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Fert regime killing fish?

S

skooby

Seedling
Joined
12 Jan 2010
Messages
5
Hi there, just wondering if someone could help me. I have been trying to sort out some algae issues with my 55 gal tank. The planting and fish stocking is pretty light but hair and bba has been getting worse. I was recommended on another site to try adding 1/4 teaspoon of potassium nitrate per week (dosed half sun after water change and half wed) as nitrate test shows very low, and add a cap ( 5 ml ) of flourish excel per day. The thing is that although I am seeing positive effects on the plant growth, I am also now seeing a worrying number of sudden fish deaths. Is it possible that I am overdosing one or both of these.

P.s. I also add 1 cap ( 5 ml ) of flourish per week at water change.

Thanks.
 
skooby said:
...although I am seeing positive effects on the plant growth, I am also now seeing a worrying number of sudden fish deaths. Is it possible that I am overdosing one or both of these..
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No, it's not. It is possible though that you are not changing enough of your water and that your fish are dying of water pollution from organic waste.

Cheers,
 
I'm changing 30 - 40% per week. Should I change more?.
 
No, that sounds like a pretty good water change schedule. Many people don't do even half as good as that which, does create problems. Fish die from many factors, but there is enough evidence that they don't die from standard nutrient regimes. Remember that people who don't even dose or who don't have plants get fish deaths just as often or so we have to look elsewhere for a cause. You can definitely eliminate typical nutrients from the list.

Unfortunately we don't have a mechanism to have autopsies performed so we never know the reasons. Can you tell us whether there were any symptoms prior to the deaths? That might give a clue.

Cheers,
 
CO2/Excel over dosing and lack of good current are 99% of death related issues in planted tanks. Ferts are lamost never the case....except if you really over dose traces in a shrimp tank maybe.
Maybe if you ADD NH4 to the fert routine and over dose that or something as well.

Otherwise, you got larger issues.
 
Hi all,
I am also now seeing a worrying number of sudden fish deaths
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I'd agree with the others, unless you have a parasite like Camallanus fish deaths are nearly always related to a loss of water quality. Which fish would be useful to know. Others will disagree, but I think high conductivity can be a significant cause of sub lethal stress, and eventuality death for some soft-water fish. Having said that your fertilisers regime shouldn't have any effect on your fish.

Chloramine
Are you using tap water? and if you are do you know if there are any water works (burst main replacement etc) going on in your local area? I've had a lot of these types of message on other forums, and they have often related to the water companies adding an "emergency dose" of chloramine to the water, to make sure that it complies with EU "coliform bacteria" limits. In some cases this emergency dose has been applied from the the freeze / thaw before Christmas and is still being used.

cheers Darrel
 
Every time I've dosed liquid carbon I had fish or inverts death and I never overdosed, after some experiences like this in different tanks this I've thrown the bottle away and relied only to pressurized CO2. I really didn't want to test further which of my fish are or aren't sensible to gluteraldehyde.

Cheers,
Mike
 
Thanks for the replies. It is possible I had a glitch in water quality last weekend after quite heavy cleaning of the gravel on one half of the tank although I will be cutting back on the excel until things have stabilized. Fingers crossed I'm over the worst.

Thanks again Stuart. :thumbup:
 
Heavy gravel cleaning could of caused an ammonia spike
Matt
 
O.k. so I gave the tank a 50% water change and left things to settle down for a few days without adding any ferts. 3 days without a death decided to stat adding Excel again so added 5 ml into 250 litres of water. Next day 2 Angelfish dead and a few cardinals. I have no idea what is happening !!!
 
Could you have a duff bottle of excel?
Do you need the excel?
Matt
 
I started using the excel to stop a hair algae problem, which it has done quite nicely. I just can't think of anything else that could cause a problem.
 
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