Professional water testing

As I've said, it seems like I lose 30% of the fish I add. And all my parameters say the fish should be fine. Both tanks.
So I'm going to have my well water tested beyond what I can do.

They can run their normal test for bacteria and E Coli.
And she suggested copper and lead.

Can anyone think of anything else? One more metal that a shallow well fed by an underground stream and located in grape vineyards might have in it? I believe she said I could check for 2-3 things for an extra fifty.

Now that said, every other day it seems like I have to skim a film off the top of the one tank. And the other tank looks like film bubbles, like they have not formed into an actual blanketing film (biofilm?). I've seen youtubers do the same thing and figured it was associated with my wood or rocks leaching something. All were purchased at aquarium shops and rinsed thoroughly or soaked, but I still have tannins in both tanks even though the soaking water was clear. And by all accounts cloudy water and tannins do not affect fish.

Just trying to narrow things down here. Everybody is fine for a day then they either die or live. I'm almost hoping they find something in the water. The aquarium shop has no idea.

For instance.
I added seven small cherry barbs. Three died.
Then almost a week later I added four more because the group was in hiding. And everyone came out and swam and ate a few hours later. Things were great for a day.
Then the following day I found one dead, but I did see one male harassing the other one before I turned in.
Yesterday everyone is in hiding around the bottom again. And they did not eat yesterday. Not even brine shrimp.

The light should just be bright enough now to check the tank for any more casualties...

But regardless, I want to get my water tested.
The only other things in the tank are cherry shrimp and rummy nose. And the rummy nose aren't picking on them. I lost three of those from ten

Acclimation was float the bag then pour into a net and dump one time and the add a little water at a time the other two. It did not seem to make a difference.

 

Please keep us posted. I'm surprised you can keep cherry shrimp, I think they are a lot more delicate than fish.

 

Please keep us posted. I'm surprised you can keep cherry shrimp, I think they are a lot more delicate than fish.

Four out of seven in one tank (a couple were filter intake accidents. I don't think they could swim off.
And I haven't seen the four I put in my nano since the first day
But there are a lot of places they could be hiding. I've tried dropping in food, but still have no idea if they are in there. 0 ammonia, but I'm not sure four cherries could move down the color chart or not.

Well, I'll be going for the containers here in a few minutes.
Hopefully if someone suggests another test I don't need another container.

 

I can imagine just how frustrating this can be. Hopefully having your well water tested will help determine why you are losing so many fish. I can't think of anything else that needs to be tested for.

Where your well water comes from could very well have something to do with it. I have to wonder what kind of ferts the grape vines are fed. Whatever it is could possibly be in the water but i don't know what tests would need to be run to determine if that is the case.

 

Just out of curiosity, what do the things we can test for measure? pH, nitrate, ammonia, GH, KH, TDS?

 

I can imagine just how frustrating this can be. Hopefully having your well water tested will help determine why you are losing so many fish. I can't think of anything else that needs to be tested for.

Where your well water comes from could very well have something to do with it. I have to wonder what kind of ferts the grape vines are fed. Whatever it is could possibly be in the water but i don't know what tests would need to be run to determine if that is the case.

Thanks. It's very frustrating indeed.

Just out of curiosity, what do the things we can test for measure? pH, nitrate, ammonia, GH, KH, TDS?

I don't know what TDS is, but the other ones you mentioned are spot on.

 

I don't know what TDS is, but the other ones you mentioned are spot on.

Sorry to be nitty here, just trying to rule out the usual suspects. I have no idea what a spot on GH or KH are, 2? 20?

 

Nitty... I'll add that in with TDS as having no idea, lol.

Are you asking me for my parameters?
In the 27g
pH 7.4
Am 0-.25 depending on the light
Tri 0
Tra 15-20 (I have 5ppm in my well water)

GH "low" at 100ppm
Alk "low" at 40 (I didn't write down the conversion to KH)

By "spot on" I mean well within what I am reading other members saying they have. Or the more experienced members telling a newb like me posting the same questions that those numbers are fine.
Everything appears acceptable.

The Cube 10
Pretty much everything the same with the exception of the Am being closer to the yellow 0 and the Trates were at 5ppm this morning after a water change yesterday.

ETA: I lost to more cherry barbs over the night.
No one ate flake this afternoon, but I am seeing the remaining ones a little more. It appears to be one male and 4-5 females (hard to tell with the reflection).

I also found a site selling them that said they are timid fish. First time I read that.
And that thought had crossed my mind, if the rummies were far too active for them. Even though they are not picking on them. Or maybe the male is a brute. He patrols the whole tank.

No shrimp to be seen. I know I have 4-5 in there. They were all out the day before.
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OK. Update.

I am sitting on the couch and watching one cherry barb swimming all over the tank. Then he sees some debris and goes after it. Mind you, he isn't going after fish, just everything else.
He has his nose under every plant and in every rock crevice. And I just noticed he's huge compared to the others. And they were all out of the same batch.

So seeing as how he did not eat when I fed the rummies I called the shop and asked what they fed them. This was after I Googled it. I was told just flake. But I also read they will go after smaller cherry shrimp. And I can't find a one in that tank now.

So I explained what I was seeing and she said if he was this way during the day it is worse at night. And he probably did eat my shrimp.

Maybe this needs to be moved to the bully forum if we have one.

Now I'm wondering if he was terrorizing the tank at night and this is why fish were being found dead in the morning after it seemed they were doing fine the day before. I thought cherry barbas were supposed to be a peaceful fish.

But I'm still going through with the test. Probably a good idea anyway.

 

Please don't think we are being to nit-picky when we ask for actual numbers. You might be surprised at the number of times we read "numbers are fine" but when we get the actual numbers we see they really aren't. In your case they really are. I do hope the professional testing will help figure out what is going on in your tank.

TDS means Total Dissolved Solids. They are measured with a TDS meter. It doesn't tell us what makes up that number. In my case I have very soft water with very low mineral content. The TDS straight from the tap is 21. Folks tell me that is close to RO water. I add Equilibrium to my water to get the TDS up to 100 in my community tank and 150 in my shrimp bowl. Fish were doing well with the TDS so low but plants were struggling with the lack of minerals. From all I've read about them I fear my shrimp would not have done well at all had I not discovered how low mine were before getting them.

 

Please don't think we are being to nit-picky when we ask for actual numbers. You might be surprised at the number of times we read "numbers are fine" but when we get the actual numbers we see they really aren't. In your case they really are. I do hope the professional testing will help figure out what is going on in your tank.

TDS means Total Dissolved Solids. They are measured with a TDS meter. It doesn't tell us what makes up that number. In my case I have very soft water with very low mineral content. The TDS straight from the tap is 21. Folks tell me that is close to RO water. I add Equilibrium to my water to get the TDS up to 100 in my community tank and 150 in my shrimp bowl. Fish were doing well with the TDS so low but plants were struggling with the lack of minerals. From all I've read about them I fear my shrimp would not have done well at all had I not discovered how low mine were before getting them.

Not nit picky at all.
If that is what they were asking for all they had to do is ask in a more direct way.
I thought they were simply confirming which parameters I thought were fine. If it was the same as they would be checking.

Total Dissolved Solids. Thanks!

 

I run my water sample in today. They said about seven days to get results...

On a positive note, I saw two shrimp in my 27
Maybe they were all simply hiding for a day. Or molting. Although it is odd how my two males are much larger all of a sudden. That's right, I said two. There is another large male, but he's pretty calm. The other will swim by it without a problem, so I guess they have their pecking order sorted out.

I'm going to get five Cardinal Tetra, from a different aquarium shop, and add them to my nano. The water is starting to clear finally. That should tell me something right there.

 

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Different post from post# 11, so tagging you to let you know in case this gets merged. In which case there is no notification.
Tagged participants: mattgirl ; LowConductivity ; kansas

One shrimp I saw in the 27 was dead and one has disappeared again. Still not knowing what is going on with that tank.

Nothing I wanted at the other store today, so I went back to my usual fish shop. No Cardinals, so I picked up five Neons and they went in my nano about six hours ago.

Everybody was fed about an hour ago and they all ate, then they were huddled up again in the corner for a pic afterwards, but I just looked as I typed this and they are in the front/middle of the tank!

In the corner (tank still cloudy and tannins)



And up front



Fingers crossed. This is how my others all started out.

If they are good 2-3 days from now, maybe it isn't my water. Maybe it's something in my other tank.

 

You were well past the 4 hour merge time so as you see the post wasn't merged.

I have my fingers crossed for you too

 

You were well past the 4 hour merge time so as you see the post wasn't merged.

I have my fingers crossed for you too

Ah yes, the four hour rule...

And thanks. Keep them crossed

The bad news? I can only find four out of five neons in the nano tank
The good news? I saw a cherry shrimp! I'm hoping there are more, but I'm happy to see one out of the four I put in there.

 

Hey, I've got five Neons swimming around again!

Maybe this is the learning curve with planted tanks. Just because your number count goes down, they might still be in there somewhere.

Really surprised, and relieved, to see five swimming around again.

 

Hey, I've got five Neons swimming around again!

Maybe this is the learning curve with planted tanks. Just because your number count goes down, they might still be in there somewhere.

Really surprised, and relieved, to see five swimming around again.

Great news. Neons are masters at hiding. They seem to disappear in my 55 gallon tank. Normally if i look long enough I will see all of them. Mine don't always hang out close to each other.

 

Great news. Neons are masters at hiding. They seem to disappear in my 55 gallon tank. Normally if i look long enough I will see all of them. Mine don't always hang out close to each other.

Thank You, mattgirl
I'm pretty happy, too.

Now if I could only see more than one shrimp in that tank...
I'm still not ruling out something funky with my water, but there may be a bit of a learning curve with planted tanks I haven't been made aware of yet.

 

Thank You, mattgirl
I'm pretty happy, too.

Now if I could only see more than one shrimp in that tank...
I'm still not ruling out something funky with my water, but there may be a bit of a learning curve with planted tanks I haven't been made aware of yet.

When i first got my shrimp I started with 10 of them. Even at feeding time I only saw maybe half of them at any given time. I worried about something happening to them but in the end they were all there. Like neons and nerite snails they are masters at hiding. Although difficult to do I try not to worry if i can't lay my eyes on all the water creatures that are supposed to be in there. Most of the time they show up in their own good time.