Well as many of you know I had quite a bit of trouble with shrimp… i.e. they all died.
But what some of you may mot know is that I was also having other unexplained deaths in my tank.
Keep in mined as all this was happening I had 6 Black Neons (from fall 04) and 9 Neons (combo fall 04 and winter 05) in the tank as well, all of them doing well…
This past winter I bought 3 Japanese trap door snails, once in the tank 2 did not move and died in about a week and 1 died about 2 weeks later.
This past spring I bought 11 Cherries and they died with in 4 hours of being in the tank.
I also put in a bushy nose pleco at the same time. (He is doing good... but not eating wafers)
After testing the parameters and finding about the copper in the water, I was able to remove the trace amount by using cold tap water and letting it sit before putting it in the tank.
After we retested for copper and found none I bought 2 Green’s… the both died with in 4 hours also.
Ok, so no more shrimp…
I bought 2 German Rams and the female died 3 days after.
The male lasted a week.
1 neon died. After a tank clean up.
Ok less sensitive fish, bought 1 Dwarf Gourami… 3 days later he died as well.
Great what is my tanks problem????
I’m able to take the Java Fern covered rocks/clay brick, the Java Moss covered black plastic mess (that covers my tank bottom) and rocks to the pet shop.
He tested for Iron and found that it was off the chart then he was able to look at some of the rocks that I had and saw that some off them had bands of minerals running through them.
He suggested this was the reason as to why the Java Fern was doing so well and why my animals were dieing.
I have since removed the suspect rocks and will be doing water changes to try to remove the residue Iron.
Hopefully everything will be ok now.
The moral of this??
Get an Aquarium Test kit… it will be much cheaper.
And be sure of the rocks that your putting in.
This saga has cost me $79.80 CND (including tax)... and were not done
TKD
