# Dying fish



## alkemist (Mar 7, 2012)

I am completely stumped, as I have been steadily loosing fish of the catfish variety over the past month. I have a 29 gallon freshwater tank with a sand bottom. I have one live plant, the rest plastic and 2 pieces of store purchased driftwood. I've done ammonia, nitrite and nitrate tests and everything is fine. PH is high, at about 8.3 but we have hard water here, even with a water softener. I've had this setup for close to a couple of years and never had any problems. However we did move last September to a house that now has a water softener though there were no immediate issues with the fish using the softened water. I recently installed a powerhead, removed the air stone but fed the line to the powerhead (it shoots out the air bubbles).

I have not noticed any odd behavior from the fish. I first lost my last 2 ghost cats, then 2 of my cory cats. They were about 2-1.5 years old. I tried restocking with young julli cories last week and all 3 of them died within days of taking them home. I have one cory cat that seems to be holding on by a thread. My upside down catfish looks like he's on his way out. He was fine yesterday, today he looks like he's about to die.

My other fish are 2 adult angels, a female betta, pleco and a few random snail varieties. It's been months since I've brought a snail home from the fish store and that's the only change I've had in the tank in regards to livestock. I've done massive water changes and cleaned the plastic plants. I don't know what else to do. Please help!


----------



## mandi85710 (Feb 19, 2012)

alkemist said:


> I am completely stumped, as I have been steadily loosing fish of the catfish variety over the past month. I have a 29 gallon freshwater tank with a sand bottom. I have one live plant, the rest plastic and 2 pieces of store purchased driftwood. I've done ammonia, nitrite and nitrate tests and everything is fine. PH is high, at about 8.3 but we have hard water here, even with a water softener. I've had this setup for close to a couple of years and never had any problems. However we did move last September to a house that now has a water softener though there were no immediate issues with the fish using the softened water. I recently installed a powerhead, removed the air stone but fed the line to the powerhead (it shoots out the air bubbles).
> 
> I have not noticed any odd behavior from the fish. I first lost my last 2 ghost cats, then 2 of my cory cats. They were about 2-1.5 years old. I tried restocking with young julli cories last week and all 3 of them died within days of taking them home. I have one cory cat that seems to be holding on by a thread. My upside down catfish looks like he's on his way out. He was fine yesterday, today he looks like he's about to die.
> 
> My other fish are 2 adult angels, a female betta, pleco and a few random snail varieties. It's been months since I've brought a snail home from the fish store and that's the only change I've had in the tank in regards to livestock. I've done massive water changes and cleaned the plastic plants. I don't know what else to do. Please help!


Water softners add a lot of salt and other things to the water that are not good for your fish. Have you tested the salt level in your water to make sure it is not high? You might need to try and do a partial water change with using your water from an outside spicket. In my experience with water softners they are only hooked up to the water in the house not to the outside spickets. Definitely check your salt/sodium level and see how high that is.

What kind of salt do you use in your softner? Your water may be really hard like I have here but it is easier to do a partial change and add some water conditioners to get rid of a lot of the problems then to use the salty water softner water. Def check you levels b/c the salt output can change on your softner and definitely kill non salt water fish.


----------



## alkemist (Mar 7, 2012)

I picked up a hydrometer and it seems to be reading at .9 to 1.00; how does that fair for salinity? I'm taking it a freshwater setup would have 0 or close to it? Is this salinity enough to kill freshwater fish?


----------



## mandi85710 (Feb 19, 2012)

alkemist said:


> I picked up a hydrometer and it seems to be reading at .9 to 1.00; how does that fair for salinity? I'm taking it a freshwater setup would have 0 or close to it? Is this salinity enough to kill freshwater fish?



Angel fish and any type of cat fish do not tolerate any salt at all so 0 would be where you need to be. You also have to consider it is not aquarium salt in the water it is basically rock salt which is another problem.

Try like I said to do a partial water change with the water from outside your house. Try and bring it down more. Make sure you treat with a water conditioner to take out chlorine and all the chemicals that are going to be in the hard water not coming from the softner. The levels are enough to kill certain fresh water fish like your angelfish and cats but there are also some fresh water fish that like the water a little brackish like mollies and platys. Definitely do not replace anymore of your fish until you can get the levels down. 

It's not your fault a lot of us don't even think of the salt added by water softners. I surely never did. I have hard water b/c I live in the desert and it took me a long time to get the chlorine and other harsh things out of my water. Well not a long time it was like 3 days. But I think even if you had fish that like brackish water they would still probably die b/c it is not aquarium salt it is rock salt and there is a huge difference from the research I did when I was looking into breeding mollies and platys. But most definitely try that and hopefully you can get your other fish to stay a live long enough to get the level down and they will get healthy again and you won't lose anymore. Good luck and keep me posted as to what happens please!


----------



## alkemist (Mar 7, 2012)

One of the reasons why I stayed away from marine setups, all the extra chemistry. Now please correct me if I'm wrong, but doing Google searching, the specific gravity of distilled water is 1.00 so I'm not sure where the 0 comes into play, unless it's a completely different salinity test. Now I do know that there is salt nonetheless in the water because I can taste it and the water tray (water dispenser) on the refrigerator gets coated in a thin layer of salt. I'm a little confused in that aspect.

Now as for the water softener, it was installed from the previous owner, and I believe this was a whole house setup, including outside taps (not really ideal IMO). Though this is a Kinetico Mach "on demand" system with a bypass switch. As to how much truth there is in bypassing, I can't tell, as I believe the water heater would still be holding a tank full of "softened" water. I did do about 40% water change yesterday with the softener set on bypass. Think I was under the assumption of this being true "soft" water but it is essentially simulated, otherwise I would of set it on bypass since I moved when filling/cleaning the tank.

My angels don't seem to have been affected much, since they are a mated pair and have been consistently trying to spawn, which makes me believe everything was all fine and dandy before. Though they seemed to have stopped since the cats started dying.

The upside down catfish didn't make it. The only thing I could think of was that I was cleaning the tank and accidentally pushed up against him and the driftwood. It was nothing lethal but perhaps the stress caused him to succumb to the chemistry of the tank?

Anyways.. sorry for this novel. There is just so much going through my head and I don't want to loose anymore of my fish. My angels are the dearest to me.


----------



## mandi85710 (Feb 19, 2012)

Don't worry about how much you write I understand and I do the same thing. A lot of the houses I have lived in with water softners (military brat so a lot) always the outside spickets did not have the water softner water b/c it's not good for the grass either. If you have a bypass on it then you probably are right and it goes to everything. As far as distilled water it has a little salt in it. My father has to use distilled water for his sleep apnea machine and he has to clean the residue out once a week. Well I go over and do it for him. Bottled water that you buy does not have any salt in it at all. 

I really do not know what the big difference in the 2 are other than the chemical background such as chlorines and metals. If you look at the water you can buy for fresh water fish at the pet store it has none in it either. Even though a lot of that water i for koi ponds and starting new tanks. Koi actually like a small amount from what I researched when I was thinking of building an outside koi pond. 

I can do some research and look into this further for you to see if there is something that says that level is ok for fresh water fish. I know I had a brackish tank and moved my fish to my larger tank and did 50% water changes daily for a week to get the salt out and then added tetras and they died within a few hours. I did not test the water before I moved them over but after they died I did and it was 1.1. I have no clue how it was still that high but I felt horrible b/c I was going to test it but didn't. But I will ask some friends and look around and see where that number is coming from. 




alkemist said:


> One of the reasons why I stayed away from marine setups, all the extra chemistry. Now please correct me if I'm wrong, but doing Google searching, the specific gravity of distilled water is 1.00 so I'm not sure where the 0 comes into play, unless it's a completely different salinity test. Now I do know that there is salt nonetheless in the water because I can taste it and the water tray (water dispenser) on the refrigerator gets coated in a thin layer of salt. I'm a little confused in that aspect.
> 
> Now as for the water softener, it was installed from the previous owner, and I believe this was a whole house setup, including outside taps (not really ideal IMO). Though this is a Kinetico Mach "on demand" system with a bypass switch. As to how much truth there is in bypassing, I can't tell, as I believe the water heater would still be holding a tank full of "softened" water. I did do about 40% water change yesterday with the softener set on bypass. Think I was under the assumption of this being true "soft" water but it is essentially simulated, otherwise I would of set it on bypass since I moved when filling/cleaning the tank.
> 
> ...


----------



## alkemist (Mar 7, 2012)

My last cory passed, so now I no longer have any catfish at all. The only fish I have left are my angels, pleco, female betta, snails and a ghost shrimp.

I purchased a hardness test. Straight out of the tap with the water softener on, the KH was incredibly high, I got the API drop test and it took 18 drops for the color to change, the highest the chart went to was 12. The water was however "soft", took 2 drops. With the water softener off, the KH was still crazy high and the water was also reading hard, I gave up after 8 drops. At this point, I don't know what to do.

The fish have been living in this water for 7 months now without any visible signs of trouble until recently. I would think that something else would be the cause of sudden death. The water softener may not be good yet if there were issues, I would think the results would be immediate.

I can't afford to pick up an RO unit anytime soon, so it feels like they are stuck with bad or worse water. The only problem is that I don't know which is which. I don't know if I want to subject the rest of the fish to more changes.


----------



## alkemist (Mar 7, 2012)

After refreshing my memory (even though I love my fish, I've been busy and I had already lost all my cats..), the water softener removes calcium and magnesium and replaces the ion with sodium. Apparently calcium and magnesium is important for osmosis of the fish. I will probably start to swap out the current tank water with water bypassing the softener. Before this, the fish had straight tap water at the apartment, only a few miles away though in a different municipal. If the angels and all my former fish were able to live in that water, they *should* be fine here...

Though I don't know if this is the root of the problem. The sudden deaths, still boggle me.


----------



## Termato (Feb 21, 2012)

alkemist said:


> My last cory passed, so now I no longer have any catfish at all. The only fish I have left are my angels, pleco, female betta, snails and a ghost shrimp.
> 
> I purchased a hardness test. Straight out of the tap with the water softener on, the KH was incredibly high, I got the API drop test and it took 18 drops for the color to change, the highest the chart went to was 12. The water was however "soft", took 2 drops. With the water softener off, the KH was still crazy high and the water was also reading hard, I gave up after 8 drops. At this point, I don't know what to do.
> 
> ...


You can purchase those giant 5 gallon things of water from the super market. try that?


----------



## Tazman (Jan 15, 2012)

Water softeners generally run with rock salt which breaks down over time and leaves a mess in the softener unit. Without knowing it the salt content in the water can become lethal to fish if you use the water.

I see from your earlier post that the salt content was too high for most freshwater fish, this is the likely cause of the sudden deaths.

Even with the softener bypassed, it is likely that a lot of residue will still be in the pipes for some time to come. The best course of action I would recommend is to purchase distilled water when you do water changes. This will not only help reduce the salt content already present in the tank, but will be less likely to cause any future problems. Long term, I would seriously look at getting an RO/DI unit not only to use as drinking water but also for the tanks. This way you can use the softener for supply to the shower etc.

Might be worth checking as well with your local water company as to whether or not they have recently added anything to the supply. At this time of year, as the spring melt begins if you live in an area with snow, many water companies will increase the levels of chemicals put into the supply. This is because they are dealing with run off from melting snow and increased water volume through processing plants.


----------



## Granberry (Mar 9, 2012)

Hi, hope it's okay for me to pop in. Just wanted to suggest you check your water softening system. Some of the new ones are different. For example, last year we put in a Culligan water softener. It does not add salt to our water. There are 2 tanks. One tank contains thousands of little beads that attract the minerals in the water, and those mineral salts adhere to the media. The second tank contains a salty, brine solution that flushes the minerals off the beads periodically during a "backwash cycle". That brine water goes out the drain, but NOT back into the water supply. I don't know if it's because my softener is so new, or if it's specific to the Culligan brand, or if it's because we had to buy a big one because our house has 5 bathrooms. 

I don't know anything about salinity tests, but if the test results show high salt levels and you can taste the salt, then your system is probably not the same as mine. 

Sorry about your fish. What an awful event!


----------



## Granberry (Mar 9, 2012)

Is it salt (sodium chloride, NaCl) or sodium (Na) that's unhealthy for fish?

I found this on the FAQ section of the Culligan Water Softeners site (eCulligan Online - Frequently Asked Questions)

Does A Water Softener Add Salt To The Water? 
This a common concern because people see large amounts of salt being poured into their softener and often times have the misconception that all that salt ends up in their water. The salt that you add to you softener is only used during the regeneration process and is rinsed away before the unit goes back online. With that said a water softener does add a very small amount of sodium to the water as it filters the water through its ion-exchange process. In this process the Calcium and Magnesium ions that the softener is collecting are "exchanged" for sodium ions. This means that exactly how much sodium is added to the water depends on how hard your water is. To figure out how much sodium your water softener will add you multiply your water hardness in GPG (Grains Per Gallon) by 7.866. This will give you the milligrams/liter of sodium added to the water. A typical serving size of water is 8oz so if you want to know how much sodium per "serving" divide that number by 4 to get mg of sodium per serving.

It is important to note that this is the amount of sodium that is added to your water not the total amount of sodium. To get the total sodium content in your water you will have to add in the amount of sodium in the raw water.


----------



## mandi85710 (Feb 19, 2012)

Awww I am sorry you lost your last cat. Hopefully this will get resolved with others input as well I what I have said. Hopefully they do!!!


----------



## alkemist (Mar 7, 2012)

Granberry said:


> Hi, hope it's okay for me to pop in. Just wanted to suggest you check your water softening system. Some of the new ones are different. For example, last year we put in a Culligan water softener. It does not add salt to our water. There are 2 tanks. One tank contains thousands of little beads that attract the minerals in the water, and those mineral salts adhere to the media. The second tank contains a salty, brine solution that flushes the minerals off the beads periodically during a "backwash cycle". That brine water goes out the drain, but NOT back into the water supply. I don't know if it's because my softener is so new, or if it's specific to the Culligan brand, or if it's because we had to buy a big one because our house has 5 bathrooms.
> 
> I don't know anything about salinity tests, but if the test results show high salt levels and you can taste the salt, then your system is probably not the same as mine.
> 
> Sorry about your fish. What an awful event!


Yes, my kinetico system is as you described it. I have 2 tanks and nothing holds softened water, it's an "on demand" system. It's been a few months since I researched it before purchasing the home.

I have considered buying water but for a 29 gallon tank, it is a bit impractical and even costly. If I was going that route, then biting the bullet and getting a kitchen RO system would just be the best way to go.

Thanks for the input everyone, I'm going to check the water softener system to make sure it's not backed up and allowing brine into the system and go from there.


----------



## mandi85710 (Feb 19, 2012)

alkemist said:


> Yes, my kinetico system is as you described it. I have 2 tanks and nothing holds softened water, it's an "on demand" system. It's been a few months since I researched it before purchasing the home.
> 
> I have considered buying water but for a 29 gallon tank, it is a bit impractical and even costly. If I was going that route, then biting the bullet and getting a kitchen RO system would just be the best way to go.
> 
> Thanks for the input everyone, I'm going to check the water softener system to make sure it's not backed up and allowing brine into the system and go from there.



What about those big huge bottles of water that they put on top of water coolers. I have one at my house and the place that I get them refilled at is not expensive at all. You get 5 then get 5 free. Oh but then again I live in the desert so not sure if they would have one of those around you or not. One and a half filled my 30G tank and then I made my water brakish for my fish b/c my mollies and platies seem to love it a lot more in brakish water. 

I think you can buy those big jugs at Sam's Club or Wal Mart and then have them refilled. When I lived in Ohio that is what my husband and I did. We bought them at Sams but there was no refill place like there is here so that is why I am not sure if they would have those where you live. Good luck with everything. I have 50 fry to go and feed my molly dropped last night. She has never had this many before.

 I hope things work out and you can get the fish you want in your tank again. You could always ask at the pet store as well. My fish guy is very helpful when it comes to things like this so you might want to try that since they live in your area and are more familiar with everything. You could find out what they use at the store or usually they will have tanks at home so you can find out what they use there too.


----------



## alkemist (Mar 7, 2012)

mandi85710 said:


> You could always ask at the pet store as well. My fish guy is very helpful when it comes to things like this so you might want to try that since they live in your area and are more familiar with everything. You could find out what they use at the store or usually they will have tanks at home so you can find out what they use there too.


Actually, quite some time ago, I asked them at the fish store when I picked up my 2nd angel. The fish guy just recommended using tap water if we could not use RO. He said that messing with chemicals in the end just makes it worse and could be disastrous. Even though it may not be ideal, the fish that are strong enough will adapt.

I will just slowly switch them back to tap on bypass and try to restock my tank. My angels laid eggs again late last week.. however they always seem to disappear at night and a pleco with a plump belly ;-) (I'm not into breeding angels but I let them do their "thing").


----------

