[marple]

I think part of your problem may be plant choice I see you mentioned Peace Lily which is considered a houseplant and a very poisonous one at that, it may have released toxins into the water, I would try and stick with aquatic plants if they are going to be emersed in water.

Jeanne

I see what you mean because it is for exactly that reason I took out the peace lily. It's just puzzling me that you see many examples of tanks with peace lily while I can't get it to work. Maybe it is safer to take out all the houseplants, but you see so many examples of beautiful ripariums with houseplants and it was with that intention I got an open top tank. I'll have to continue my search of which plants will work and which won't.

Meanwhile I have made some changes, I will update on that later.

 

[Sturisoma]

I see what you mean because it is for exactly that reason I took out the peace lily. It's just puzzling me that you see many examples of tanks with peace lily while I can't get it to work. Maybe it is safer to take out all the houseplants, but you see so many examples of beautiful ripariums with houseplants and it was with that intention I got an open top tank. I'll have to continue my search of which plants will work and which won't.

Meanwhile I have made some changes, I will update on that later.

You can use peace lily and many other houseplants, I use pothos but you want only the roots in the water never the foliage,

and also check this guy out love his fish room and you will see peace lily and how he uses it

Jeanne

 

[Jorge Soirse]

I think part of your problem may be plant choice I see you mentioned Peace Lily which is considered a houseplant and a very poisonous one at that, it may have released toxins into the water

Some have hypothesized that peace lilies release toxins because their fish acted strange/ died. To that anecdotical evidence, I'll add my own: I have shrimp and small fish in a 20 liter tank (tiny) with two large PL. Their root systems fill the tank and none of the organisms seem to care. Then again, I never trimmed the roots... Perhaps that would release something.

 

[Sturisoma]

Some have hypothesized that peace lilies release toxins because their fish acted strange/ died. To that anecdotical evidence, I'll add my own: I have shrimp and small fish in a 20 liter tank (tiny) with two large PL. Their root systems fill the tank and none of the organisms seem to care. Then again, I never trimmed the roots... Perhaps that would release something.

I think that your Peace Lily given the application is doing exactly what you want it to do, with the leaves, stems, and flowers which are toxic above water and the roots below water growing down into your tank, and the more roots the merrier, I would not trim, but that's just me.

Jeanne

 

[marple]

Okay, thank you for your advice. Good to hear that peace lily can go together with shrimp. I tried and had the impression that it didn't work, but maybe something else was going on (I did have only the roots in). With mine the roots did start to go dark brown and soft, maybe some toxins got released there. So now they are in a bucket of water and I'll wait if they can get past the rotting phase and form some decent under water roots.

For my tank I did several things:

• I took out a few rocks to have more place for plants
• I decided to combine both of my tanks to one in the big one. This made it possible to take part of the plants of the small tank in the big tank. It also means I have one tank less to worry about. I did not break it down completely, it is now sort of a dumping site for plants/wood and stones I don't use. And a place where daphnia and other critters can grow. And a quarantaine for my last sick(?) dario dario (who will probably like the messy state it is in, with loads of hiding)
• I replaced a bigger piece of wood for a smaller one to have more place for plants
• I bought a test for the CO2. It measured 14mg/l after 5 hours of lighting. That is not extremely high is it?
• I did one big and two small water changes
• I now have a Ctenanthe Burle Marxii with the roots emersed and a grass lily and a small piece of pothos. Those are not supposed to be toxic.

On the left the corner where I freed up some space.

On the right the smaller piece of wood. It has a sort of tree shape and a hiding place underneath. One of my oto's is on the glass, I'm no expert but it seems to me his belly is nice and round so I think they have enough to eat even though the tank has not yet aged a lot.

After dosing the Esha2000 for three days my fish soon started to behave more normal. Still some movements of the mouth but far less and the few who were on the water surface stopped doing that. So my hypothesis is that an illness got introduced with the new fish. But hard to tell if I'm right

One of my dario dario did die after the first day of treatment unfortunately and the other one did not react to the treatment with the white spot he has but I'm still not sure if he is ill or has a little wound or something, he is in quarantine now. He was never gasping.

My amano seem a little bit less active, but I hope that's a coincidence, it's not that they're all completely inactive. The cherries are walking around doing their thing. Look at this charming little fellow, my first cherry kid growing up . He now seems to feel that he is big enough to come out of hiding. Before yesterday I rarely saw him. Today I stuck the small piece of stem plant in the back in the substrate just an inch behind him and he didn't care at all...

Hopefully the trouble is over and I can start again enjoying the view of happy plants and livestock. I really love to observe my tank when everything goes well

 

[marple]

You can use peace lily and many other houseplants, I use pothos but you want only the roots in the water never the foliage,

and also check this guy out love his fish room and you will see peace lily and how he uses it

Jeanne

Had seen a part of it, it's lovely, will watch the rest another time. Have to get some sleep first
But it's great to hear that it can work!

 

[Jorge Soirse]

Looks great. I just finished reading Ecology of the Planted Aquarrium, and apparently the Eleocharis are the King Kongs of allelopathy. Dunno if that changes anything, I think that's what you planted in the foreground.

 

[marple]

It is eleocharis indeed, haven't dived into that subject yet. And I think I really should read Diana's book as well, just don't know when...

First priority now is to get the tank stable. Shrimp still seem happy, the fish a bit better but today I noticed that one of my galaxy rasbora's looks emaciated and is gasping (though not at the water surface). Sigh... I'm trying not to get too discouraged. Sometimes I feel like giving up and I wish I was at the level of experience of many of you, but I guess there is only one way to get there...
I wanted to grab the Esha again since it seemed to help last week, but I changed my mind. It's some sort of disinfectant, it can't be good for the biological balance if I use it all the time. Maybe I should focus on creating a healthy environment for the fish and just hope that it will be enough for them to cope with whatever is going on. Not that I know how, but I'll try to find out

Yesterday I forgot one measure I took: I augmented the lighting hours from 2x5 to 1x5 plus 1x6. To give the plants more chance of taking up CO2 since my lighting is quite weak. Not ideal but I hope this will help to avoid excess CO2 trouble until I have a new light

This evening I suddenly heard a bubbling sound of many bubbles escaping in one spot. Nearly caused me a heart attack because at first I thought my tank suddenly had a big leak 😨. I have no idea what it was... I'm a bit worried about the height in the left of the tank, there is quite a lot of gravel there and not yet any plants rooting in it. It is where the peace lily was and now the ctenanthe has to root in there but that will take a little time. But I'm doubting if I'll have to change my plans in that corner.

 

[Jorge Soirse]

Perhaps you could poke around with something? Because of the bubbles. I'd go with the "wait it out" stance. I'm not sure I count as experienced, but every time I kept a successful tank I basically went for gut feeling and ignored every parameter. Just trial and error with plants and with fish compatibility, having fun with it on my spare time. Then again, I can just toss fish back into the river... And frankly bought fish are sissies.

 

[marple]

Perhaps you could poke around with something? Because of the bubbles. I'd go with the "wait it out" stance. I'm not sure I count as experienced, but every time I kept a successful tank I basically went for gut feeling and ignored every parameter. Just trial and error with plants and with fish compatibility, having fun with it on my spare time. Then again, I can just toss fish back into the river... And frankly bought fish are sissies.

Thank you for that advice! You sure have a great advantage sort of living inside a sort of real life natural fish store 😄.

 

[marple]

I have a new hypothesis, but before I act and do something stupid I would prefer to have your advice...

Not totally sure, but I have the impression that every time I do a water change it only makes things worse. Especially the amano are showing that clearly: very often after a water change they disappear and stop eating. After a few days they start acting normally again. And maybe the fish didn't get better because of the esha2000 but because I didn't change the water for 3 days during that treatment??

The pile on the left is mainly rocks, but behind it is a base of expanded clay pebbles and small gravel, no dirt. As I said, I took the peace lily away because the roots started to rot, so nothing is rooting in there. What if the water has turned anaerobic there over time. If there is not much of a flow it will stay there, but whenever I change the water it will leak out of the pile into the tank. That could make everyone unhappy. I also notice that since the problems are there, the fish tend to hang out more on the right side of the aquarium. That could be a coincidence, or not...
Not sure about this theory, but could it be true?

And some more questions:
1: there is (to my knowledge) no organic material there so what will be the bad thing in the water inside the pile. Could it still be H2S? But from what? The symptoms of the fish do resemble (in a lighter version) what I saw when I had problems with anaerobic substrate. And it also explains why my cherries are still happily doing their thing, because they seem to cope better with that. Back then my fish were long gone and my cherries survived.

2: apparently the bad thing sticks around for at least a couple of days, how can I make it disappear faster?

3: what is the best solution. Could I scoop out part of the gravel and place the outlet of the powerhead there for more ventilation? Or will it blow so much misery into the tank that all fish will die?
I really like the ctenanthe, it is so beautiful. In this way I can leave it there but then not rooted into the gravel but with the roots hanging freely in the water and the powerhead underneath.
Alternative 1 is to scoop out part of the gravel and place rooting aquarium plants there, but it would mean I have no place for the ctenanthe and I would probably need a new light first because it's quite a dark corner.
Alternative 2 is to plant an umbrella plant in the gravel. But it would still mean I have no place for the ctenanthe and I don't know if the umbrella plant will find a way to escape from in between the rocks and spread its roots all over the tank. I've read its root system can be quite impressive, that is what I need now, but on the long term it could become a problem of its own?

 

[Jorge Soirse]

I personally do not believe water could become anaerobic in one place of the aquarium. Unless I'm much mistaken, there's this phenomenon called Brownian movement that makes stagnation of a single portion of fluid within a larger system pretty much impossible. I don't think that can be the problem.

However, if there is no dirt there, you could place a powerhead. It would't hurt, I'm sure. It would turn into a mini filter, with the flow directed at the gravel and clay. The only problem I can see down the line is lack of ammonium for the plants, they'd spend twice the energy using nitrites/nitrates to grow.

Have you considered metal toxicity? Perhaps your tap water is to blame... I'm shamelessly flicking through Mrs. Walstad's book, mind you. It would explain why a couple of days later everything is fine: your emergent plants would suck heavy metals out of the system. Also, it would explain why the shrimp are particularly sensitive. In this case, today's problems would have no relationship with your original ones. In this case, the book recommends a couple of different approaches:

• Peat filtration
• Metal chelators (EDTA, whatever this is, rather common apparently)
• Using RO water
• Adding humic acids
• Increasing water hardness
• And, as usual, growing a ton of plants.

If this were the case, then you would need to treat your tap water before adding it to the tank.

Might be completely off the mark, but there go my two cents.

 

[marple]

Thank you for your efforts, good to know abut the stagnation. Tap water sounds logical but I have done many water changes in my old tank without a problem and generally water treatment is not necessary here. Maybe amano's are just more sensitive to changes than cherries.

To be sure about the pile of rocks and gravel I sucked out part of the gravel this morning to check and in contrary to what I thought there was organic material but it was far from anaerobic and filled with blackworms. So looked pretty healthy to me and I have put the gravel back. Just a slight rearrangement to see if I can also plant some low aquarium plants there that can become emersed later.

So hypothesis rejected and I'm basically back to were I was, just waiting it out and hoping the fish will overcome. The whiteclouds still gasp a little bit but the rest seems normal. The galaxy rasbora in quarantine is not going to make it unfortunately but apart from that no casualty's for now. Getting better lighting is now one of my main priorities.

Oh and by the way, after some more observation the fish are probably hanging out on the right side of the tank due to a whitecloud male who has made himself a territory which he fiercely defends of everyone except the shrimp and the oto's. They have done that before and it was temporary. And if not, it's almost spring, then they can go back outside...

 

[marple]

The little place I created

 

[johnwesley0]

Oh and by the way, after some more observation the fish are probably hanging out on the right side of the tank due to a whitecloud male who has made himself a territory which he fiercely defends of everyone except the shrimp and the oto's.

Are the otos dead or alive?

 

[marple]

Are the otos dead or alive?

These ones are alive 😄. Still three alive and two missing... It's a mystery...

Yesterday afternoon he suddenly stopped doing it and almost eveyone (except another galaxy rasbora who was hanging around quitely, oh no...) was happily swimming around be curious and looking for food. Not sure why this change. Was the whitecloud making eveyone hanging out at the right an being calm or was it the cleaning of the pile what helped nevertheless? Option 2 sounds most logically to me but hard to tell. My tank is full of mysteries at the moment 😅
I'm puzzled most of the time 🤷‍♀️. Let's see what today will bring

 

[johnwesley0]

Count me in the "just take things in stride" and resist any drastic cures or countermeasures camp. Fish die. Algae happens. Partial water changes on a regular basis are probably your safest bet in the long run. Btw, does your vicinity have any commercial manufacturer that sells home testing kits for ammonia, nitrites, etc.?

 

[Jorge Soirse]

These ones are alive 😄. Still three alive and two missing... It's a mystery...

I see mine once a month... They were dubbed "those hysterical catfish" by my nephews, presumed dead many a time.

 

[marple]

Count me in the "just take things in stride" and resist any drastic cures or countermeasures camp. Fish die. Algae happens. Partial water changes on a regular basis are probably your safest bet in the long run.

Good advice, thank you!

Btw, does your vicinity have any commercial manufacturer that sells home testing kits for ammonia, nitrites, etc.?

Yup 😁

Bought those today. I used strips to test first but they were finished a few weeks a go, never tested any nitrites so wasn't too motivated to buy new ones. When the trouble started I had the water tested at the LFS, but it's a good idea to have the ability to test for yourself. Especially NO2, NH3 and CO2.

 

[marple]

I see mine once a month... They were dubbed "those hysterical catfish" by my nephews, presumed dead many a time.

Oh really! So there is hope. When I bought the five a few acted strange from the first day on. Since day 2 or 3 I consistently see three of them, never more. I read that oto's are infamous for the high percentage not surviving transport so I considered the other two dead. But who knows... The three other are very active and almost always visible, different personalities maybe 😊. Eating a lot and big bellied as well so I presume they are doing fine.