Fish Keep Dying

twentyleagues · Apr 21, 2023

I have used lace rock in the past. It is an igneous rock. It is a very common aquascaping rock in fresh water also used in terrariums. I have seen it used as the only rock in multiple salt tanks also from reef to fish only .My 75g display refugium was entirely done with lace rock. It is very porous and will easily house beneficial bacteria and micro crustaceans. Unless you got really unlucky and the rock was some how contaminated its not the issue. As other have stated your tank is cycled it is producing nitrates. I also believe as others have alluded to your fish guy is not doing it right. To have nitrates in the 100 range is not good. Will it immediately kill all your fish? no but slowly poison them? yes. Your well water needs to be figured out for sure. Also the entire test gambit needs to be done and posted to help other help you. UGF has been used for ever are there better ways absolutely. Will it work yep not a doubt. People run hobs, cans, ugf, rufg, sumps, all manner of filtration that has worked in the past and still does today. You need to properly maintenance your specific type of filtration.

brandon429 · Apr 21, 2023

Nitrates at 100 ppm doesn't poison fish

This is why fish guys don't always agree, facts range person to person. Nitrates aren't poisoning anyone's marine fish in a home.

GrandmaRaff · Apr 21, 2023

Tamberav said:
imagine what information he could gather if he also tasted it…

Tamberav said:
This tank seems to be seriously lacking in biological filtration. Aka quality rock.

Since this is FOWLR, I would probably just buy dry and a big ol bottle of biospira.

Ocean rock would have a lot of die off if not under proper lighting but I am sure it is still beneficial though expensive.

I would not rule out disease either. Disease is a much larger issue now then it was years ago.

Eels are very resistant to ich and velvet. So if you got a live and healthy eel and fish dropping like flies.. I would be very suspicious of disease.

Eels will live in a toilet. As long as you can keep them inside the aquarium with a good strong cover. Your filtration system is so 1969.

1. Get a new LFS

2. Get a distiller, RO water from a well sucks.

3. Keep your cannister external filter going, this will also store you beneficial bacteria

4. Do a complete water change using the distilled water

5. Use a start bacteria

6. Test daily for cycle, it will take weeks to complete

7. Besides your eel, start with a damsel or two but not from this LFS. Fish that are diseased don't die suddenly so possibly the fish you got were in trouble before you bought them. Years ago fish were caught using poisons or explosives so the fish would live for weeks then suddenly die. I don't know if that still happens today. If you can, get a clown fish from ORA as they are tank raised.

I have had marine tanks both fish only and reefs for the last 54 years and have seen a lot of good LFS and bad LFS. Anyone that would sell you a clown trigger or any other expensive fish when you are just starting out is an idiot and just wants your money. Hope this helps you turn things around.

Rifken · Apr 21, 2023

j.falk
I keep coming back to the thread hoping to see how to get the train back in the track also. I've been reading (and re-reading) each reply and trying to pull out whatever constructive bits of info are in each posts. For example, the posts bashing the LFS guy haven't help me figure out what is killing the fish.

One of the things I have pulled from the threads is my rock. Initially the tank was set up with volcanic rock from the Valley of Fire in New Mexico. When my Clown Trigger and Blue Throat Triggers died that rock got pulled. I was told at that time that volcanic rock is not good for saltwater aquariums. I did a 70 percent water change (yes with the well water ran thru the RO system) and went back to lace rock. I posted that I have ordered in 80lbs of Carib Sea South Seas base rock and one of the boxes came in today. The other 40 lbs arrives Tuesday. I'll be soaking that for some time (opinions seem to vary on how long) and putting that in the tank with the lace rock that is in there now and gradually pulling out the lace rock just in case the lace rock is actually doing something. I want to give the base rock time to get going.

I plan on adding a Bio bacteria adjuster to help get the bacteria going. It seems both Instant Ocean Bio Spira and Dr. Tim's first and final are very popular. In trying to decide which one I have asked if the Bio Spira is good stuff but no one replied.

As for working on my own tanks I stopped for a few reasons. First my fish guy told me that I was over-maintaining the tank with monthly vacuuming and 20 percent water changing. He said it was too much and that it was killing the fish. I don't want my fish to die. I've never seen them but he has tanks that are years old with fish that are years old like a 12 year old Queen trigger. He has a 8 year old Emperor Angel in a tank at the shop that I have seen. He seemed qualified to me. The other reason is that this is tank number 4. I actually have another 125 Salt set up the same way that is doing great and I have freshwater 125 gallons down the hall. Maintaining them all started to consume a lot of time so I thought why not have my tanks maintained by an expert and use that time to do other stuff on the honey do list. I have already decided that while I may not take back the maintenance completely I am going to be more involved with them by doing more frequent water changes and taking care of the canisters filters. Maybe more, we'll see.

I'm not new to this, this is just a newer tank that is not acting right. I know this is not much experience compared to some on this forum but I had both fresh and salt tank set ups from about 1985 to 1995 or so. After we PCS'd out here I did not set the tanks up and took and extended break. Been back into them for about two years now. The set ups I have are very similar to what I had back then so maybe not very 1969 but certainly very 80's. It worked for me back then and while I don't have Magnums 330 cannisters anymore I have the Penn Plex equivalent. Oh, I did have the 240 plexi set up with a wet dry filter with bio balls and a sponge filter. And yes, back then we did not let anything grow on the rock. The local fish guy taught me that was good stuff so I haven't bleached anything like I would have back then

I have mentioned water quality many times and I posted last night that the water I have been using actually tested at 70 GHG (that's like 1200 mg/L I believe) and 2100 TDS. I still don't know if that is really bad, slightly bad, or not bad at all. Of course I have googled it but didn't really find anything conclusive.

twentyleagues
Thanks for you post about lace rock. The rock I had was in storage from back in the 80/90s and was all I saw back then. The LFS had it for sale so I thought it was a common thing until I posted on here. Then I tried googling it for info on it with and again, nothing but I did find all the other salt water rock. It's nice to read that someone else has had experience with it

I'm working on the water thing. I am trying to figure out if a RODI system from AquacticLife will be able to get it where it needs to be or not. In the meantime I will buy RODI water from the local water store. I have 20 gallons being mixed as I type for a water change tonight. I really want to do a larger percentage but I am worried about shocking the fish

As for the nitrate being high I am hoping that the South Sea rock and the bacteria from bio spira or one and only (help me choose) will take care of that once it's established, which sounds like that will happen quickly with this stuff.

GrandmaRaff,
I had no idea they sold distillers. Is there a particular one that you can recommend? I'm going to look into them some more.

Cannister filter is going. Just cleaned it last night. Properly with water from the aquariums and such.

Gonna soak my new rocks, put them in and add the start bacteria

There are two damsels in there now with the Snowflake.

Oh, and not just starting out. Just having problems with this tank that I (and my fish guy) have not been able to figure out

So my questions are:

How long should I soak the base rock in saltwater for prior to adding it to the aquarium?

Bio-Spira or One and Only?

Do we all agree that my well water that is coming thru the water softner and RO system is not healthy water for the fish? Could it be a major contributing factor for the fish deaths? How about contributing to the nitrates not being broken down?

20% percent water changes every two weeks for the next couple of months sound like a good approach to getting hard/high tds water out (also nitrates)?

Thanks again for taking the time to read the train wreck

and post up some thoughts about not only what is wrong but also what is right and a direction to head in.

-Bob

j.falk · Apr 21, 2023

I've used Bio Spira many times in the past to start tanks. It's always worked for me (except for the one time I got a bad bottle from Amazon. It made my tank stink like a dead fish and stressed out all of my livestock). Right now I'm trying out MicroBacter7 in addition to using some KPAquatics live base rock + Real Reef dry rock to start up a new tank. So far, so good. There are many different ways to set up a saltwater aquarium and the majority of the methods can work if you know what you are doing. I'm not a fan of the old school undergravel filter + crushed coral. That's what we ran at the LFS that I worked at for a third of my life and I never liked it. I prefer my tanks to either be sand + live rock or barebottom + live rock. I've always believed that the closer you can get to providing a somewhat natural environment for your livestock the better it will be for their overall health.

Since you already have the crushed coral in there, I will give you some advice that was given to me by my boss. When gravel vacuuming crushed coral, only do one fourth to half the tank at a time...the next time do the other half. It's always been a method that I've used in both fresh and saltwater and I've never run into any problems doing it that way.

As for TDS, I've always read that the closer to 0 you can get the better. Personally I don't test mine. I'm not that anal about my tank...although I know a lot of people on here are...so hopefully someone will chime in to help. I either use Walmart distilled water or city water that is run through a 4 Stage RODI unit that I bought from Bulk Reef Supply. It's what continually works for me.

Question: Is the second saltwater tank running on the well water or did you use something else to fill it?

twentyleagues · Apr 21, 2023

Rifken said:
j.falk
I keep coming back to the thread hoping to see how to get the train back in the track also. I've been reading (and re-reading) each reply and trying to pull out whatever constructive bits of info are in each posts. For example, the posts bashing the LFS guy haven't help me figure out what is killing the fish.

One of the things I have pulled from the threads is my rock. Initially the tank was set up with volcanic rock from the Valley of Fire in New Mexico. When my Clown Trigger and Blue Throat Triggers died that rock got pulled. I was told at that time that volcanic rock is not good for saltwater aquariums. I did a 70 percent water change (yes with the well water ran thru the RO system) and went back to lace rock. I posted that I have ordered in 80lbs of Carib Sea South Seas base rock and one of the boxes came in today. The other 40 lbs arrives Tuesday. I'll be soaking that for some time (opinions seem to vary on how long) and putting that in the tank with the lace rock that is in there now and gradually pulling out the lace rock just in case the lace rock is actually doing something. I want to give the base rock time to get going.

I plan on adding a Bio bacteria adjuster to help get the bacteria going. It seems both Instant Ocean Bio Spira and Dr. Tim's first and final are very popular. In trying to decide which one I have asked if the Bio Spira is good stuff but no one replied.

As for working on my own tanks I stopped for a few reasons. First my fish guy told me that I was over-maintaining the tank with monthly vacuuming and 20 percent water changing. He said it was too much and that it was killing the fish. I don't want my fish to die. I've never seen them but he has tanks that are years old with fish that are years old like a 12 year old Queen trigger. He has a 8 year old Emperor Angel in a tank at the shop that I have seen. He seemed qualified to me. The other reason is that this is tank number 4. I actually have another 125 Salt set up the same way that is doing great and I have freshwater 125 gallons down the hall. Maintaining them all started to consume a lot of time so I thought why not have my tanks maintained by an expert and use that time to do other stuff on the honey do list. I have already decided that while I may not take back the maintenance completely I am going to be more involved with them by doing more frequent water changes and taking care of the canisters filters. Maybe more, we'll see.

I'm not new to this, this is just a newer tank that is not acting right. I know this is not much experience compared to some on this forum but I had both fresh and salt tank set ups from about 1985 to 1995 or so. After we PCS'd out here I did not set the tanks up and took and extended break. Been back into them for about two years now. The set ups I have are very similar to what I had back then so maybe not very 1969 but certainly very 80's. It worked for me back then and while I don't have Magnums 330 cannisters anymore I have the Penn Plex equivalent. Oh, I did have the 240 plexi set up with a wet dry filter with bio balls and a sponge filter. And yes, back then we did not let anything grow on the rock. The local fish guy taught me that was good stuff so I haven't bleached anything like I would have back then

I have mentioned water quality many times and I posted last night that the water I have been using actually tested at 70 GHG (that's like 1200 mg/L I believe) and 2100 TDS. I still don't know if that is really bad, slightly bad, or not bad at all. Of course I have googled it but didn't really find anything conclusive.

twentyleagues
Thanks for you post about lace rock. The rock I had was in storage from back in the 80/90s and was all I saw back then. The LFS had it for sale so I thought it was a common thing until I posted on here. Then I tried googling it for info on it with and again, nothing but I did find all the other salt water rock. It's nice to read that someone else has had experience with it

I'm working on the water thing. I am trying to figure out if a RODI system from AquacticLife will be able to get it where it needs to be or not. In the meantime I will buy RODI water from the local water store. I have 20 gallons being mixed as I type for a water change tonight. I really want to do a larger percentage but I am worried about shocking the fish

As for the nitrate being high I am hoping that the South Sea rock and the bacteria from bio spira or one and only (help me choose) will take care of that once it's established, which sounds like that will happen quickly with this stuff.

GrandmaRaff,
I had no idea they sold distillers. Is there a particular one that you can recommend? I'm going to look into them some more.

Cannister filter is going. Just cleaned it last night. Properly with water from the aquariums and such.

Gonna soak my new rocks, put them in and add the start bacteria

There are two damsels in there now with the Snowflake.

Oh, and not just starting out. Just having problems with this tank that I (and my fish guy) have not been able to figure out

So my questions are:

How long should I soak the base rock in saltwater for prior to adding it to the aquarium?

Bio-Spira or One and Only?

Do we all agree that my well water that is coming thru the water softner and RO system is not healthy water for the fish? Could it be a major contributing factor for the fish deaths? How about contributing to the nitrates not being broken down?

20% percent water changes every two weeks for the next couple of months sound like a good approach to getting hard/high tds water out (also nitrates)?

Thanks again for taking the time to read the train wreck and post up some thoughts about not only what is wrong but also what is right and a direction to head in.

-Bob

your tds is off the scale to a point it shouldn't be. We dont know what comprises that number either. Getting that tested properly would be one place to start and see if an ro/di unit could even remove it. I have very hard well water 15 kh/gh with a tds of 300 something and my brs 7 stage takes it to 0. Im burning through anion resin pretty quickly though, most probable cause is silicates. I just realized my fresh water test kit is 2 years expired I was going to test for gh/kh/ph swings after the membrane to see if I have dissolved co2 but I dont trust a 2 year expired api kit. I rarely test my fresh tanks they've been solid and maintenance is the same for over 3 years since moving to this house. So far so good salt tank has been up for a just about a month now no craziness.

I believe in the bottled bacteria's at least some of them microbacter, biospira, dr tims have all worked when ive used them.

I am a fan of getting the nitrate out whether it matters in salt or not either by water change or plants in this case macro algae. I am unfamiliar with the new way of thinking that nitrates dont harm saltwater fish. Maybe something in the chemical make up of the water or in the fishes biological processes that makes it different then other animals including us. Getting it out isnt going to hurt. I dont think 20% will do much to move the needle in that respect though. You'll probably add that much just from weekly feeding at least it should help the tds situation.

I am unsure how long to "soak" the rock as ive never really messed with dry rock that much. My 120 years ago had 50lbs in it but I did nothing to soak it. That tank also had 50lb live rock. My upcoming 90 cube will be mostly dry. I am planning on filling it with ro/di to as you say soak it probably twice over 2 weeks to see if any po4 leaches out of it. Ive read that dry rock can leach po4 and there are different strategies to handle it.

j.falk · Apr 21, 2023

When did people start soaking dry rock to use in their aquariums? I've always rinsed the stuff off to get all the dust / debris out of it and tossed it in the tank. Is this some kind of special rock with dormant bacteria on it?

Rifken · Apr 21, 2023

The second 125 gallon tank...

Like the tank that we have been posting about it started as a 65 gallon tank that had been up and running for months with no unexplained deaths. Then a month ago it was upsized to a 125 just like the tank we have been discussing.

The decor, crushed coral, lace rock were all moved into the 125. The filter is a little different in that it uses the plates from the two 65 gallon tanks so there are actually 4 marineland 1200 powerheads. Also this tank has a Penn Plex 700 cannister filter. I put the water from the 65 gallon into this tank (just like when I did the other) but this time I decided to try RO water from the water store to make up the difference. The tank we have been posting about used the well/RO water for the difference.

It has a Palenose Moray, a Maroon Clown and two Bangaai Cardinals in it. Seems to be doing great.

-Bob

C4ctus99 · Apr 21, 2023

Rifken said:
The second 125 gallon tank...

Like the tank that we have been posting about it started as a 65 gallon tank that had been up and running for months with no unexplained deaths. Then a month ago it was upsized to a 125 just like the tank we have been discussing.

The decor, crushed coral, lace rock were all moved into the 125. The filter is a little different in that it uses the plates from the two 65 gallon tanks so there are actually 4 marineland 1200 powerheads. Also this tank has a Penn Plex 700 cannister filter. I put the water from the 65 gallon into this tank (just like when I did the other) but this time I decided to try RO water from the water store to make up the difference. The tank we have been posting about used the well/RO water for the difference.

It has a Palenose Moray, a Maroon Clown and two Bangaai Cardinals in it. Seems to be doing great.

-Bob

So to clarify,
125 A (problem child)
125 B (fine)
Both started I’m out the same but with A you used well water and with B you used water from the store?

I would look at the differences between the two tanks equipment wise and just start trying to isolate something out of it.

I’m not well educated on rodi and tds and all, but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone every say that had anything in the 4 digit range…

TokenReefer · Apr 21, 2023

Rifken said:
As for the nitrate being high I am hoping that the South Sea rock and the bacteria from bio spira or one and only (help me choose) will take care of that once it's established, which sounds like that will happen quickly with this stuff.

Nitrate is the end product. Nothing removes it except for corals or algae. Bacteria will to some extent as it multiplies but this is an advanced method (carbon dosing) . Bio Spira is fine and will introduce denitrifying bacteria to help breakdown ammonia (nitrogen cycle). Again nitrates are the end of the cycle and will accumulate. Without consumers such as coral/algae you will have to control the levels via water changes. Just my .02. Good luck

Rifken · Apr 21, 2023

Regarding the rock. I've been reading a lot and watching a lot of videos. I was thinking that I had to "cure" the rock but after twentyleagues and j.falk questioned that I focused my research and apparently that is not needed with this brand of dry rock. Thanks for questioning that because now I can move forward sooner than expected.

-Bob

Cell · Apr 21, 2023

2100 TDS...I still don't understand this and nobody is talking about it.

Rifken · Apr 21, 2023

TokenReefer,

Is that the jist of it then? I thought I read that there is bacteria that converts the nitrate to nitrogen gas that escapes out of the water

Oh and a protein skimmer... It doesn't remove nitrate either? I have been looking at HOB skimmers.

-Bob

C4ctus99 · Apr 21, 2023

Cell said:
2100 TDS...I still don't understand this and nobody is talking about it.

I'm not an expert on it otherwise I would... I actually ain't even an amateur. I'm a purified publix water and NSW guy

Have you ever come across someone with a TDS that high?

Tamberav · Apr 21, 2023

Cell said:
2100 TDS...I still don't understand this and nobody is talking about it.

faculty test? Something leeching back into the RO?

Whole house RO does not sound ideal for a fish tank either way.

twentyleagues · Apr 21, 2023

Rifken said:
TokenReefer,

Is that the jist of it then? I thought I read that there is bacteria that converts the nitrate to nitrogen gas that escapes out of the water

Oh and a protein skimmer... It doesn't remove nitrate either? I have been looking at HOB skimmers.

-Bob

A protein skimmer will remove stuff that will break down eventually into nitrate before it gets to that. It won't remove nitrate from the water specifically. There is bacteria that will break nitrate down. It isn't the easiest to "cultivate", it needs low oxygen and slow flow. It grows deep within rock and sand beds. I've seen tanks that run on not much more then a ton of live rock and flow with very little nitrate and a large fish population. Of course those tanks also had quite a few corals which will use nitrate also.
I think you getting your water from the store is a much better idea then using your well water that is a very large question mark.

TokenReefer · Apr 21, 2023

twentyleagues said:
A protein skimmer will remove stuff that will break down eventually into nitrate before it gets to that. It won't remove nitrate from the water specifically. There is bacteria that will break nitrate down. It isn't the easiest to "cultivate", it needs low oxygen and slow flow. It grows deep within rock and sand beds. I've seen tanks that run on not much more then a ton of live rock and flow with very little nitrate and a large fish population. Of course those tanks also had quite a few corals which will use nitrate also.
I think you getting your water from the store is a much better idea then using your well water that is a very large question mark.

Yes. I agree. I just thought we were talking about a new setup...

BTW op I think that is the 'jist' but there's obviously more to it. But the jist imo

Cell · Apr 22, 2023

Maybe @Buckeye Hydro has some insight into this.

whole house RO system, water is 2100 TDS after RO. Seems like the RO is not working at all? Needs new membranes?

MyFirstCar · Apr 22, 2023

So, depending where you are (I'm going to hazard a guess the midwest? Tons of iron in that soil), its very possible to have water from the well at over 7-8K TDS. Depending on your membrane and its rejection ratio, it might be working fine and that's just its performance.

I imagine this might be be your problem. You could run a better membrane, but for your tank I'd run a 2-3 stage RO (i.e. feed the output of one RO membrane into the input of the next), then a DI, that should be fine. You want to have about ~10 ppm TDS before it hits your DI resin (for a mixed reef, I'm not sure if the requirements are relaxed for FOWLR). 3 stages at ~95% rejection ratio should get you there.

There's been a lot of discussion about RO and water quality in this thread, but I jus wanted to double check you were familiar with the different systems, stages, processes, etc. I know it can be hard to follow sometimes when people are throwing out terms and suggestions but you don't have the context along with them.

On a last note, if your water truly is 2100 TDS (not a meter error), that's probably putting you at increased risk of kidney stones. You might want to upgrade the drinking water RO system as well. They're not life threatening but they're Not Fun.

Rifken · Apr 22, 2023

Today I moved some of the lace rock to make room for 40 lbs of base rock that came in.

I also did a 30 percent water change using water from the water store.

Now there is a butt load of lace rock and base rock in the tank.

Fourty more pounds of base rock will be in Tuesday along with Dr Tim's one and only.

So here is the question:

Do you think it will be alright to take out the lace rock next weekend and add the other 40 lbs of base rock? Keep in mind I will have the Dr. Tim's One and Only to add to the tank also

-Bob