New member

[Ant62]

Hi all....
I joined last week to gain valuable in upon Julii and Leopard Sterbai corys.
And most of all Pygmy Hastatus corys....

This week i learned a valuable lesson..
Over the years ive had wild Frontosa....Synodontis cats....malawi......community setups etc.
But this year after years of not liking corydoras i fell for the true julii and recently i bought Leopardo corys...
But i have always had a facination for Pygmy Hastatus so i purchased 6 a week ago and they died within 24hrs...
And i was in shock tbh as i vouldnt fathom it out why as i have always kept a very clean setup and maintainence in every species...
Fed a very health diet aswell..

So a few days later i purchased another 10 and got 2 free..
They where shoaling about etc and even 2 males where harassing a female within a few hours...
Day later all 12 where dead...
I was at a loss....
Until recently i found an old fish diary which i keep each year...

API Water test with a new kit.
This showed my that the ammonia was a colour between 0.25/0.50..
Now that really pi$$ed me off.
So i removed the filter cannister and cleaned the media the usual way and i also did the pipes as you wont believe the amount of waste is in them...
I usually clean the filter every 3mths but this was disgusting and i dont mind saying so.
Im really disappointed with myself over that..

So a valuable lesson learned and hope that solves the ammonia..

Any maybe some more hastatus......

[TwoTankAmin]

Welcome to the site.

When I began reading your thread, before I got to the ammonia bit, my first thought was that all the fish you mentioned were harder water fish. Corys tend to come from softer water and lower pH than rift lake fish. Some fish can handle being in parameters outside their normal range better than others. Similarly, some fish can deal with low levels of ammonia better than others. Unfortunately, you did not provide any parameter data aside from the ammonia.

My experience has been that tanks tend to develop the needed bacteria wherever it is most optimal for them. This includes on hard surfaces anywhere including on plants. The bacteria are photosensitive so these places will be where is the least light. In planted tanks, a lot of the ammonia will be used by plants and this is can happen to some extent in the substrate as opposed to a filter.

Circling back to ammonia and the bacteria and archaea that deal with it, one needs to consider how fast they can multiply. If one has an established tank running well, there is enough bacteria (and/or plants) to handle the amount of ammonia being produced in a tank. This means if one has something occur which causes a minor spike of the levels you indicated, the bacteria should multiply in short order to handle the increased load. If one tests their tank over time and it always shows a .25-.50 level, I believe this is a false reading. In a functioning tank it is virtually impossible to hold a constant low level of ammonia over time, something has to change. Normally, this is that the amount of bacteria fairly quickly increases to handle things. bear in mind that despite being relatively slow to multiply, the ammonia oxidizers can double in half a day and the nitrite ones in about 3/4 of a day.

One good indication that a filter is failing to perform properly is that we see it's output flow decrease. Accumulating gunk is not an issue unless it slows the flow. One way to reduce the clogging is by using a pre-filter over the intake. If one does this it becomes very important to clean the pre-filter regularly as blocking the intake side of a pump or filter is the fastest way to break it. (Always s;ow things on the output side.)

I have several canisters running for years. At best, I clean them twice a year. The last one I put into use has bee running for close to three years and has never been cleaned. It is loaded entirely with only Poret foam. I am waiting to see the output flow decrease to know I need to clean it. But this on a well planted 75 gal. tank with lots of plant plus a 300 gph power filter as well. I clean the power filter and the pre-filter on the canister weekly. So you may want to consider adding a second filter to your tank.

One last observation. If you bought all the hastatus from the same source, it is possible that the fish were not so healthy when you got them. Given that ammonia increases with toxicity as the pH increases, if that were killing the hastatus, I would expect some or all of the other fish to be showing some signs of it affecting them even it it isn't killing them.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Welcome to the Planet!

An interesting discussion right off the bat

An API ammonia alert for $10 that goes inside the tank is said to be very reliable and very much worth it.

[Ant62]

Thanks for that info.
I have an ammonia alert and it is now in the aquarium..
The aquarium is about 5yrs up n running...
I did a 50% water change this morning and did an ammonia test this afternoon and the API result was the same.
Now surely a 50% water change would have changed the colour of the test..
Ph 6.8
Ammonia .25
Nitrite 0ppm.
Nitrate 0ppm..

Also this morning ive noticed a female julii as died and then later a leopardo male as now died..

I did a 5lt bath with .05ml of meth blue in the tank for 15mins...

I cant do anything else as we are away for a week....
I have a friend who as an aquarium and he is keeping any eye on it...

Everything was ok until i put the pygmy n leopardo in.....

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I did a 50% water change this morning and did an ammonia test this afternoon and the API result was the same.
Now surely a 50% water change would have changed the colour of the test..
Ph 6.8
Ammonia .25
Nitrite 0ppm.
Nitrate 0ppm..

I'm sorry to hear of your problems, losing fish is horrible.

A thought occurs that their might be chloramine in your water supply. Even where water companies usually use chlorine as their disinfectant, they may add chloramine if the integrity of the water main is threatened. I would be very suspicious if there are road works near your house? That could account for both the fish deaths and the ammonia reading.

Looking at the test results they don't look quite right, it is very unlikely that you have 0ppm nitrate, unless you have a lot of plants? or a nitrate exchange resin canister?

I'm not a great fan of test kits, it isn't that I'm not interested in water parameters, I'm very interested, but you need to invest a lot of money to get kits that will give reliable results. We use Ion Selective Electrodes to test for nitrate (NO3-) and ammonium (NH4+) ions, but even for water pollution work etc. they are combined with a biotic index.

Others will disagree but the single easiest way to improve water quality is to have plants, lots of them, including some with floating or emergent leaves. Plants make aquariums more resilient, because they add negative feedback loops to nitrification.

cheers Darrel

[Ant62]

Whoops sorry typo in a rush yesterday answering emails etc...

The nitrate is between 0ppm and 5ppm.
Not quite 5ppm in colour paler and not quite yellow in colour slightly darker.....

The ammonia alert after 18hrs of being immersed as shown the pale yellow in the middle..

Anyway this morning all cory are active and looking for food.....
Good sign....