water change leads to lack of appetite and quick breathing

[USFMarine]

Thanks for your quick and knowledgable replies Mikev...

Since lowering the water level by removing 5 gallons, and raising the filter output, I have generated quite a tsunami-like stir at the top of the tank. Probably 15 minutes after I did this the loaches returned from floating upside down at the top of the tank, to sitting calmly on the botoom (whew!).

I did a 10 gallon water change as mentioned before...

So far the fatalities consist are at:

1 large silver dollar

Critically ill but improving:

1 Black Angelfish, 2 silver dollars

Breathing quickly and very idle, but otherwise ok:

5 clown loaches

Apparently I need to re-approach how I maintain and care for this tank. Perhaps I have just been lucky before, doing large water changes every once in a while, and really not treating the water for anything chlorine. Maybe something has changed in the water now that season is changing here in Florida...

As of right now:

Nitrate = 200 (even after a 10 gallon change, i have some work to do here)
Nitrite = 3.0
PPM Hardness = 250
Alkalinity = 80
Ph = 7.2

I think it's just crazy that all I needed to do was flood the tank w/ oxygen and all the fish came back from the brink! Good to know.. thank you to those of you who told me to do that. As for the Nitrate and Nitrite numbers above... i've got my work cut out for me...

[USFMarine]

I've had a crazy algae problem lately too... seems the high nitrate levels cause an explosion of algae.

Usually the algae was a greenish/brown... what I had been used to, but in the last few weeks, it was grey/blue and it had a different growth design to it.. I wonder if the appearance of this new type of algae, and me scrapping it off had anything to do w/ this little incident I just had... I don't know...

[mikev]

you welcome, USFMarine,

Good that you've stabilized the situation a bit, BUT
You are not out of the woods at all. You only bought a little time.

NitrIte poisoning is basically oxygen-denial, quite similar to what cyanide does to people. Providing extra oxygen is only a temporary measure, you need to remove the poison. You still got a lethal dose in the tank (3.0!!!). Additionally, very high concentrations of nitrAtes are not just bad by themselves but may result in raising nitrIte levels (it is a possible cause of your current crisis).

Your next move: first thing in the morning get Prime (made by Seachem). Call all fish stores in your area, most places do not carry it.
If they don't have Prime, ask for Amquel-Plus, or any other nitrIte removal they may have.

So you must continue frequent water changes until nitrItes are down to 0, and nitrAtes are down to less than say 80 (which is still unhealthy, but you can then slow water changes to say once every two days).

Do another 10g change in the morning. Put in the new water slowly, stretch it over 15-20 minutes.

good luck!

PS. And one more thing: Rule #1: in case of any problem the very first thing you do next time should be to get the water parameters and post them together with your question (unless you already know what the problem is). You lost a few hours today by not doing this.
Rule #2: always have Prime on hand.

[mikev]

I've had a crazy algae problem lately too... seems the high nitrate levels cause an explosion of algae.

Usually the algae was a greenish/brown... what I had been used to, but in the last few weeks, it was grey/blue and it had a different growth design to it.. I wonder if the appearance of this new type of algae, and me scrapping it off had anything to do w/ this little incident I just had... I don't know...

Arggh. Yes, makes sense.

Yes, high nitrate levels would cause plant (and algae) growth, nitrates are fertilizers....

And of course, removing all algae will change the chemical balance in your tank pretty badly, probably by elevating nitrates much higher, and then causing a nitrite spike.

[USFMarine]

You're 100% right, I did sit around for a few hours not knowing what to do. google didn't help at all, luckily I found this forum! I've always loved clown loaches more than any other fish I am still in shock I found this forum!

I've learned a lot today, and mostly from you. The more I think about it, the more I am concluding the nitrates are just through the roof crazy high. I've now changed 40% of the water today and the nitrates are still at 200 (the scale doesn't go higher than 200 on my strips).

So you said that if nitratres get high enough, this can cause nitrites to also go up? hmm.. is that b/c the water is so concentrated from nitratres that nitrites cannot be broken down anymore?

I'm still trying to figure out how doing a massive water change could have triggered all this... it seems my fish should have died the day before my big water change/algae scrubbing... any ideas there?

My first problem to tackle will be to get the nitrites down... after they're at zero, then i'll do slow water changes as you suggest to get the nitrates down.

What's my long term solution to this, more frequent, smaller water changes, or do I need to change everything including what i'm putting in my fluval 403?

Since I have a helpful audience, i've got a few more quick questions?

What do you feed your loaches?

I used to feed them shrimp pellets but they stopped eating them one day (stale?)... now the loaches love the standard tropical flake fish food..

Is one brand of food per se "better" than the others?

Same question of brands when it comes to water conditioners and medications... which brands are dependable.. are there any to stay away from?

I am going to take photographs of my tough little loaches tomorrow so i can show you guys who you helped to save!

[USFMarine]

I've read a few threads here coming down hard on petsmart... but where do you guys buy all of your food/medications/etc. for your tanks.. the only website i've ever used was bigalsonline.com

Also, where do you buy your clown loaches?

[mikev]

You're 100% right, I did sit around for a few hours not knowing what to do. google didn't help at all, luckily I found this forum! I've always loved clown loaches more than any other fish I am still in shock I found this forum!

I've learned a lot today, and mostly from you. The more I think about it, the more I am concluding the nitrates are just through the roof crazy high. I've now changed 40% of the water today and the nitrates are still at 200 (the scale doesn't go higher than 200 on my strips).

So you said that if nitratres get high enough, this can cause nitrites to also go up? hmm.. is that b/c the water is so concentrated from nitratres that nitrites cannot be broken down anymore?

Yes. But replace "broken down" to "converted to nitrates". If you read any paper on the nitrogen cycle, you'll have a good idea of what is happening.

I'm still trying to figure out how doing a massive water change could have triggered all this... it seems my fish should have died the day before my big water change/algae scrubbing... any ideas there?

No. I was not there, sorry. It probably does not really matter now.
(Unless your tap water has something really bad in it too -- I hope you did check it!).

My first problem to tackle will be to get the nitrites down... after they're at zero, then i'll do slow water changes as you suggest to get the nitrates down.

No. You cannot get nitrites to 0 right away, even if you change close to 50% of water daily, which is dangerous too. You must detox them, this is why I said "use Prime".

What's my long term solution to this, more frequent, smaller water changes, or do I need to change everything including what i'm putting in my fluval 403?

I don't know what you were doing previously, but basically you need to do at least 20% a week, and monitor the tank parameters (this is AT LEAST, someone else here will say this is not enough). Probably need to really clean the filters too...

Since I have a helpful audience, i've got a few more quick questions?

What do you feed your loaches?

I used to feed them shrimp pellets but they stopped eating them one day (stale?)... now the loaches love the standard tropical flake fish food..

Is one brand of food per se "better" than the others?

Same question of brands when it comes to water conditioners and medications... which brands are dependable.. are there any to stay away from?

Someone hopefully will give you a better answer, but the main trick is to vary the food. Frozen bloodworms. Frozen shrimp. Flakes. Algae wafers. Shrimp pellets. veggies.....

I am going to take photographs of my tough little loaches tomorrow so i can show you guys who you helped to save!

Great, but lets do save them first! Prime and water changes. Good luck.

[Emma Turner]

Hi USFMarine, and welcome to Loaches Online.

I know that I've got to your thread quite late on, but I was wondering if you could tell us a little more about your maintenance regime? Do you have a sand or gravel substrate in the tank? If gravel, do you vaccuum it when doing water changes?

Also how much/often are you feeding your fish, and what are you feeding them on apart from the flake? They ought to be receiving some sort of sinking catfish pellets plus frozen foods such as mosquito larvae and brineshrimp at the very least. However, with an elevated nitrIte reading currently showing in the tank, it would be best not to feed them for a few days.

Anyway, these were just a couple more thoughts. Water changes will help to dilute the nitrAtes (providing your source of water is not high in nitrAtes to start with), but there are also nitrate-removing resins that you can place into your filter. Admittedly with such a high level of nitrate, the resins would need recharging very frequently to start with, but as the level comes down, the need to recharge it becomes less often. Your other choice would be to use RO (reverse osmosis) water for your water changes. This is essentially pure water with no nasties in it, and you can buy it from any good aquatics store, or install a unit at home if you get through a lot of water for water changes, say on larger tanks or multiple tanks.

Good luck,

Emma

[USFMarine]

Hi Emma, thanks for taking the time to inquire into my problem.

but I was wondering if you could tell us a little more about your maintenance regime? Do you have a sand or gravel substrate in the tank? If gravel, do you vaccuum it when doing water changes?

I have a sand bottom in the tank. It's the artificial sand that one buys at the pool supply store. I forgot the name of it.. Probably once a month, when the water level dips, I vacum out 10 gallons and refill the tank with about 15 gallons.

Also how much/often are you feeding your fish, and what are you feeding them on apart from the flake? They ought to be receiving some sort of sinking catfish pellets plus frozen foods such as mosquito larvae and brineshrimp at the very least. However, with an elevated nitrIte reading currently showing in the tank, it would be best not to feed them for a few days.

I used to feed the loaches a variety of shrimp pellets, floating cichlid pellets, and bloodworms...however, my loaches got spoiled one day and didn't want to eat anything except the tropical fish flakes. I feed them once a day, a good amount of the flakes. The loaches go crazy for it, they come up to the service and suck it up... etc.. The coloring on my loaches shows no sign of nutrition problem. They have deep blacks and very orange areas. I could definitely give them some more variety in their diet. I'll try to find some of your suggestions at my local shops... how often do you suggest I feed them, once a day?

[Emma Turner]

At the moment I would advise not to feed them at all because of the elevated nitIte level in the tank. Your fish will be fine for a few days without food. If you feed them at the moment, more waste products will build up in the tank and could exacerbate the problem you already have. Once the nitrIte returns to zero, you can start feeding again, but probably in a slightly smaller quantity. Once a day is fine, but be careful not to add too much. If you get some of the frozen foods we talked about, on the days you feed that, you don't need to give flake. Also, if you want to be sure your loaches are getting their fair share, feed them just before or when the lights in the aquarium go off.

Once you get the current problem under control, you need to step up your water change routine. Once a month is not enough for river fish such as clown loaches. Instead you need to be changing around 10% twice a week.

You probably already know this, but just in case you don't - Clown loaches will be ok in a 55 gallon tank for a while, but they will need moving to much bigger quarters in a few years time.

Best of luck,

Emma

[mikev]

Hi Emma,

FYI: Prime claims to detox nitrAtes too. I've never used it for this purpose, but I suspect that for heavy concentrations it would work better than the resins. For dealing with nitrItes, it is certainly better than the resins.

[shari2]

Glad to hear that things are looking up for the clowns! How is your black angel faring? (I breed them on a small hobby level and know that blacks are somewhat more fragile than the standard types)

On another note: when you 'clean your filter' as mikev suggests be sure that you do it in old tank water, not tap water, or you will kill off the beneficial bacterial colony and create another mini-cycle (which is sorta what happened with the nitrIte spike you experienced. Just swish the sponges around in the bucket you use for water changes, you don't have to get rid of all the brown gunk--it is good stuff . Clean out any detritus in the filter, return your media (sponges, resins, or carbon if you use it), and refill with tank water. Here's a link to a good article on the nitrogen cycle:

http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html

You had wondered about clown growth rates. Generally they will grow fairly quickly to around 5" and then continue to grow more slowly. They do get LARGE and are bulky fish when full grown. You are looking at a possibly 250g tank if you keep them for another 10 years.

Another favorite food for clowns (and angels) is frozen bloodworm. Avoid feeding live foods unless you are VERY sure of the source. They can bring in all kinds of nasties to your tank.

PetSmart is not a terrible place. In fact, they do wonderful work with furry animals. Buying supplies and/or fish there is not 'bad' in any way. In fact, those of us working to try to help them upgrade their fish signs are targeting them because they actually do seem to care about animals. However, the signs on many of their fish tanks are woefully in error. All we hope to do is to spur them to apply the same amount of responsible treatment and information for the fish in their fish departments that they practice with their other pets. We are hoping they will be receptive, and from there, can apply the same kind of pressure in other places which may be less receptive. One step at a time...

btw--my son is also a Marine. Currently he is in Habaniyah. Have you been to Iraq? If so, I'm glad you made it back home in one piece.

[Emma Turner]

FYI: Prime claims to detox nitrAtes too. I've never used it for this purpose, but I suspect that for heavy concentrations it would work better than the resins. For dealing with nitrItes, it is certainly better than the resins.

This is not a product I'm familiar with over here, Mikev. Hence why I didn't mention it!
I'll let you guys across the pond help USFMarine out with product brands available to you.

[mikev]

A little on Prime FYI:

This is the basic info on Prime.

IME, it is something to always keep around for major emergencies. It is fairly cheap and compact (concentrate, unlike typical conditioners, see the dosing), it may be a worth it to get a bottle, since things occassionally do go wrong no matter how careful one is. I guess that Seachem is a large company and sells overseas, but if not, it should be totally legal to import/keep, it is a conditioner, not a drug.

Some people use it as a regular conditioner. I don't, but I used it for small nitrite spikes a couple of times, and also preventively when I increase the bioload in a tank.

[USFMarine]

On another note: when you 'clean your filter' as mikev suggests be sure that you do it in old tank water, not tap water, or you will kill off the beneficial bacterial colony and create another mini-cycle (which is sorta what happened with the nitrIte spike you experienced. Just swish the sponges around in the bucket you use for water changes, you don't have to get rid of all the brown gunk--it is good stuff . Clean out any detritus in the filter, return your media (sponges, resins, or carbon if you use it), and refill with tank water. Here's a link to a good article on the nitrogen cycle:

http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html

Thanks, that is good information. I had read that a long time ago but had forgotten.

Another favorite food for clowns (and angels) is frozen bloodworm. Avoid feeding live foods unless you are VERY sure of the source. They can bring in all kinds of nasties to your tank.

I just picked up 8 ounces of frozen bloodroom... messy stuff ya? My little guys need a treat after what I put them through.

btw--my son is also a Marine. Currently he is in Habaniyah. Have you been to Iraq? If so, I'm glad you made it back home in one piece.

I signed on the proverbial dotted line in 2000 when I was a freshman in college. Wen't to OCS in 2001 right before 9/11, and after 9/11 I knew my committment just became much more interesting. I finished up undergrad and decided not to go to flight school but to give law school a shot. So here I am, I graduate this semester and take the Florida bar exam in feb. After that I think the phrase is "needs of the Marine Corps" prevails. I haven't been in active duty except for my OCS in Quantico, VA... I look forward to the practice of law in the Marine Corps as a JAG. Give your son a 'ooooohhhrrraaaaahhh' next time you speak to him! He's in good hands with the corps.

HERE ARE TWO VIDEOS OF MY TANK... thank you to everyone who helped!

http://www.marshallmoorheadphotography.com/1.mpg
http://www.marshallmoorheadphotography.com/2.mpg