blueether Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 Just did a ~60% water change (normally do upto 50%) only to find that some of the inanga and most of the smelt were going spastic about 30min later. Rush trip down to the LFS to get some conditioner (never had any before/never used it*) and by the time I get back 2 smelt are floating upside down, one still breathing, and most of the smelt/inanga looking very stressed. 30ml and 5min later the fish are looking much happier and no more have floated to the top. * only ever had fish show stress from chlorine once before on a sunday when I lost all my smelt from a water change. :sick: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caserole Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 Maybe due to all this rain we've been having your local water board put a little extra Chlorine in the water supply. I've heard this sort of story before and it's usually after either prolonged bad weather or a storm :tears: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueether Posted June 16, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 Last time it was after a lot of rain and the chlorine tested (at the local fonterra plant) at max allowable, so I do suspect that the levels are back up again even though we havn't had that much rain in the waikato Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sophia Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 did you only lose 2 then? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkles Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 What water conditioner did you use? Sounds like it's worth having on hand afterall. Ours gets filled with chlorine after rain too, and at other odd times. They do it strong enough to smell though. I've been paranoid about the smelt though and do 5% daily so it's not too much at once, and leave the new water sitting out overnight when I remember (it freezes solid this week lol) Are the rest still looking ok then? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueether Posted June 16, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 Just the two smelt, still leaves 6 of them. I thought at least one of the inanga were go belly up when I went off to the shop. I got the only brand on the shelf, aquaone water conditioner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrahamC Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 if you had some activated charcoal, you could have used that in your filters while you were going to purchase the water conditioner. Is your tank going to have a mini cycle now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueether Posted June 16, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 if you had some activated charcoal, you could have used that in your filters while you were going to purchase the water conditioner. Is your tank going to have a mini cycle now? should hope not a too big a one, but then I guess that any water change or disturbance of the substrate will cause a mini cycle even if we never see it. I think I can remember seeing online that the L50 of nitrifying bacteria is about 2ppm so even if the tapwater was was at 4ppm given the amount of organics that would be suspended in the water column there shouldn't be too large a die off, maybe 30%? Given that they can double in population in 24 hours (@ ~pH7 and temp in the mid 20's) they should be back to normal in 3 or 4 days given that the temp is 11.9deg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrahamC Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 Wouldn't the presence of organics in the tank favour the production of chloramines? And how many ppm of chlorine will kill fish so rapidly like that? Anyway I was just wondering what one could do when faced with a similar situation with no water conditioner immediately on hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueether Posted June 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2012 no carbon either Yes, I guess that chloramines would be produced... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrahamC Posted June 17, 2012 Report Share Posted June 17, 2012 Quick google suggests that dropping the temperature and supersaturating the water with O2 can help ameliorate chlorine toxicity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueether Posted June 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2012 Got around to doing a water test just now: pH 6.8 Total ammonia <.25ppm* Nitrates 10 - 20ppm** * this tank never seems to test at 0ppm for ammonia ** This was the reason for the good sized water change, looks like the denitrification in the DSB has stopped Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Posted June 17, 2012 Report Share Posted June 17, 2012 I think I can remember seeing online that the L50 of nitrifying bacteria is about 2ppm so even if the tapwater was was at 4ppm given the amount of organics that would be suspended in the water column there shouldn't be too large a die off, maybe 30%? It's not linear, so it's not like 2ppm will kill 50% and 2ppm more will kill 50% of the remaining. Could be 2ppm is 50% die, 2.5ppm kills 90%. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueether Posted June 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2012 Yes I know that, but the L50 isn't instant death either. The math was very rough :sage: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrahamC Posted June 17, 2012 Report Share Posted June 17, 2012 You mean LD50, but perhaps LCt50 with a time value is more appropriate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueether Posted June 18, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 18, 2012 ok, I'm so I'm not a biologist... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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