Golden cobra snakehead group tank

[TomatoandEgg]

So since my last update i left for a 1 month holiday. I left my tank in the hands of my father in law! Upon my return i found i had lost almost 2 inches of height from the top of my scape. The tank had been treated to a water change but wasnt topped up enough...so the water from the outlet careened down onto my substrate shifting from the top to the bottom! Also about 15 of my fish died whilst i was away. I was very sad my 10 celestial pearl danios got wiped out. I was left with 2. I suspected ich. But no way to be sure.

This was it when i returned after i topped up a few inches of water

This is how the carpet was looking. Hanging on by its fingertips

I decided i would suck up all the displaced substrate and dump it back on top. So i pulled out most of the plants on the upper levels drained the tank and tried to siphon the soil from the floor. I ended up sucking up half the sand and mixing it all together so tossed it all.

I had leftover aquasoil and sand so i decided to top up with that. I had soaked the aquasoil for a week prior to this in case i ended up needing it. Id change the wayer every day. I read about new soil leeching ammonia so i figured id try and let it lose some before i put it in the tank.

Replanted the HC or maybe its MC im not sure. Basically setmyself back to how it eas end of december. Only now it was mid feb. Also got a few more rummy nosed tetras to keep the survivors company.

Everything was going well. I bought 15 cardinal tetras. However each morning 1 of them would die. Before bed the tip of their tail or dorsal fins would be opaque and they would be swimming seperately from the school. By morninf they would be dead. The rummies started dying too.

I figured it might be tetra disease. So i began fishing out suspect characters before bed and putting them in a seperate tank. They would be dead by morning. I figured maybe i had something in the water that was to blame. Maybe something viral or bacterial. Or maybe my filter wasnt mature enough to handle the bioload..

I decided on a 2 pronged attack. 1. Buy some more plants to suck up ammonia and also help my my battle vs algae (which was pissing me off. Gsa on the glass and this dark green 2mm long fuzz on the rocks, and bga...which ill be dealing with shortly) and also 2. a trip to the lfs to buy some medicine.

Of course being in malaysia all the meds are made in china and no ingredients are listed. I google them and csnt find any mention of them here or on the other euro and US forums. I want to avoid copper to keep my shrimps alive etc. The best i can find is one that promises to be aquarium inhabitant safe and promises not to stain the water any colour.

I get home and dump in the plants...

And then the meds...

Wtf if thats not staining the water i dont know what is.

12 hrs later. 2 carbon packs into the filter and the green was gone. The amanos didnt die. So the medicine conyained no copper. They did however turn greeny blue. However i think that was actually because they ate my bga.

My fish stopped dying Last week. I lost about 15 more fish in march. In retrospect i actually think i had too high a bioload for my filter bacteria to handle.

I also had bga popping up in the tank in march. At first i didnt realise it wasnt regular algae so i scooped it out and dumped it in my fishtank for the shrimp to munch on. Not a good idea apparently. Luckily my shrimps are malaysian so they have stomachs of steel.

I took my pump a fluval 406 apart. Cleaned the polishing pads and doubled my flow. Added more filter material. The stock material amount is tiny. No wonder my fish kept dying? Going to add some nitrates and do a 3 day blackout to get rid of the bga but since reducing my photoperdiod and cleaning the filter it seems to me receeding. Will see how it goes next week.

Fauna is currently
15 rummy nose tetra
20 cardinal tetra
8 forktail blue eye
4 celestial pearl danio
2 boraras brigittae
1 khuli loach
1 ghost catfish
6 amanos

Added a breeder box for some shrimp. Gonna add some blue cherrys and red wine crystals.

Tank in a tank. Metatank.

Brightness +50%. I picked up some real deep blues. Love these little guys.

 

[TomatoandEgg]

update coming soon. this was the final tank shot before i poured 3 bottles of bleach in a nuked it all (i netted the fish first

 

[sciencefiction]

Tank looked great!

Why are you pouring bleach

 

[alto]

Agree - tank turned out pretty awesome

As to the dying cardinals - I suspect disease - loads of cardinal tetras were shipping through 2017 with some sort of disease, sometime shipments came in mostly DOA, other times, they slipped away on a daily basis until maybe 5-10% of the initial batch stabilized & seemed healthy

 

[TomatoandEgg]

ok so basically a few months in i was having a lot of trouble adding livestock to the tank. I would add 15 fishes and 10 would die. species didn't matter ( although ottos and cories were immune for some reason) but what would happen was each day one or 2 fish would separate from the school, develop edemas on their tails, lose colour on the edema, have trouble regulating their buoyancy and by the next morning they would be dead. I figured it was tetra disease or maybe my tank wasn't cycled properly because after 6 months the fatalities dropped to zero. about a year in i got bored with small fish and added some dwarf snakeheads. things were fine, no snakehead related deaths except 2 blue eyed fork tails. so then i added a few channa aurantimaculata and then the tank crashed super fast. everything started to die, my fish were melting.

at first they looked like this

and then this. his bloody lips fell off

After they all died i figured i probably had a bacteria in the tank the whole time, something like columnaris. super healthy fish could fend it off but once i added new big fish the bacteria population multiplied and overwhelmed everything.

I netted the remaining fish ( a few tetras cories etc) and dropped 3 big bottles of bleach into the tank.

Everything immediately melted. i left the filter and chiller running for 24 hrs with the bleach water. I then siphoned all the water out, filled it up again and then ran the tank for about 5 hours with a hose pumping water in and another hose siphoning water out. put in dechlorinating stuff, did a few water changes over the next 2 days and was satisfied the bleach was gone. Dishwashed the rocks and was ready to roll


New scape. i wanted something more grown in, with more placed for the fish to hide and some driftwood! last tank was kinda open and boring after a while. i like having to look for the fish, its like where's wally/waldo. i was aiming to put some snakeheads in again so i wanted plenty of plant cover. i wasn't stressing about rock formations so just kinda whipped it together one afternoon. The first tank hardscape took ages in comparison and i dont think time spent equated to a better composition anyway.

bought a few new rocks and filled her up a few inches. i chopped up the moss mixed with water and painted onto the wood and rocks. i misted a few times a day with very dilute fert and water so that it never dried out. Only gave it 4 days for the moss to gain purchase to the wood

Then poured in the soil, planted some stems, mini hairgrass mainly for carpet shoved my old anubias in a bunch of crevices filled it up and left the filter OFF.let it settle for 24 hours and turned on the filter. 90% of the moss stayed put

dumped in 50 yellow neocaridinas, 8 lemons and 20 green tetras. everything that goes into my tank gets a pottasium permanganate bath. 2-4 hrs 2ppm for fauna, 30 minutes 80ppm for flora. Zero deaths so far. the bleach and bathing is working so far. 1 green tetra died in the bath, zero shrimps!

carpet still hasn't grown in but its starting to spread its roots now. once everythings bedded in i'll see about adding some aurantis again!

 

[TomatoandEgg]

oh and my driftwood went totally white cos i threw it in while bleaching the old tank, but goes brown/black when its been submerged for a day. weird!

 

[alto]

White effect - that's just what bleach does - oxidation (which "kills" bacteria etc) & "bleaching" ie color loss

(think of how bleach is used for laundry - it doesn't necessarily "remove" stains, it just removes the color ... same with peroxide)

Did you use new soil, or just wash & recover original soil?

 

[alto]

i'll see about adding some aurantis again!

Won't they eventually eat everyone else in the tank?

 

[TomatoandEgg]

Ahh but why does the white driftwood go brown when put back in water?

New soil,,and no sand. No more vacuuming the soil off the top!

I’m not sure if they will. The tetras are so small and elusive. Other tanks on YouTube show them ignoring tiny tetras so that’s what I’m hoping for.

 

[sciencefiction]

although ottos and cories were immune for some reason

Thank you for the detailed explanation. It was quite interesting to read although I understand it may have been an extremely frustrating experience.

It just crossed my mind, have you thought about your tank being low on oxygen? What type of substrate did you use, perhaps too much decomposition going on.

Ottos and coryfish can breath air from the surface. In nature they can survive in drying out stagnant pond if it comes to it...

 

[TomatoandEgg]

I never really thought of that. I did see the cories swimming up for air but they also do that in their new home which is a super densely planted tank with biweekly water changes.

I used lava rock to build up the hard scape and had 3 inches of ada soil for plants. Front was all sand. Water changes were done once every few months. Prior to adding the snakeheads the 20 or so fish seemed happy enough. One tiny pinch of fish food per day. Enough for 1-2 particulates per day per fish. No rapid breathing or weird swimming behaviour. No schooling from the cardinals and rummynose so they didn’t appear stressed.

My understanding of it is that co2 doesn’t displace o2 in oxygen. Given the decent amount of plants and light I figure the o2 levels should be acceptable even if co2 levels were high. as long as co2 levels weren’t at poisonous levels the fish should be ok? I dunno. Plants did occasionally pearl

 

[anfield]

With your first scape, I would have added supports or rocks to maintain the slope. Did you ever check water parameters? You mention water changes every couple of months? In a high tech tank, you need more frequent changes. This could have contributed to fish deaths

 

[TomatoandEgg]

The slopes didn’t subside over the course of the 14 months. Apart from when it was only half filled and the cascading water from the filter blasted the top soil down. I think there were enough rocks to keep it up. But yes there were no supports under and in the soil.

I initially had frequent changes. Once every 2 weeks but by the end I went 5 months no changes for the final stretch , no problems no fish deaths. Plants growing nicely, one cap of seachem flourish every month or two and the water was crystal clear the whole time. Any algae issues cleared themselves up with a smaller photo period. I have the testing kits where you take 10ml of tank water and add 5 drops of whatever. Ammonia nitrates ph etc I have 5 and the readings are always 0 except for ph. I have a Tds pen too I think my tank was around 200. My shrimp tank runs at 145.

When I added the snakeheads the snakeheads started melting. When that happened all the tetras started dying like they had done in the first few months. Same symptoms as before. One aurantimaculata has the same mass as probably 100 or more tetras so you can imagine the volume of bacteria suddenly generated in the tank with 5 sick Aurantis. It crashed so fast.

 

[Smells Fishy]

No way! As if you bought some channa aurantimaculata and they died a horrible death, mouth melt f### nasty! Their one of my dream fish, how did you find them, I mean were they a good fish and how much did they cost you? Gutted sorry for your loss.

 

[sciencefiction]

No water changes has accumulating effect. As time goes by, it gets worse and worse.
However, the snakeheads may have introduced a disease, and in the right conditions, diseases can spread like wild fire.
When I buy fish, for the first few weeks I do a lot of water changing for similar reasons.

You may have also overloaded the bioload with the snakeheads. I am not sure if you tested your water at that time or not, but I once woke up to corydoras with completely melted fins. It happened over 24hrs period. When I bent over the tank, it stunk of ammonia. When I tested the water, ammonia was through the roof! I remember doing back to back 80-90% water changes not being able to get it down. The day before I had thoroughly cleaned the single filter I had in the tank, the right way, in tank water. Since then I never have just one filter if I have any decent amount of fish in a tank. What was very strange at the time is that the corydoras spawned right in that ammonia, with their melted fins, perhaps as a last resort of survival!

 

[TomatoandEgg]

No way! As if you bought some channa aurantimaculata and they died a horrible death, mouth melt f### nasty! Their one of my dream fish, how did you find them, I mean were they a good fish and how much did they cost you? Gutted sorry for your loss.

They cost me 15quid per fish and they were awesome. They’re very fun to watch interact with each other. They aren’t shy and when they’re healthy they’re beautiful. Bright yellow and blue and total alphas. I’ll try to upload a YouTube vid so you can see my last 2 establish a pecking order between themselves.

No water changes has accumulating effect. As time goes by, it gets worse and worse.
However, the snakeheads may have introduced a disease, and in the right conditions, diseases can spread like wild fire.
When I buy fish, for the first few weeks I do a lot of water changing for similar reasons.

You may have also overloaded the bioload with the snakeheads. I am not sure if you tested your water at that time or not, but I once woke up to corydoras with completely melted fins. It happened over 24hrs period. When I bent over the tank, it stunk of ammonia. When I tested the water, ammonia was through the roof! I remember doing back to back 80-90% water changes not being able to get it down. The day before I had thoroughly cleaned the single filter I had in the tank, the right way, in tank water. Since then I never have just one filter if I have any decent amount of fish in a tank. What was very strange at the time is that the corydoras spawned right in that ammonia, with their melted fins, perhaps as a last resort of survival!

That’s very cool. Did the Cory fry that survived have increased ammonia resistance I wonder haha.

That’s a good post. I appreciate the discussion as I have no one to chat about this sort of thing with in real life.

Now I’m not arguing against your thoughts per say, you may be right. But here’s my thoughts and some more info. Yes no water changes means an accumulation of bad stuff in the water. The thing with snakeheads is that they’re from pretty stagnant nasty water so I think they can handle it.

After putting in the snakeheads I actually did multiple water changes for the month they were alive and fighting their illness.

Regarding them introducing illness I considered it. In fact aurantis often succumb to an auranti fungus that exists in their natural waters but unless stressed they don’t succumb to.

my dealer saw my melted auranti and said he’s never seen that with his snakeheads. He gave me a replacement snakehead for the one that died first as an act of goodwill. He was a bigger very aggressive male, I put him in into a big Tupperware for 2 weeks. During the 2 weeks in the Tupperware (not ideal, I’m sorry) the other 4 died from the illness in my tank. Alone in his Tupperware and very sad he didn’t develop the fungal problem.

I wasn’t sure if he was from a different batch of aurantis who were simply happier healthier and rocking a strong immune system. Or whether he wasn’t ill because my tank was housing some killer bacteria. He wasn’t going to last long in a Tupperware so I threw him in hoping my tank wasn’t the problem.

At this point the bio load was low because most my fish had died. He lasted a week before dying together with the final auranti from batch 1.

My new scape and is running the same filter and adding 30 fish resulted in no deaths whereas the first time I had a 60% death rate. I’m think I had columnaris in there from the start. What do u think?

 

[sciencefiction]

My new scape and is running the same filter and adding 30 fish resulted in no deaths whereas the first time I had a 60% death rate. I’m think I had columnaris in there from the start. What do u think?

It is possible, yes. I once didn't do water changes for 5-6 months. I resulted in a few fish getting sick but no deaths and nothing on a massive scale like yours. Tank was heavily planted as well. Some pathogen must have been in play. However, when I overstocked that same tank a couple of years later, due to moving all stock from another leaking tank, I had deaths on a mass scale....I lost a lot of fish....Its a hard pill to swallow as I had some of these fish for years. They didn't die overnight. The deaths were going on for weeks/months...I do believe that a pathogen was involved but it was triggered and spreading like wild fire due to the crowded, dirty conditions. Water changes couldn't help my stocking....it was way too much bioload for the tank to handle.

The surviving fish were never treated for any bacterial infections of the sort, they're still living, although in a larger/healthier tank. In a course of one year I had 3 tanks break down/leak on me, so lost a lot of fish until I got replacement homes. Point is, conditions trigger the disease, not necessarily the fish. Healthy fish, in healthy conditions will fight off pathogens, hence one gets odd single deaths most times, rather than mass scale wipe out...

 

[sciencefiction]

That’s very cool. Did the Cory fry that survived have increased ammonia resistance I wonder haha

All the corys survived the ordeal but not some of the other fish, lost a lot of the guppies. I didn't stop doing water changes for a week. I'd do one water change and straight after I'd do another one, lol, and still get an ammonia reading...I was very lucky to be at home for a week that time. I didn't get fry from that hatch but I raised many cory babies afterwards from the same cories.

 

[sciencefiction]

due to moving all stock from another leaking tank, I had deaths on a mass scale.

I forgot to mention that the deaths weren't due to ammonia/nitrite spikes. I moved all the filters as well as the fish. The issue was overcrowding, triggering diseases. I had not introduced new fish and prior to merging the stock of two tanks, both tanks ran disease free for years. And I had moved fish from one of these tanks to the other many times before without issues.

 

[TomatoandEgg]

[flash]