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thanks Jools...

long time ago since last time...



Panaque schaeferi got huge !!! still growing

finally got the leaking problem solved... after around 9 weeks...

back to "normal" water level > 10,000 liters

nothing to do with catfish on this video... but still...

https://youtu.be/6GG95_NYTf4


Moderator Note: Your YouTube link was broken, so I fixed it to display properly. Cheers.

Bad news...

from Thursday, I have a pollution problem which had deadly consequences :



1 two years old stingray
1 eight years old Osteoglossum female (my biggest "Moon", 103 cm)
1 two years old Osteoglossum female
1 Retroculus xinguensis

All dead yesterday

I changed 40% water, I checked this water is fine with the city water service and washed the second inner filter. It seemed the situation was better...

this morning, I came in the fish room with fear on my stomach... and found out two more dead fish... my nightmare : 2 big mature Panaque schaeferi :











the smallest of 4, with respectively 51 and 54 cm TL... but anyway, I'm disgusted...

That's terrible, I hope you are able to find out the cause of the problems soon. Maybe the water is fine for humans to drink, but the source and pH has changed, or a new chemical has been added, Chloramine instead of Chlorine perhaps?

nope... tap water is not in cause. I have a very good contact with the boss of water service in my area, he's fish hobbyist too and a total fan of my installation. We wrote the guidelines for cleaning of tanks together a few years ago. It's all with UV from 5 years, now.

I called him yesterday morning, just in case, and he confirmed me it was ok with the pipes and the tanks and the buffers...

it's probably a problem from my own filters. I have the whole story on Facebook in French. Not enough energy to rewrite it all here in English.

I'm still working on it.

My sincere sympathies, my friend. This all is quite familiar to me. If we can help you, let us know. A recent history of NH3, NO2, NO3, pH, temp, KH, and GH could go a long way to help us help you... if you needed that. If there was no readable ammonia in the recent days/weeks, I'd guess you experienced a pH crash as a result of insufficient KH carbonate hardness, which is your buffer. The pH crash itself can kill the fish but also kills off beneficial bacteria and then ammonia spikes.

Oh, heartbreaking. I am very sympathetic. I hope you can resolve the problem soon and save your other fish.

Regards, Eric

it seems I released NH3 while cleaning the deep bottom of my inner filter. Then Oxygen fell at its lower level, causing massive bacteria's death and a vicious circle of lack of Oxygen + NH3, NO2 and such problems.

Even my 40% Water change wasn't enough... this morning, after finding the 2 dead Panaque, I made another 30% WC.

This afternoon, I quit the hypothesis world to measure a >100 mg/liter NO3. Which seems to valid the NH3 release hypothesis. So further WC, not too fast, to reduce the temperature falling.

I'm still under 1 liter/minute until late tonight. After checking the effect on temperature, I may leave it like this till tomorrow.

a nightmare... with the lost of 3 of my favorites fish :

- Moon, the 8 years old female silver Arowana
- two 9 years old Panaque schaeferi

without talking about the loss of the other fish "with less emotional impact" :

- 1 Retroculus xinguensis
- another Osteoglossum female (2 years old)
- 1 Potamotrygon leopoldi female (2 years old)

I'm quite disappointed with these loss.

And I truly fear the next morning, with maybe other deaths.

I managed to clean the right filter and modified the outlet flowing at 30° under the surface (without doing anything in the left), I set up another TUNZE right under the surface (12 m3/h), I made huge Water Changes...

Let's keep fingers crossed...

Hopefully you have got to the bottom of things, and daily water changes for a while will keep on top of things until your filter bacteria recovers.

Good luck.

4th day without another death... I guess we're out of stormy weather yet.

but what a hard way to (re)learn the lesson !

the worst loss is of course my big mama Moon (Osteoglossum of +8 years old) but I'm quite angry with the loss of 2 (on 4) of my Panaque schaeferi...

quite a mess in this tank for the last week... Let's hope it's over.

What a terrible loss. I do hope the water keeps as good as it is.

Did you manage to prevent you from spoiling the water next time the filtration needs cleaned? It does seam like a hard thing to improve.

Hi all,

Bas Pels wrote: ↑06 Mar 2019, 13:29 What a terrible loss. I do hope the water keeps as good as it is.

Did you manage to prevent you from spoiling the water next time the filtration needs cleaned? It does seam like a hard thing to improve.

I'm sorry for your loss, this is one of my all time favourite threads (on any forum) and it has been a distressing read for me, so I can't imagine how you must feel. I really hope you are past the worst of it.

I don't know if it would be possible to have a floating raft of planted vegetation? They use these is in waste-water treatment (https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _Treatment) (Floating raft wastewater treatment system (FRWTS) ), or a big emergent Cyperus papyrus plant(https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _Treatment)?

It might not have made any difference, but it would give you an alternative source of plant/microbe biofiltration. I'm risk adverse and I don't like any system with a single point of failure.

cheers Darrel

Thanks a lot for your true concern.

I’m working on a new Green wall and suspended plants to « pump » NO3 out, as I had during the first years

And of course a more efficient WC routine, with a better water move on the surface

I am glad you're out of the woods, I was following these recent updates but didn't really know what to say. I'll I've got really is that loses of these kinds happen from time to time and they are both very annoying and saddening. I know how this feels and just wanted to say that.

I do have some pictures recently taken of your P. schaeferi and I will post them soon. Perhaps these ones made it, perhaps not. Either way they'll be here.

Cheers,

Jools

the two biggest are fine... after this 10 days massive water change routines, one of them is definitely a male with huge opercular and pectoral odontodes.

For the second, I'm not sure... less odontodes, but still a quite impressive head, snout and massive front head.

I'll try to film these survivors later next week (2 weeks off)

Feeding monsters...



the 2 Panaque schaeferi who survived (and the 3 Acanthicus) are fine... at least, I guess... they go on eating cucumber and zucchini each day... and producing amazing amount of waste... Even if I hadn't seen them from weeks...

They are behind the filters, and stay there all day long... till the disaster, they were used to wander in the roots and sunken trunks...

update June 2019

The tank looks good. Are the health problems behind you?

Cheers, Eric

yes, solved...

everything is fine from the last disaster... till the next one...

wow, thats quite a nice tank What kind of filter do you use?

Cheers,
Lisa

just two rain drums of 300 liters each, with lava rocks on the bottom (mechanical, biological & weight), blue foam (2 layers), 8'500 l/h pump, blue foam layer, SERA BioPond ceramics in corbs, and a final blue foam layer. Water comes in from the bottom and from the upper part, and is pulsed at mid-level of the DIY filter.

You can see them in the video posted on June 8th in this same topic

August 2019,

big leaking problems in the concrete structure... I had to empty the inner pond... and doing this, I took a few good videos :

Panaque schaeferi

That's a big fish! Were you able to repair the leaks yet?

Cheers, Eric

tank is empty from a whole week... fish are in "stand by" in a pond by a friend who owns a shop, not too far from me.

I have to repair the waterproofing layer inside the tank...

wait and see... but no fish in this tank for at least the next two months

Wow. That's a big job!

the reason why : heating system, included into the cement bottom of the tank has released a bit of moisture. This moisture created "bubbles" with grew out of the sand layer... the dome of each bubble got covered with algae... which were eaten by Panaque, Acanthicus, Panaqolus... and after 10 years (almost), the Mapelastic waterproofing layers went destroyed...

same player : shoot again...

let's repair it, find another way to solve it and start again...