loaches dying again!!

**Honey Badger 1** · 02-05-2013, 04:31 AM

I thought about KH and GH as well, but it seems like all the fish would be affected by the sudden change in TDS. Here are some interesting posts I found a few days ago about pH, GH, and KH.
http://www.oscarfish.com/article-hom...-ph-shock.html
http://www.oscarfish.com/article-hom...-ph-shock.html
http://mtfb.com/MTFBJUNE/MTFB2%20pag...bsarticle2.htm

**mizzoutank** · 02-05-2013, 05:13 AM

Such a big bummer to hear this. super sorry for you.

but i'd be inclined to agree with the taps as well. when testing my downstairs sink in the wetbar, i get a totally different set of readings than the upstairs tub, which is where i do my pwc b/c it has better readings.
maybe a pip is corroded, leak somewhere? go talk to your water company as well and get a print out? pull up last month vs this month and read the differences. that may get somewhere too.

it has to be something freaky in the water, you keep good conditions in every other facet...

**Dennis Bissett** · 02-05-2013, 08:22 AM

Correct me if i'm wrong, to summarise you've had 2 or three "die-offs" recently immediately following a water change in one particular tank, of one species, where you use a different tap to supply water, however this same tap is used for a breeder tank also, with no ill efffects, and each time it happens, it's 2 or 3 fish from a school, rather than the whole school. I wouldn't hesitate to check the quality of the water coming from that tap, but I'd I'd also be more inclined to look at other factors - are the affected fish the ones who are attracted to the new water flowing into the tank? I don't know how quickly Prime neutralises heavy metals if present. Can only suggest watching your fish for half an hour or so during and after the water change and see if theres a common factor in the fish affected. I know its very frustrating to lose fish without knowing why

**Aeonflame** · 02-05-2013, 11:39 AM

My money is on the pipes as well. Water changes or the percentage of water changed couldn't be the problem. I do, and have always done 70-75 water changes on all my tanks, even my loach tanks when I kept them, without any issues.

**Cermet** · 02-05-2013, 12:19 PM

Have you checked the pH of the tap and the tank? Loaches are hyper senitive to changes in pH; while 0.25 changes are max for fish, I'd won't be surprised if that level would kill loaches. Also, what you describe sounds alot like pH change shock. Test the tank after it has aged (time just before you do a w/c) and then test the tap. If they differ more than 0.2, I'd not do a single large w/c but a series of smaller ones over two days ... .

**Brhino** · 02-05-2013, 01:16 PM

thanks guys, lots of good ideas being passed around. I'll do some comprehensive pH testing for starters.

**Lady Hobbs** · 02-05-2013, 01:52 PM

Does anyone remember the guy here a few months back with that big tank he could not get to cycle? After helping him for awhile, we found out he had filed his tank from the outside garden hose and had a pH of only 6. His inside water was 7.5. Never did find out why one tap in his house gave him such a different pH from the other. It happens.

But, I don't understand Brhino's problem. This is not the only tank he fills from that faucet and I think losing only the loaches is pretty odd. I would get those filters turned on right away, tho, so that Prime can get mixed properly and the undissolved gasses can get driven off. Fish just laying on the bottom like that sound like fish in shock to me. ?????

**Rocksor** · 02-05-2013, 03:24 PM

Get a 35 gallon plastic trash can, fill with cold water, and get the water up to temp using an aquarium heater. This will eliminate the possibility of something from your hot water heater getting into the water and killing off your loaches. While it is getting up to temp, run a HOB filter with purigen or GAC on that 35 gallon trash can for a few hours, and see if the clowns still die from that.

You might also want to get a TDS monitor to see the difference in TDS from the warm tap water and your tank water.

**Brhino** · 02-06-2013, 12:07 AM

I did some preliminary pH testing, and the results were not particularly enlightening.

Right vial is from my planted community tank, filled from the kitchen tap on the ground floor. Seven days since last water change.
Middle vial is from a fry tank from the basement, filled from the basement sink. Doesn't actually have any fry in it now, just snails. Very long time since a water change, since there's no fish in there.
Left vial is straight from the basement sink.

Hard to tell from the photo, but the one from the sink is a very slightly different shade than the other two. You expect that though... straight from the tap is always going to be different than sitting around.

I'm going to test the tap again after it's sat for a day, but nothing that I'm seeing in these tests is jumping out at me.

Also, here's the sink in question. You'll notice that it's PVC pipe going into the metal sink. Water actually only passes through a few inches of metal, and it's never sitting around in metal for any length of time. So we're not talking about 10 feet of rusting iron pipe between the water heater and the sink or anything like that.