GrahamC

Need a stickied thread on the emergency management of toxic biochemical conditions in your tank.

What's the salt content like?

+1 Alan's grandad

And my expectation would be the exact opposite. If you assume most new owners who are going to have the problem use the same dechlorinated or aquifer chlorine free tap water, then I can't see that the amount of total dissolved solids ( unless specifically added by the tank owner ), are going to change that much over the first few weeks of the life of the tank. If someone has measured TDS changes over the cycling period I'd be interested in seeing the data. Things may well be different if you use RO water, and have substrates that are not inert.

This is the problem with mandates that say you can't change more than 50% of the water at a time because you'll shock (osmotic ) the fish. In the thread that was locked, this wasn't likely to be the case because water chemistry were going to be very similar, and so a 90% or higher was going to be safe in that respect. Now if the source water and tank water chemistry are quite different, then those mandates are very likely to apply. Here's another opinion on the matter. http://www.otocinclus.com/articles/wchange.html

Yep, all opinions including the sticky mentioned. It would be nice to find studies. As I mentioned above, everytime someone brings home a fish from the LFS, it is a 100% water change. Every time a fish moves in a stream, it does, or has done for it, a 100% water change. As for the bacteria in a bottle .. tried that. Waste of money was my experience.

Yeah, get a bucket and measure how much water gets moved in a set period of time. Otherwise I guess you could get a relative flow rates by comparing the cross sectional areas. Assume frictionless tubing. Water acceleration will be the same according to Newton.

http://www.tropicalfishcentre.co.uk/myths.htm Myths on water changes and bacteria in a bottle. I don't mind a decent debate as long as the discussion is restricted to facts.

no idea of what your point is, and what you mistakenly think I believe. And guess what ... when you buy a fish and take it home, you do a 100% water change. In this particular tank which has been undergoing significant water changes daily, the chemistry is likely to be similar to the fresh dechlorinated water that is being used for the changes, except for the ammonia, and its metabolic products. So, moving these poor fish from a tank with 8ppm+ of ammonia to a new tank with 0 ppm, and similar pH, temperature etc is going to be beneficial. What shock are you talking about?

What's the pH and temperature? A lower pH will lower the amount of toxic free ammonia out of the total ammonia being measured.

Non cycled tank means more water changes then tank with newly acquired media hosting billions of bacteria. Now, did I say it would work instantly? And did I say exactly when these water changes were to take place? Nope, another test was reported 28th Feb, or 4 days ago. Reading was 8ppm+ ie. indicating the true level might be higher. As above .... Why would you want to do that? Cultivate the bacteria and lose the fish. And the tank has a constant source of new ammonia, namely the 14 ( we hope ) fish. Yes, we have already covered this point. The lack of independent research says it all. Did you not see my statement that this was my OPINION only?? And how often did you have to deal with the OP's situation?? Actually I'd be tempted to do a 100% water change in this situation and just start again with the old media. Did you read the post from the poster who said his $40 bacterial solution worked fine for him? Looks like chemistry to me.

i wouldn't mind trying some natives. When i was a child I used to play in the Karori stream ...and I remember seeing some fish, and eels, but never any Koura. During storms the stream would nearly rise to reach the bottom of our bridge. And on occasions the stream would change colour as people poured paint etc into it. It's now a stream selected for the Streams Alive project. I have no idea if any of those natives I saw more than a few decades ago are still there. Do you know Stella?

In my experience importers and distributors don't get much of a wholesale margin from the manufacturers because they don't buy enough. They will probably not even buy as much as a big internet retailer. So, their buy price including shipping is more than the price on an overseas site. They then have to add on any import taxes, a margin of 5-10% as profit ( and to cover any advertising if they do any ). They have to also cover the costs of faulty products and returns, and retailers going bust on them. The retailer adds a margin of about 40% to hopefully cover the costs of maintaining their bricks and mortar store, staff, product not selling, support etc, and GST. A online retailer doesn't have some of those costs and so can sell cheaper. So, the LFS prices will always be more expensive than importing yourself, unless they're having a loss leader sale, or clearance ... like HFF were doing with those Rena filters ( who would buy one of those if you lived in Tauranga! ). By buying local you do support your retailer who is likely responsible for increasing the numbers of people with this hobby. So, indirectly those added costs are helping the hobby and you.

Maybe the stress of moving made her susceptible to some bugs/fungus in your large tank that the other fish were resistant to? Is the water circulating sufficiently so that oxygenated water is reaching the bottom of the tank? Is it a deep tank? Racing to the top to use her labyrinth apparatus sounds like O2 deprivation. Salinity? Temperture? Other Water parameters? Sounds like you need to get her into a hospital tank if these is some fungus growing on her eye.

I was also sold nitrifying bacteria in a bottle with my first tank from the LFS, and it didn't cycle my tank for me even though it was called "Cycle"! So, your mileage may vary. The issue is that the bacteria you need are aerobic, and need to be alive when you use them. But how long can they survive in an airtight bottle on the shelf of a LFS having been imported from where ever?

And here's my take. Have you got the old filter material into your filter yet? If so that will help reduce the number of water changes you need to do. You have 14 fish in a 130L tank, with very high ammonia levels. You haven't told us the nitrite or nitrate levels but are presuming that nitrite levels are also high. You last said your combined ammonia/ammonium level were off the chart. or at 8ppm, so that even 90% water changes would still leave you at toxic levels of about 1ppm. So, just waiting and doing small water changes is not an option. You have to keep using Prime to neutralise the ammonia and nitrites. This stuff is for emergency use until you can get the levels down by water dilution. Some people suggest daily 30% water change in this situation. When I hit a similar situation shortly after starting to keep fish, and didn't have access to prime, I did 50% twice daily water changes until I got the ammonia down to 0, and my fish survived.

At some stage customs will determine that you have become an importer. And then the fun begins. I once imported a few custom computer cases and computers many years ago. Then years later a US company sent me a $10K ECG machine for me to write some software for. Customs insisted I was an importer and I had to either fill in their complicated import form, or pay a customs agent some large sum to do this for me. Very very annoying.

If they had meat on them I'd suggest the barbie but realistically if they're dry old bones then nothing living will be on them. If you're really concerned, how about nuking them in the microwave?

can try and make an ACC claim for medical misadventure supported by your new dentist. If ACC agrees and accepts the claim, then they will pay for referral to see specialist. No fault compensation.

@David. Yes, interesting in that it shows that biological principles are maintained across the kingdoms. Like freshwater fish, mammals like us also live in a salt scarce environment, and so we have mechanisms designed to conserve salt as much as we can, and we handle salt excess poorly with homeostatic consequences. I like a Kiwi burger now and then, but no way would I have one once a week.

just a few guppies lol

http://ajpregu.physiology.org/content/294/3/R1061.full When fresh water trout are fed a high salt diet blood pressure increases etc, and plasma electrolytes are disturbed. This occurred up to 7 hours after feeding, and could take 2 days to return to pre-high salt feeding levels.

Sure. I have two medical degrees, and several postgraduate medical qualifications, and an undergraduate degree in human biology. I also managed a pass in school certificate biology. But that was long long ago.

Is your question regarding fresh water seaweed, or salt water seaweed?

Well, I'm the newbie here so all my answers can be taken with various amounts of salt. Ira, Livingart, Sophia et al are the experts.