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Fishroom Emergency

zackcrack00

zackcrack00

Members
As some of you know, I've been setting up a fishroom over at my mom's house. I have around 12 tanks moved into the room. Goodeids, mbuna, some wild-type livebearers, and the like.

We had high nitrates out of the tap, so we had the plumber install a nitrate filter that runs to the whole house. Long story short, one water change later and I've lost half of my fish. I'm about to get in the phone with the plumber, does anyone have any ideas what could be wrong?


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chriscoli

chriscoli

Administrator
I'm unfamiliar with how a nitrate filter works. Does it exchange the nitrate for something else, absorb it, or does it alter the nitrate?

Did you check your water parameters with a test kit?

I'm so sorry!




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Rasta Fish

Rasta Fish

Members
That sucks
You may want to think about saving your water into a tank or a drum
Get the parameters right there first and use the water from there for water changes
 
chriscoli

chriscoli

Administrator
I did a quick search and it looks like some of the nitrate removers use an ion resin to exchange a nitrate for a chloride ion.

For the chemists out there.....does this mean that he needs to use a dechlorinator now?
 
Leffler817

Leffler817

CCA Members
zackcrack00 said:
It's too late now. All of the water out of all of the faucets in the house now comes from that filter.


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Click to expand...

Sorry to hear about the mess and losses. That sucks bro.

But, as Craig said, you can collect the water in something and treat it to the proper conditions before adding it to the tanks. It'll be safer for your fish.


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Localzoo

Localzoo

Board of Directors
Sorry to hear buddy. You might hv the plumber add a deionization unit after the nitrate filter???? Or use bicarbonate in the filter instead of sodium chloride.
I think the most Dechlors actually turn chloramines and chlorine to chloride.....I need to double check.

Does your tap water taste salty?
Did you flush the lines and filter after the it was added?
Does the water smell?
What symptoms did they have before they past?
How do the survivors look?
Any signs of stress?
Sorry for the questions.

An ion exchange unit operates much like a household water softener. A softener filters calcium and magnesium laden water through a resin coated with sodium ions. As water flows through the unit, the resin releases its sodium ions and readily trades them for the calcium and magnesium. For nitrate removal, the resin exchanges chloride ions for nitrate and sulfate ions in the water. After treating many gallons of water, the resin will run out of chloride. Regenerating the resin with a concentrated solution of sodium chloride (you can use bicarbonate instead of chloride) recharges it for further treatment. http://extension.psu.edu/natural-re...testing/pollutants/nitrates-in-drinking-water



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Last edited:
zackcrack00

zackcrack00

Members
Localzoo said:
Sorry to hear buddy. You might hv the plumber add a deionization unit after the nitrate filter???? Or use bicarbonate in the filter instead of sodium chloride.
I think the most Dechlors actually turn chloramines and chlorine to chloride.....I need to double check.

Does your tap water taste salty?
Did you flush the lines and filter after the it was added?
Does the water smell?
What symptoms did they have before they past?
How do the survivors look?
Any signs of stress?
Sorry for the questions.

An ion exchange unit operates much like a household water softener. A softener filters calcium and magnesium laden water through a resin coated with sodium ions. As water flows through the unit, the resin releases its sodium ions and readily trades them for the calcium and magnesium. For nitrate removal, the resin exchanges chloride ions for nitrate and sulfate ions in the water. After treating many gallons of water, the resin will run out of chloride. Regenerating the resin with a concentrated solution of sodium chloride (you can use bicarbonate instead of chloride) recharges it for further treatment. http://extension.psu.edu/natural-re...testing/pollutants/nitrates-in-drinking-water



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Click to expand...

The water doesn't taste off, it does have a slight smell, though. I can't pinpoint the smell, just like an acidic smell, almost. Yes, we flushed the lines after the system was added. The fish seemed stressed before they passed, not eating too much and staying near the bottoms of the tanks. When it was real near the end, they were labored in breathing and lay on the bottom or float at the top. Survivors either stressed or acting normal.


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Frank Cowherd

Frank Cowherd

Global Moderators
Staff member
If you have a single tank of ion exchange resin it is an anionic exchange resin. When it starts off, that is, when it is ready to use, the resin is in the chloride ion form. When you pass your nitrate ion containing water through it, the chloride ion is exchanged for the nitrate ion. The chloride ion comes out of the unit in the water.

When you dissolve table salt in water, it dissolves into sodium ions and chloride ions. This form of chlorine in safe to drink or for aquariums. No need for dechlor.

THe cations associated with the nitrate ions you are trying to remove are possibly sodium ions, calcium ions, magnesium ions, and some others. IF your high nitrate ion level in the source water is due to fertilizer run off, it is almost a sure thing that the form is sodium ion.

So probably your nitrate filter is being fed sodium nitrate and is coming out as sodium chloride.

If you have a double set of cylinders, the second cylinder is the cation exchange unit which starts in the sodium ion form. When water with calcium ions and magnesium ions (which are the two usual causes of hard water)are in the source water, they are exchanged for sodium ions. Sodium ion is not a hard water component. SO removing calcium ions and magnesium ions, gives you soft water.

None of the above can give you any explanation for fish die off.

Ion exchange units are very reliable and safe.

However if you are regenerating with caustic or hydrochloric acid (Muratic acid), which is done in some ion exchanges process where neither sodium ions or chloride ions are wanted, the regeneration is done with excess chemicals and it would be easy to kill fish with either caustic (sodium hydroxide) or hydrochloric acid. It is unlikely any household unit uses these processes.

If you find your unit is not using sodium chloride to regenerate your household exchange unit, what is it being regenerated with.

A malfunction of the regeneration process where an excess of sodium chloride was pumped into your water and ended up in the aquarium could be an explanation. But unlikely to occur, though the unit must be programmed to limit the amount of sodium chloride used per cycle.

A TDS (total dissolved salts) meter would quickly tell you if there were excess salt in the water. Reading up to about 1000 are fine, however.
Very high sodium chloride concentrations will cause all fish to die.

Lack of oxygen can also explain a large die off. Lack of oxygen can happen. If the fish that survive are air breathers, like gouramis or corys, oxygen level is a more likely a cause.
 
zackcrack00

zackcrack00

Members
Frank Cowherd said:
If you have a single tank of ion exchange resin it is an anionic exchange resin. When it starts off, that is, when it is ready to use, the resin is in the chloride ion form. When you pass your nitrate ion containing water through it, the chloride ion is exchanged for the nitrate ion. The chloride ion comes out of the unit in the water.

When you dissolve table salt in water, it dissolves into sodium ions and chloride ions. This form of chlorine in safe to drink or for aquariums. No need for dechlor.

THe cations associated with the nitrate ions you are trying to remove are possibly sodium ions, calcium ions, magnesium ions, and some others. IF your high nitrate ion level in the source water is due to fertilizer run off, it is almost a sure thing that the form is sodium ion.

So probably your nitrate filter is being fed sodium nitrate and is coming out as sodium chloride.

If you have a double set of cylinders, the second cylinder is the cation exchange unit which starts in the sodium ion form. When water with calcium ions and magnesium ions (which are the two usual causes of hard water)are in the source water, they are exchanged for sodium ions. Sodium ion is not a hard water component. SO removing calcium ions and magnesium ions, gives you soft water.

None of the above can give you any explanation for fish die off.

Ion exchange units are very reliable and safe.

However if you are regenerating with caustic or hydrochloric acid (Muratic acid), which is done in some ion exchanges process where neither sodium ions or chloride ions are wanted, the regeneration is done with excess chemicals and it would be easy to kill fish with either caustic (sodium hydroxide) or hydrochloric acid. It is unlikely any household unit uses these processes.

If you find your unit is not using sodium chloride to regenerate your household exchange unit, what is it being regenerated with.

A malfunction of the regeneration process where an excess of sodium chloride was pumped into your water and ended up in the aquarium could be an explanation. But unlikely to occur, though the unit must be programmed to limit the amount of sodium chloride used per cycle.

A TDS (total dissolved salts) meter would quickly tell you if there were excess salt in the water. Reading up to about 1000 are fine, however.
Very high sodium chloride concentrations will cause all fish to die.

Lack of oxygen can also explain a large die off. Lack of oxygen can happen. If the fish that survive are air breathers, like gouramis or corys, oxygen level is a more likely a cause.
Click to expand...

Some of the fish were gasping for air, but some weren't. I have multiple sponge filters in the tanks, wouldn't that be enough?


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Frank Cowherd

Frank Cowherd

Global Moderators
Staff member
Sponge filter should be fine if the air flow rate is high. Low oxygen levels are a remote possibility, but if there is no obvious other explanation, it should be considered.

High aeration in any tank is better than lower as far as oxygen levels go. You almost cannot get too much air into a tank. But high air flow is hard on decorations and plants.

Can you confirm that you are using sodium chloride to regenerate your nitrate filter?

Can you specify the unit being used to remove nitrates? Are any electrodes being used?

So you changed half the water in all the tanks and lost half the fish? Was the fish loss in the order of refilling?

How long was the nitrate filter in use before your water change?

COuld the installer have put chlorox into the system to make sure the drinking water was safe? It is common to flush the household pipes with chlorox after plumbing changes.

Maybe the ordor you smelled was chlorox.
 
Frank Cowherd

Frank Cowherd

Global Moderators
Staff member
BTW, if chlorox was the problem, the smaller fish are more likely to die than the larger ones. Or in other words, the large fish are more likely to survive a chlorine problem.
 
dogofwar

dogofwar

CCA Members
Sounds like it was just installed. Did you run it for awhile before changing water or use the very first water coming through the new unit?

Might be something from installation that needed to be flushed from the system.

Matt
 
hollyfish2000

hollyfish2000

Members
I'm sorry. that sucks. I recently had an unexplained nitrite spike after a water change and lost a few females before I realized the issue and was able to get it quickly correctly. As this happens to me occasionally, I have no explanation. And I do use aged water. I would encourage a bit of an experiment. Do a water change in a small tank and see what happens. I'd also encourage you to age water in a big trash can, which is what I do.
 
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