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Algae from hell - aggressive growth of basically every type in a 4 month old tank

jaypeecee said:
Hi Everyone,

I think it may be appropriate to mention a PFK article on the topic of Otocinclus:

www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk

Keeping Otocinclus catfish in the aquarium

Keeping Otocinclus catfish in the aquarium
www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk

JPC
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Awesome article, thanks for that. Unfortunately I found another dead one today, one of the 6 originals this time. Died with a nice plump belly. I don't know if possibly the partial substrate change has stressed them as I've lost 3 in the past three days, but I think I am just going to give up on them to be honest. Tired of having to bury an oto every day.

Edit - just retested and my carbonate hardness has dropped to from 7 to 3dKH, and pH from 7.5 to 7.2. Could this cause these deaths?
 
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It'll probably be ammonia/nitrite poisoning,caused by an unstable environment.
 
john dory said:
It'll probably be ammonia/nitrite poisoning,caused by an unstable environment.
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It's not ammonia/nitrite, tested regularly. The soil was soaked in water for a week prior too so I think the ammonia leach should be minimal by now.

Also only 1/4 of the sand has been replaced with soil so far so I can't imagine it'd have that huge of an effect?

Thanks
 
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How's the algae going, any update? I ask because I'm struggling with staghorn algae update of my own in a 220gallin that's heavily planted and have followed your thread with interest ( I have 6 otos as well, my favorites - and hoping to add more shortly)
 
Paige Poore said:
How's the algae going, any update? I ask because I'm struggling with staghorn algae update of my own in a 220gallin that's heavily planted and have followed your thread with interest ( I have 6 otos as well, my favorites - and hoping to add more shortly)
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I trimmed off the few bits of vallis with nasty staghorn a week ago (around the time I added DIY CO2, which is now up to 8mg/L) and haven't seen any since. The staghorn that was in my original post seemed to have been cured with SeaChem Fluorish Excel though it may just be a coincidence. BBA has spread quite widely again but it's only small coatings on leaves so I'm not too bothered.

Good luck with it (and I hope you have better luck with the otos than myself!)
 
spleenharvester said:
It's not ammonia/nitrite, tested regularly. The soil was soaked in water for a week prior too so I think the ammonia leach should be minimal by now.

Also only 1/4 of the sand has been replaced with soil so far so I can't imagine it'd have that huge of an effect?

Thanks
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I was thinking the filter may have been impeded.
Been adding high doses of glut?
Hydrogen peroxide?
Could be the filter not coping with extra ammonia released by rescapes.
Otto need very clean water.
 
Hi all,
spleenharvester said:
with soil so far so I can't imagine it'd have that huge of an effect?
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spleenharvester said:
Edit - just retested and my carbonate hardness has dropped to from 7 to 3dKH, and pH from 7.5 to 7.2. Could this cause these deaths?
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I'm sorry for your loss, and you are never going to know for sure, it won't directly be the change in pH/dKH, but it might be an oxygen issue and the changes and death may point in the same direction.
john dory said:
Could be the filter not coping with extra ammonia released by rescapes.
Otto need very clean water.
Click to expand...
If there are still elevated levels of ammonia (NH3) and or nitrite (NO2-), you would have the extra oxygen demand of nitrification and also a demand for carbonate hardness. Other fish might be less effected, because Otocinclus are quite delicate fish.

cheers Darrel
 
I wouldn't know anything about that..Darrell.
But you crash the filter with chems,and you're in the realms off"fish in cycle"
Ottos can't take it
 
john dory said:
I was thinking the filter may have been impeded.
Been adding high doses of glut?
Hydrogen peroxide?
Could be the filter not coping with extra ammonia released by rescapes.
Otto need very clean water.
Click to expand...

I stopped dosing Flourish Excel once I started getting bubbles through the DIY CO2 reactor (so about a week ago). Have never added H2O2.

Parameters are currently as follows:

NH3: 0 ppm
NO2: 0 ppm
NO3: 20 ppm
pH: 7.2
GH: 3 dKH
CO2: 8mg/L
Temp: 25.5*C

Aside from low GH nothing really sticks out to me. I'm wondering if this is possibly a trace element/mineral issue, I know otos are quite sensitive to copper and I'm wondering if the soil is leaching it or something.

dw1305 said:
Hi all,


I'm sorry for your loss, and you are never going to know for sure, it won't directly be the change in pH/dKH, but it might be an oxygen issue and the changes and death may point in the same direction.

If there are still elevated levels of ammonia (NH3) and or nitrite (NO2-), you would have the extra oxygen demand of nitrification and also a demand for carbonate hardness. Other fish might be less effected, because Otocinclus are quite delicate fish.

cheers Darrel
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Thanks Darrel - in absence of anything I can detect being elevated, I might just avoid replacing the otos for another 6 months, hopefully my tank will have stabilised a lot more by then.

Cheers
 
Hi all,
spleenharvester said:
I might just avoid replacing the otos for another 6 months, hopefully my tank will have stabilised a lot more by then.
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That would probably be the best bet.

It is really difficult to diagnose exactly what has gone wrong with fish (or plants). I tend to keep away from fish I know are genetically compromised (Rams come to mind) and then after that I look on reputable sources (like this forum and PlanetCatfish).

If there are lots of reports of unexpected deaths (like there are with Otocinclus and Pygmy Cories) I look and see if there is anything in common in the reports and also where people have bred the same fish (or kept them long term) if there are common factors for them as well.

In terms of Otocinclus, where they've done well is in established soft water set ups with high water quality, additional feeding, lots of plants and some structural leaf litter.

cheers Darrel
 
spleenharvester said:
Died with a nice plump belly.
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Hi @spleenharvester

We tend to assume that Otocinclus with plump bellies equates to a well-fed Otocinclus. But I wonder if this could also equate to an internal infection? I really don't know the answer to this question. But I know someone to whom I could put this question. I'll try to get in touch with her.

JPC
 
jaypeecee said:
Hi @spleenharvester

We tend to assume that Otocinclus with plump bellies equates to a well-fed Otocinclus. But I wonder if this could also equate to an internal infection? I really don't know the answer to this question. But I know someone to whom I could put this question. I'll try to get in touch with her.

JPC
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Hello,

Yes I've read this a few times - it wouldn't surprise me if that were the case, we had one of our otos get really huge in a short space of time (after a couple months in the tank), we thought she was gravid but she suddenly died not long after. That would be awesome if you could,

Thanks!
 
jaypeecee said:
Hi @spleenharvester

I did manage to contact my ichthyologist friend and I've come to the conclusion that being able to distinguish a plump from a swollen Otocinclus belly is something that comes with experience. So, I've still got some way to go!

JPC
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Ah interesting, thank you!

I think our recent deaths were due to water quality issues rather than parasitic/bacterial infection, despite all of the parameters I can test for being fine. We lost a total of four in a few days, at least one from each species, but have had no further losses after an 80% water change. I'm wondering if the soil was leaching minerals like copper or something else that otos are sensitive to. I think I'm just going to change the water daily instead when I add the next batch of soil.

Thanks
 
spleenharvester said:
I'm wondering if the soil was leaching minerals...
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Hi @spleenharvester

Perhaps. If I used aquarium soil or, indeed, any 'active' substrate, I'd test it before adding to a tank. At the very least, I'd check for ammonia/ammonium. Then, check KH, GH and pH stability. Of course, all this takes time - not just for the measurements but leaving enough time between successive measurements. Ideally, you'd be able to get this important data from the manufacturer but...

JPC
 
As John says, if you are adding fresh aquatic soil to the tank it will almost certainly be leaching ammonia, even with your bucket pre-soaking, and I imagine that was most certainly the cause of your Oto losses if you replaced 25% of your substrate in this way.

Before you consider adding any more soil, I would remove all your livestock from the tank, and put them in a holding tank or tub with a heater and filter, and then wait at least a couple of weeks with 80%+ daily water changes on the main tank, before adding the fish back in.
 
Update on this

Fully changed over from sand to Tropica soil and added yeast CO2 (JBL ProFlora 160 system, 1 bubble/2 seconds). No algae since. No more oto deaths since previous post either. I didn't remove livestock due to space constraints, but instead moved very slowly with the sand/soil replacement.
 
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