29 Gallon Aquarium Mystery, Fish in Distress

[nabokovfan87]

@Matthew Grobhow goes the tank?

[Cinnebuns]

On 3/24/2022 at 7:28 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

You only need prime after the water changes, Stability you can do for a week while the tank gets up to running (or once every few days after that point).  The stress guard and prime are doing the same thing, so you definitely don't need both. Stress guard should be something along the lines of prime (water conditioner) with aloe or seachem's special sauce in its mixture to help slime coat.

water change day: Prime only required, dose ferts.
Daily or as needed: stress guard / stability.

https://seachem.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003985794-FAQ-Can-I-use-Seachem-StressGuard-together-with-

I want to emphasize this point even more. The high dosing of dechlorminators are very likely contributing to your problem. When the dechlorinator runs out of chlorine to bind to it binds to oxygen and therefore depleting the oxygen levels in your tank. This is likely the source of the angel's heavy breathing. 

Edited March 27, 2022 by Cinnebuns

[Matthew Grob]

On 3/26/2022 at 4:26 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

@Matthew Grobhow goes the tank?

Here's the update on the tank. Sorry I haven't posted sooner, life has been busy this past weekend. Tannins set in over the weekend from the Indian Almond Leaves, pleco very much enjoys ruffling through the leaves at night. Parameters are still sitting in at 0ppm for Ammonia and Nitrite, Nitrate still at 5ppm thankfully. Angelfish is doing much better, I'll be resuming my weekly water changes later this week at 25% as well. Crypts are melting back some still, nothing I'm too concerned about. They've melted back before and usually come back even better from the few times I've experienced it in this tank. Here's the tank currently full of tannins. 

[TheLoreleiAquatics]

I had really weird, oily bubbles after I ser up my ropefish tank and I also used sand from Petsmart! I rinsed it really well too. 

Thankfully I was doing a fishless cycle, so I did a bunch of water changes over the course of four weeks until there were no more bubbles and the ramshorns that hitched a ride on my plants were reproducing, then I added my ropefish.

I wonder if it was the sand? All this time I assumed it was the driftwood because I gathered it locally and only soaked it for a few days.

[nabokovfan87]

On 3/28/2022 at 10:24 AM, TheLoreleiAquatics said:

I had really weird, oily bubbles after I ser up my ropefish tank and I also used sand from Petsmart! I rinsed it really well too. 

what brand was it?  The stuff usually sold as sand (actual sand) is from a highly reputable and high quality company that literally has nothing in the bag except for sand and sometimes has bacteria. It's generally expensive because of the size/particle filtering that goes into the product as well.

Caribsea being the brand mentioned above.  The only issue with sand in the aquarium you need to really worry about is the pure black sand having some magnetic materials in the product, which has come up before in a few of the reviews.

For the cut/dry method just for anyone who needs it when you are rinsing substrate, even if the product itself is delicate there is a method you can use to rinse it if you are at all concerned.

1. Put the sand into a 5G bucket and fill with water. There will be some very fine particles that overflow to the top of the bucket, this is what you are mostly rinsing the substrate to remove.
2. Similar to when you rinse rice for cooking, you want to let the bucket fill, agitate the substrate gently with your hand, dump out the excess water slowly and refill the container. (typically 5-8 times)
3. Once you have the water generally remaining clear then you can add the substrate to the tank using a small cup or scoop.  Dumping the entire bucket can shatter or scratch the bottom of your tank glass.

 

 

On 3/28/2022 at 10:24 AM, TheLoreleiAquatics said:

I wonder if it was the sand? All this time I assumed it was the driftwood because I gathered it locally and only soaked it for a few days.

Driftwood you would expect it to either be boiled (removes any pathogens or issues on the wood itself to "sterilize" the material.  You would want to generously rinse the wood itself and inspect to make sure there is no sap / sticky residue on the wood itself. (I have never collected wood locally for fear of just completely messing it up, 😞 )  Once the wood is "prepped" then you would float it in water to make sure it sinks in the tank or just use rocks to keep it submerged while it gets waterlogged. In the tank itself, if there is anything off with the wood it's usually a sort of white slime / mold / algae that appears in the aquarium.  

The oil in the first post I don't think was anything more than the water being a bit different in its surface tension. Something like added ammonia or nitrite/nitrate levels can cause this as well as medicines or excess chemicals in the water.  If you're having something similar like this "oily" surface in the tank I highly recommend running some filter floss and trying to get rid of any surface scum that way.  If you're running into an issue where the fish are struggling, reply back with some parameters and stuff and we can try to figure out what's going on 🙂 BUT! it looks like you're all good to go and everything is fixed with your water changes. Awesome to hear.

 

Edited March 30, 2022 by nabokovfan87