do partial waterchanges? By it removing the ammonia, will the existing nitrifing bacteria starve? This is cool. so many questions and I will have to look into it.

[mikev]

Re: nitrates. Purigen.

Cool stuff!! Mikev have you or anyone use this? It is ineresting.. Do you still have to do partial waterchanges? By it removing the ammonia, will the existing nitrifing bacteria starve? This is cool. so many questions and I will have to look into it.

I use it in some tanks now (mostly the ones that have hillstreams).
It does not remove ammonia or interferes with the cycle; what it does, it removes organics before they decay to ammonia, and not all of them, so that the cycle is still fully functional, but at a lower intensity level.

In essence you don't change your routines, but you end up with lower nitrates and much clearer water.

I don't think it will solve Marcos' problem fully by itself.

Don't clean too much at once. Do it in sections with waterchanges.

Yes, this is important, it is possible to make things much worse by a massive cleanup.

[mikev]

PS. And watch pH/kH. A very powerful biocycle will eventually debuffer your tank, it is possible to get an "Old Tank Syndrome" in only months...

[chefkeith]

Very nice set-up you have there.

Earlier this year, I switched to a Continuos Drip Water Change System to solve my escalating Nitrate/TDS problems.

One drip at a time, it changes roughly 20% out of 200 gallons per day on my tanks. This system has made me a little lazy on keeping my filters clean. I'm downgrading my fishroom too (selling my 190g tank) because this drip water change is so effective. I no longer need the extra water volume from the 190 to keep the water parameters in check. All I did was increased the daily drip rate % from 10% to 20%.

[Marcos Mataratzis]

Hi all,

Thanks for the prompt responses.

I would remove the gravel from below your new internals or raise them up and be very vigilant about clean gravel with all that activity ongoing.Sometimes abundunt waste is the culprit with this many occupants.

Those internal filters are not there for too long but I always vaccum bellow them when cleaning and changing mecanical medium each fortnight.

Your tank has only been running since January, so I doubt it is "Old Tank Syndrome"

Me too...

Yes, this is important, it is possible to make things much worse by a massive cleanup.

Yes, I do that as well. I use to vaccum aquarium in parts but comparing to my Oscar tank (were ammonia and nitrites are 0 PPM and nitrate rates are never above 40 PPM), vaccummed water on loach tank is much more cristal clear.

one possible cause is rotting organics in the gravel (dead leaves, food fragments).

Can´t see any even when vaccumming...


Shari and Vancmann, I do make use of Purigen since started this tank, last january. I use 4x100mL packages into my filters. Excelent product I should say. I clean them every 2 weeks. 2 at a time, then the other two one week after.

Here is my cleaning process of it with bleach:


milkev, pH/kH are almost unchanged here for last 6 months since I use a homemade buffer (I´m a chemistry teacher). pH range was never above 7,2 and never bellow 6,8 since start. It´s fixed at 7,0 since last may. Not a drop above or bellow.

The unique possible answer I can see is the big bioload as I do have too many fishes here: 24 Clown (bigger is 4-5"), 5 YoYo (alpha one is about 5"), two helodes (3.5 and 5"), one 6" modesta, 2 new 3" kubotai, one 6" Labeo bicolor, 2 blue Jack Dempsey (6 and 8") 6 albino Cory (2"), 4 latus Cory (4") and 5 small phanton shrimps.
Despite of that, water is always cristal clear and ammonia and nitrites always zeroed.
As I told before, I quit using Azoo anti-nitrate resins. Maybe I should start using it again...

Thanks all

[chefkeith]

I reverse engineered your tank parameters in the Water Change Wizard program. I don't know how the nitrates could skip from 80 to 200 ppm, when you are doing 30% 2x-weekly water changes. It's mathmatically impossible under normal circumstances. Something must of died in the tank or the test sample was contaminated.

Also to get to where you normally are (80 ppm nitrates) you must be adding about 6 ppm of Nitrates daily. That's about 3x more than what most tanks add, but you do about 2x more water changes than most.

To get your nitrates down to about 20 ppm, you'd need to do 50% water changes 2x per week or 22% daily water changes. Or you could just decrease the bioload by removing fish, or adding more water volume, or decrease feedings.

Here's the program if you want to try it. I think it only works with Internet Explorer though.
http://www.geocities.com/chefkeithallen ... izard.html

[Tinman]

Yes ChefKeith very smart indeed . I did not know your tank was so new Marcos. It is hard to explain how such a huge bio load causes losses but mine did that till I reduced bio-load or increased water as additional sumps on the outside. I have always taken old tank syndrome as an accumulation gradually getting worse to the problem of unexplained die-off or cleanings taking your tank way back across the scale and causing huge fluctuations in water quality and that can happen in 6 months or less easily. My only point was your tests point to excessive waste accumulation of some sort as most have stated whether rotten wood or a pile of crud under a log or plant. Crystal clear water is not always in perfect parameters . I never insinuated a massive change,just an increase in filter cleanings as a possible source since Marcos obviously is a top- notch fish keeper and keeps his tank clean

[Marcos Mataratzis]

Something must of died in the tank or the test sample was contaminated

After reading this I decided to check the nitrates lelvel again and... surprise!
It was 100 PPM.
Don´t know if there was any contaminant or maybe I could have got confused with colours on yesterday´s mesurement but fact is that I just mesured it a few minutes ago and it was clear at 100 PPM. Not good, I know, but half as bad as 200 PPM!

I did not know your tank was so new Marcos. It is hard to explain how such a huge bio load causes losses but mine did that till I reduced bio-load or increased water as additional sumps on the outside.

Yes, this tank was set up on January 13, 2007. I used some 50 to 100 liters of cycled water from my other tank (not added at same time) to decrease time of cycling.
Since start, nitrates levels range between 30 to 60 PPM with few peak values of 80 and one 120 PPM on February 2nd. After that, I had 50 to 25 to 40 PPM until April 5. Since that, nitrates are always getting higher and higher. My last mesurements were 80 and 80 PPM up to this one, 100 PPM.
My bioload increased since last 40 PPM on April 5. From that date on, I bought 13 new fishes. Other one´s grew up as well but I also added extra filtration since that including 2 new Purigen (there were 2 in original setup) and 2 new internal filters, one of them filled with 2 liters of Sera Siporax, that claims to be media for anaerobic bacteria that converts nitrates to free nitrogen.

I have always taken old tank syndrome as an accumulation gradually getting worse to the problem of unexplained die-off

Fortunatelly, I did not have any dead fishes since start. Fishes are ok. No rapid breathing isue and no other sign of distress. I had an ich isue last may/june but with no looses.

My only point was your tests point to excessive waste accumulation of some sort as most have stated whether rotten wood or a pile of crud under a log or plant

Well, as you can see on my video, there are indeed lots of wood on my tank and not so easy to move away for a good vaccumming but I will try that next.

I never insinuated a massive change,just an increase in filter cleanings as a possible source since Marcos obviously is a top- notch fish keeper and keeps his tank clean.

Filters are trim clean. I do it weekely!

Thanks for the advises!

[mikev]

Hmmm....

Maybe rotting wood indeed?

I wonder if you could move a piece of it to a bucket with tank water and see the water parameters in a week...

[Marcos Mataratzis]

Hi milkev,

I could do so but each of my wood is room for some of my loaches. If I do so, they would get angry with me, wouldn´t you?

[Tinman]

Quote:
I have always taken old tank syndrome as an accumulation gradually getting worse to the problem of unexplained die-off

Fortunatelly, I did not have any dead fishes since start. Fishes are ok. No rapid breathing isue and no other sign of distress. I had an ich isue last may/june but with no looses.

I stated it may be Gradually GETTING worse till die off,you are not quite there but may be close.The biggest fish gets sick and takes most with it.Several of us have had huge crashes,ask LoachOrgy about it ,one dirty spot 3"x3" where his fish stayed in an otherwise fine tank and a die-off.

Any internal sponge inside my system gets squeezed and rinsed every 3-4 days but not sanitized as you and many others do as I use internals for polishing water only .If you have not cleaned under your wood you should,my internal tank decor are removed monthly and that is with NO gravel to collect stuff under them .Anything inside a tank, even one lone pebble will collect debris underneath it and any pocket of crud will kill or cause problems.This may also show itself as minor fin rot on a few weaker individuals.The crud is collecting under the wood and the wood rotting if you have not looked at it since last Winter.If you have not removed waste from the gravel by hand it is still there

Hi milkev,

I could do so but each of my wood is room for some of my loaches. If I do so, they would get angry with me, wouldn´t you?

Better mad than dead,all spots in the tank should be clean and all fish will be better for it. The new arrangement in the tank will not affect the fishes "tempers "with you. The biggest risk from cleaning is a crushing a injury.Injecting human personalities into small fishes is the reason so much extra crap is kept in so many tanks. For our eyes ,not their needs. Fish first, eye candy last

[Marcos Mataratzis]

Hi Tinman,

I did not say I do not remove wood to clean below. I said I don´t do it very often because there are lots of it but I will take special attention to them on next vaccumming.

What milkev sugested was to take a wood out of the tank for a week or so and I said loaches would not like it much as they sleep below them. Not my mood but their as they would have a full week without their "houses".

[mikev]

I understand the inconvenience, but keeping them at 100ppm may be worse....and you need to find out what is raising them.

Well, you do have another choice: 10%-15% W/C daily. The loaches will not mind....

[Marcos Mataratzis]

Thanks milkev,

Maybe I´ll try both. Maybe not WC everyday but one day and another. Will also try to move woods sideway to do a good vaccumming.