bristlenose catfish

[intern1]

All but 1 of my bristlenose have died this afternoon. Just wondering if anyone knows what could have happened. I had 4 albino bristlenose and 4 common bristlenose in my standard 2ft. They have been in there for 3 weeks and the tank has been running for 4 weeks. The cycling process was doing going well. I noticed on the 2nd of July i spike in nitirite .5mg/L. There was nothing wrong with the fish at the time. so I done a water change approximately 25-30% the following day i noticed the nitrite increase to 1mg/L and that was the same for the next couple of days on the 5th of july i went to my local aquarium they recommended me to put in stability a product which contains bacteria which is used for new and estabilished aquariums. They also said to put it in every day, so thats what i done i put it in following the instruction on the 5th and 6th of july. This afternoon i went to look a my tank and i noticed that there were only 4-5 bristlenose on the walls of my tank i looked around and saw one down the bottom of my tank. I then noticed it was alive, i then looked around the tank and saw another 4 bristlenose which died. I took them out when i came back one of the larger bristlenose died also, so i decided that this was a rapidly aquiring event and there must have been something wrong with the tank. I grabed the last three in my tank which were some of the larger ones and transfered them to another tank. In this tank i noticed that one of the albino bristlenose that i had left was hemorrhaging in the tail and died. on the other side of the tank i also noticed a common bristlenose which had also died. The new tank has breeding guppies in there so that tank couldnt of been the problem

Now i only have one albino bristlenose left from 4 albino and 4 common. they were from 2-5cm in length. my water parameters of my original tank were 1 mg/l of nitrite 0 mg/l of ammonia my ph was 7.2-7.6.

At first i thought that my bristlenose killed each other through agression because the first 4 that i found dead were 3-4cm in length and the remainder were 4-5cm in length and they were a pair of albino and a pair of common bristlenose?

I spoke to the breeder i got the fish of and he said it sounds like you had a colapse with your whole biological system e.g all bacteria died.

Just wondering if anything similar to this has happened to anyone? and if you know what could have caused this

thanks

John

[Link2Hell]

just to get a few more clues

was the tank a complete new set up or was it using

an established substrate and a filter that had been

running with good filter bacteria culture ?

did you do any water changes to get the nitrite levels down

did you feed heavy or light while establishing the tank

in the 3 week period after putting the fish in

did you check for ammonia

sounds like the fish haemoraged, this usually from ammonia

Stability by Seachem as descibed in the product blurb

Stability will rapidly and safely establish the aquarium biofilter in freshwater and marine systems, thereby preventing the #1 cause of fish death: "new tank syndrome". Stability is formulated specifically for the aquarium and contains a synergistic blend of aerobic, anaerobic, and facultative bacteria which facilitate the breakdown of waste organics, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Unlike competing products, the bacteria employed by Stability are non-sulfur fixing and will not produce toxic hydrogen sulfide. Stability is completely harmless to all aquatic organisms as well as aquatic plants, thus there is no danger of over use. Stability is the culmination of nearly a decade of research and development and represents the current state of the art in natural biological management.

It seems like too much too soon in a tank that had not matured

enough for the bio load

Chris

[intern1]

just to get a few more clues

was the tank a complete new set up or was it using

an established substrate and a filter that had been

running with good filter bacteria culture ?

did you do any water changes to get the nitrite levels down

did you feed heavy or light while establishing the tank

in the 3 week period after putting the fish in

did you check for ammonia

sounds like the fish haemoraged, this usually from ammonia

Stability by Seachem as descibed in the product blurb

Stability will rapidly and safely establish the aquarium biofilter in freshwater and marine systems, thereby preventing the #1 cause of fish death: "new tank syndrome". Stability is formulated specifically for the aquarium and contains a synergistic blend of aerobic, anaerobic, and facultative bacteria which facilitate the breakdown of waste organics, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Unlike competing products, the bacteria employed by Stability are non-sulfur fixing and will not produce toxic hydrogen sulfide. Stability is completely harmless to all aquatic organisms as well as aquatic plants, thus there is no danger of over use. Stability is the culmination of nearly a decade of research and development and represents the current state of the art in natural biological management.

It seems like too much too soon in a tank that had not matured

enough for the bio load

Chris

Well i didnt feed the bristlenose for approximately the first 1.5 weeks then i fed the every 2nd or 3rd day. i was also testing ammonia it never increased greater than .5 mg/L, i did 1 water change to get the nitrite down approx 25-30% but once i had done water changes previously with no problems, plus since its only a 2ft with a standard 2ft sized hang on you couldnt water changes more than every 5 days minimum

[Link2Hell]

I can only think that it had a spike as the

cycling hadn't stabilised

it doesn't appear to be feeding caused problem

from your info

was the filter new, new with seeding filter media or

established and running on another tank before

being fitted to this one

Stability seems to be a cycling agent as to wether

it was the right thing for your situation

it doesn't look like it was ....... what does the tank

read now

Chris

[Link2Hell]

extracted from www.perthcichlid.com.au

Nitrates (N03) can come from various sources but the most common causes for having excess nitrates in the aquarium are from over-feeding, over stocking and poor maintenance routines. Nitrates are the final result of the nitrogen cycle. When ammonia is produced in the aquarium, bacteria called Nitrosomonas convert this ammonia into Nitrite, secondly another bacteria called Nitrobacter converts Nitrite into Nitrate. Unfortunately we are left with Nitrate as a direct result and it must be diluted before it gets to harmful concentrations.

it may be the Nitrobacter count was low ?

[intern1]

the filter was new and had new media.

Maybe it was overstocked but for this to happen all of a sudden is strange, i think the stability had something to do with it. I think as soon as i added it in it must of killed of the present bacteria, and tried to establish a new bacteria.

???????

Well i will check tomorrow what is in the present tank and hows it going i was recommended by the breeder to do a 50% water change and after that i added stability, i will follow my lfs advice adding stability daily for a week then i will stop test and see what happens??

[Wolfy]

In general it takes about 4 weeks for a new tank with a new filter to cycle, when that is done you should add fish gradually.

From the information you have posted you setup the tank, then added a fair number of fish 1 week later.

If this is true, I think it would be fair to suggest that the tank had not finished cycling and you had a spike of some kind that killed your fish.

I'm not sure that adding 8 fish into a small only newly setup tank is a good idea, especially with only 1 water change in 4 weeks (again if I'm correctly reading what you have said).

In hindsight you probably should waited to ensure the tank was completely cycled before adding the fish. You could have accelerated the process by adding Stability (preferably before adding the fish), or seeding the new filter by running it in an old tank for a few weeks or even added the cleaned-filter-grunge from an old tank, something like that.

Unfortunately - as you have perhaps found out - I don't think BN Catfish tolerate spikes as well as some other fish may, and from what I have read they are not usually the fish recommended to cycle a new tank with.

It's strange that the deaths occurred soon after adding Stability, the only thing I can come up with - if the deaths were indeed related to using Stability - is that the Stability converted all the Ammonia quickly which in turn caused a Nitrite or Nitrate spike because the tank was not fully cycled and the newly added Stability-bacteria had not yet increased enough to consume the Nitrates and Nitrites.

[intern1]

In general it takes about 4 weeks for a new tank with a new filter to cycle, when that is done you should add fish gradually.

From the information you have posted you setup the tank, then added a fair number of fish 1 week later.

If this is true, I think it would be fair to suggest that the tank had not finished cycling and you had a spike of some kind that killed your fish.

I'm not sure that adding 8 fish into a small only newly setup tank is a good idea, especially with only 1 water change in 4 weeks (again if I'm correctly reading what you have said).

In hindsight you probably should waited to ensure the tank was completely cycled before adding the fish. You could have accelerated the process by adding Stability (preferably before adding the fish), or seeding the new filter by running it in an old tank for a few weeks or even added the cleaned-filter-grunge from an old tank, something like that.

Unfortunately - as you have perhaps found out - I don't think BN Catfish tolerate spikes as well as some other fish may, and from what I have read they are not usually the fish recommended to cycle a new tank with.

It's strange that the deaths occurred soon after adding Stability, the only thing I can come up with - if the deaths were indeed related to using Stability - is that the Stability converted all the Ammonia quickly which in turn caused a Nitrite or Nitrate spike because the tank was not fully cycled and the newly added Stability-bacteria had not yet increased enough to consume the Nitrates and Nitrites.

ye i think stability had something to do with it i was doin water changes ever 5 days i dono what went wrong