Dying 20L HELP!

[xavi_pr]

Hey I used to have a really nice 20L aquarium without CO2 or any techs. All I did was add water when needed went running like that for more than 6 months... all the shrimp seem to love it and reproduce a lot

The specs where a 26watt spiral bulb, closest possible to the water
Substrate eat and sand with indian almond leaves
Plants:
Nesea
HC
Dwarf Hair Grass
1 lillie
unidentified heart shaped plant

Residents:
Cherry Shrimp
2 Ottos

I tried out one day dosing with yeast CO2 and everything seemed fine for a couple of hours and went off to work, when I came back the shrimp weren't even moving and my pH went from 7.6 to 6.2... in less than a day, I rapidly removed the CO2, added some O2 and removed couple of shrimps and the ottos from the tank

Since that tragedy it's been about 3 weeks and I've been trying to save the tank, I've been doing 50% water changes everyday and added a 40L filter I had laying around in order to try and save it but the water keeps on stinking, I've tried to remove as many dead shrimps as posible but I imagen theres a lot more in the plants. Besides that I have a tremendous algae bloom, some green hair algae and some type of gray algae all over the tank and the water has a witish color.

What do you guys recomend? If things keep going like this im gonna try and save as many shrimp I can and start it all over again... first I'd like to try and see if theres any way I could save it. The only positive thing I've had from it is the little heart shapped leaves plant I had in the middle has grown enormous. ...

 

[bigmatt]

Dammit ! Is there any way that the yeast mixture could have got into the tank? Something fairly massive must've happened to drop pH that much in a couple of hours. I've got to say that i think the best option would be to strip your tank down and start from scratch if that's a possibility. Give everything (including filter media) a really good clean and start again. If 50% water changes aren't working then i don't know what else to suggest
Sorry!
Matt

 

[peter1979]

have you checked the pH of the water coming from your tap? mine changes quite a bit. What ere the ammonia levels like?

 

[xavi_pr]

Tap pH is 7.2
Ammonia 0.25ppm
Nitrite 0.25ppm
pH 7.6

I don't feed this tank, they eat of the algae, and used to reproduce a lot... I'm guessing ammonia and nitrite must be for all the dead shrimp there has to be in the vegetation...

 

[xavi_pr]

today I removed about 50-60 shrimps from the tank, tomorrow i'll remove some more until they are all out, and start removing the plants...yesterday did 60% water change..., today a 60% water change... no matter how many water changes I do in a day the next day the water gets cloudy and stinks, today I saw some sort of white blob (maybe some kind of bacteria film) on the gravel that shouldn't be there, and thats about it... time to start it all again...

once again the parameters where;
Ammonia 0.25ppm
Nitrite 0.25ppm
pH 7.6


Guys thanks for the help

 

[bigmatt]

At least your livestock isn't completely wiped out (small silver lining round a fairly dark cloud!) - i'm about to finish a 72 hr blackout of my tank to beat BGA and i'm really concerned they'll all be dead!
I've learnt from these forums that ammonia can cause massive algae and animal health probs way before it gets to detectable levels, so i guess your readings are way high. Sounds like something may have happened to your filter? Look like you might have to "re-mature" your filter all over again!
Hope it works out mate!
Matt

 

[NeilW]

Tap pH is 7.2
Ammonia 0.25ppm
Nitrite 0.25ppm
pH 7.6

Just theorising... maybe the ammonia that appeared as a result of the initial mortalities couldn't be processed due to a lack of sufficient bacteria. What filter are you running?

 

[Steve Smith]

Do you have any limestone rocks in the tank? It could be that the addition of Co2 reacted with this in some way, though I doubt that would cause such an issue.

Can you give more details about your DIY CO2 setup? Did it manage to overflow into the tank? A white blob could be the yeast mix perhaps?

As the others have said, it sounds like your filter may have started to cycle again. Do you have another filter you could take a portion of live media out of (without compramising that tank) ?

 

[xavi_pr]

At least your livestock isn't completely wiped out (small silver lining round a fairly dark cloud!) - i'm about to finish a 72 hr blackout of my tank to beat BGA and i'm really concerned they'll all be dead!
I've learnt from these forums that ammonia can cause massive algae and animal health probs way before it gets to detectable levels, so i guess your readings are way high. Sounds like something may have happened to your filter? Look like you might have to "re-mature" your filter all over again!
Hope it works out mate!
Matt

I think you shouldn't worry about a 72hr blackout, once did it and everything was allright. The filter I added after the problem started, to try and see if I could get my aquarium back, the aquarium used to run without any filtration, parameters where allways 0 on everything, it was heavily planted and shrimps reproduced like crazy. Without any CO2 or anything, only a small pump to keep water circulation. Problems started when I tried inyectin yeast CO2.

Just theorising... maybe the ammonia that appeared as a result of the initial mortalities couldn't be processed due to a lack of sufficient bacteria. What filter are you running?

I think ammonia levels started rising after the first deaths of the shrimps. I tried removing all I could see, guess there where more in the vegetation. I'm using regular 40L cascade filter with carbon and filter media, removed from a fully mature aquarium, also added sock filter media to try and remove as many organic material as posible.

Do you have any limestone rocks in the tank? It could be that the addition of Co2 reacted with this in some way, though I doubt that would cause such an issue.

Can you give more details about your DIY CO2 setup? Did it manage to overflow into the tank? A white blob could be the yeast mix perhaps?

As the others have said, it sounds like your filter may have started to cycle again. Do you have another filter you could take a portion of live media out of (without compramising that tank) ?

No limestone, but I did use sand mixed with the peat? Could that have some effect on the CO2? I live in Puerto Rico and the sand here usually contains things that tend to raise pH.

The setup was DIY yeast with a 2L soda bottle, consisted 1 tea spoon of yeast + 1 teaspoon of sugar, mixed up to 3/4's of bottle.

Was thinking of adding a mature sponge filter as a second filter, maybe it could be the last resource, still I'm worried about the white translucent blob on the bottom, it's like the bacteria film that forms on a dead fish. Still I will keep on removing livestock, just in case.

 

[xavi_pr]

Thanks again for the help.