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The photo linked from this post is of a 20g tall tank that housed a colony of Butterfly Goodeids (amecus splendens) covering several generations, plus a few plecos and cherry shrimp. It's a soil substrate with gravel on top. It has CO2 injection when the lights are on and two Eheim hang-on box filters. It is jam packed with Val and had some java moss, a piece of driftwood, etc. We fertilize PMDD.
A few days ago we had a sudden and unexpected die off of all of the Goodeids in this tank as well as 2 of 6 large Angel fish in a 60g planted tank. The next day the other 4 angels died.
The initial night we discovered the die off, we did probably 2.5 tanks worth of water changes with RO water. Last night I vacuumed the goodied tank and did a 70% water change. i also combed through it and pulled all the loose plant matter out. While I probably beat up the plants with the vacuum tube, this Val was a weed and quite durable. As you can see, it's on the verge of melting completely. Why?
https://flic.kr/p/2785259469
The only commonality is that the tanks where the die offs occurred were dosed with Flourish Excel the night before. The Angel tank got a double dose and the 20g tanks (a few of them) might have gotten triple, though not intentionally. If that was it though, it doesn't explain why we had no trouble with our 240g tank which I also double dosed and it has Discus and other more sensitive fish. The only difference is that the 20g tanks and the 60g tank didn't have the lights on for the following day The 60g was actually covered with towels in an attempt to stop some new algae from taking hold, and apparently the tank smelled foul when uncovered. So I'm thinking maybe the Excel killed off algae and/or bacteria that led to sulfur dioxide? Why is the val melting? I've seen it happen once before, when I put jungle val into a brand new 72g tank that took a while to get established. The rest of the time, it's a weed.
Michael
http://aquaticobsession.blogspot.com/
A few days ago we had a sudden and unexpected die off of all of the Goodeids in this tank as well as 2 of 6 large Angel fish in a 60g planted tank. The next day the other 4 angels died.
The initial night we discovered the die off, we did probably 2.5 tanks worth of water changes with RO water. Last night I vacuumed the goodied tank and did a 70% water change. i also combed through it and pulled all the loose plant matter out. While I probably beat up the plants with the vacuum tube, this Val was a weed and quite durable. As you can see, it's on the verge of melting completely. Why?
https://flic.kr/p/2785259469
The only commonality is that the tanks where the die offs occurred were dosed with Flourish Excel the night before. The Angel tank got a double dose and the 20g tanks (a few of them) might have gotten triple, though not intentionally. If that was it though, it doesn't explain why we had no trouble with our 240g tank which I also double dosed and it has Discus and other more sensitive fish. The only difference is that the 20g tanks and the 60g tank didn't have the lights on for the following day The 60g was actually covered with towels in an attempt to stop some new algae from taking hold, and apparently the tank smelled foul when uncovered. So I'm thinking maybe the Excel killed off algae and/or bacteria that led to sulfur dioxide? Why is the val melting? I've seen it happen once before, when I put jungle val into a brand new 72g tank that took a while to get established. The rest of the time, it's a weed.
Michael
http://aquaticobsession.blogspot.com/