Becca
Members
This is a hard post to write, and is bound to be a long one. On Wednesday morning I woke up to a tank full of dead and dying fish. Filters were running, temperature was correct. While moving the struggling survivors to a quarantine tank, I got out test kits. Ammonia - 0, Nitrates - 0, Nitrites - 0, pH 6.5. Perfect conditions for these fish. I opened up the filter to see if it was clogged, it was barely dirty. The tank had plenty of circulation, it's a 40 breeder with 2 powerheads and a canister filter, plus a very large air stone.
Those of you who know me, know I love my fish. I might not love them in the same way I love my dogs, but I do love them. My morning ritual involves taking a few minutes to sit in front of each tank in my living room and observe them. I do the same thing each evening after dinner. I take fishkeeping fairly seriously. The fish in this tank were not just among my favorites, but they were also rare. Almost every fish in the tank was endemic to the Rio Xingu or one of its large tributaries, the Rio Iriri. They were rapids-dwelling species, which makes them hard to collect and contributes to their relative rarity in the hobby. These fish are not just hard to find, they may soon be impossible to find because their habitats are threatened by dams, mining, farming, forest burning, etc.
I rechecked the fish for signs of illness. Some of them showed marked improvement in their new tank, others looked like they were likely too far gone. There were no signs of parasites, bacterial infection, fungus, etc. They were clean, perfect looking, aside from being obviously stressed. Somewhere in my mess of a brain I thought of something that seemed almost preposterous. It's something that comes up in saltwater fishkeeping, but not so often in freshwater - "leaking voltage."
You see, much of the equipment we use to keep our fish alive, warm, happy, and healthy is driven by electricity and operated submerged in water. It is not supposed to leak any significant amount of voltage but, given how corrosive saltwater is, it's been known to happen with some frequency in marine aquaria. I took out our volt-meter and checked. Readings jumped all over the place but were high enough to have an impact (at least 15 volts). I unplugged everything and checked - 0 volts. I plugged the pieces of equipment in one at a time and found the culprits. It wasn't just one piece of equipment, but two. These were made by the same manufacturer, Cobalt Aquatics. My fish, and all of the hopes of some minimal degree of conservation that went with them, had been killed by a NeoTherm heater and the pump for an EXT canister filter that was less than a year old. With both the pump and heater running, the voltage meter read as high as 29 volts.
I've reached out to Cobalt about this and will let folks know if and what I hear back. This was easily $350-$400 worth of fish - 6 adult Moenkhausia heikoi, an adult spawning pair of Teleocichla centrarchus, and an adult pair of Teleocichla sp. Xingu III "spots." I've ordered grounding probes, something I'd never even heard of until I googled how to check for electrical currents in an aquarium. I tested other tanks and the other "leaky' items I've found are Hydor powerheads/propeller pumps, but those are still small potatoes compared to this. I feel shame, failure, frustration, sadness, and anger. Moreover, I wonder how companies keep getting away with operating in ways that deplete their customer base. I'm unlikely to ever buy a Cobalt Aquatics product again and, although I used to recommend them often, I won't be doing that either. I will continue keeping fish.
I keep thinking about what something like this would mean for a newer hobbyist - perhaps someone whose fish kept dying and just gave up on the hobby because something like leaking voltage would never even occur to them. People have experiences like this and decide "fish suck." It drives people away from the hobby that clubs like CCA are trying to keep alive.
Those of you who know me, know I love my fish. I might not love them in the same way I love my dogs, but I do love them. My morning ritual involves taking a few minutes to sit in front of each tank in my living room and observe them. I do the same thing each evening after dinner. I take fishkeeping fairly seriously. The fish in this tank were not just among my favorites, but they were also rare. Almost every fish in the tank was endemic to the Rio Xingu or one of its large tributaries, the Rio Iriri. They were rapids-dwelling species, which makes them hard to collect and contributes to their relative rarity in the hobby. These fish are not just hard to find, they may soon be impossible to find because their habitats are threatened by dams, mining, farming, forest burning, etc.
I rechecked the fish for signs of illness. Some of them showed marked improvement in their new tank, others looked like they were likely too far gone. There were no signs of parasites, bacterial infection, fungus, etc. They were clean, perfect looking, aside from being obviously stressed. Somewhere in my mess of a brain I thought of something that seemed almost preposterous. It's something that comes up in saltwater fishkeeping, but not so often in freshwater - "leaking voltage."
You see, much of the equipment we use to keep our fish alive, warm, happy, and healthy is driven by electricity and operated submerged in water. It is not supposed to leak any significant amount of voltage but, given how corrosive saltwater is, it's been known to happen with some frequency in marine aquaria. I took out our volt-meter and checked. Readings jumped all over the place but were high enough to have an impact (at least 15 volts). I unplugged everything and checked - 0 volts. I plugged the pieces of equipment in one at a time and found the culprits. It wasn't just one piece of equipment, but two. These were made by the same manufacturer, Cobalt Aquatics. My fish, and all of the hopes of some minimal degree of conservation that went with them, had been killed by a NeoTherm heater and the pump for an EXT canister filter that was less than a year old. With both the pump and heater running, the voltage meter read as high as 29 volts.
I've reached out to Cobalt about this and will let folks know if and what I hear back. This was easily $350-$400 worth of fish - 6 adult Moenkhausia heikoi, an adult spawning pair of Teleocichla centrarchus, and an adult pair of Teleocichla sp. Xingu III "spots." I've ordered grounding probes, something I'd never even heard of until I googled how to check for electrical currents in an aquarium. I tested other tanks and the other "leaky' items I've found are Hydor powerheads/propeller pumps, but those are still small potatoes compared to this. I feel shame, failure, frustration, sadness, and anger. Moreover, I wonder how companies keep getting away with operating in ways that deplete their customer base. I'm unlikely to ever buy a Cobalt Aquatics product again and, although I used to recommend them often, I won't be doing that either. I will continue keeping fish.
I keep thinking about what something like this would mean for a newer hobbyist - perhaps someone whose fish kept dying and just gave up on the hobby because something like leaking voltage would never even occur to them. People have experiences like this and decide "fish suck." It drives people away from the hobby that clubs like CCA are trying to keep alive.