Water help needede

[John Wroten]

I am setting up a new system (275 gal IBC). I have added city water and have had my pump gong for 2 days with it bubbling back into the tank. I had a little clorine remover that I got with one of the aquariums I purchased on Craigs List. I added this. I have had a dozen gold fish in a tank for 6 months and they were doing great. I got my water temps the same in both tanks, but my PH was different. In the tank that the fish were in, the PH was 6.8. In the new tank the PH was 7.5. The sacrificial gold fish lasted 2 days. belly up today. Tomorrow is fish day at RK and  I intend to but 40 channel cats. If the gold fish are dying, I need to do something, but I dont know what. Any help out there? ...John

 

[John Wroten]

Any help at all. I understand that the chlorine will "gas off" but I dont know how long it takes. The system is in my basement, not in the sunlight, and i only had maybe one cap full of chlorne remover. Do you think it is the chlorne that killed the fish?

[TCLynx]

You will want to find out if your city water has chlorine in it or actually chloramine.  Chlorine will escape from the water after a few days of bubbling and circulation but chloramine will take several weeks to go away so you would have to use a product to take care of the chloramine.

Question though, what is your system?  You mention the IBC but you didn't say what sort of filtration you have set up.  Personally I fear that 40 channel catfish will be too much for a new IBC fish tank system and I don't even know how much grow bed you have.  Is it going to be 40 cubic feet of media?

You might be better off cycling up fishless and getting the fish after you have gotten cycled up.

[John Wroten]

Sounds like good advice. I used the info on building a system with the IBC tote that you see online. I have the fish tank under the grow bed with 9 inched of pea gravel. The fish truck only comes twice a year so I need to buy them tomorrow. I could put them in my tank that I took the gold fish from. I have about a dozen 5 inch tilopia in there. Could the 6 to 7 inch channel cats harm the tilopia? I want to protect them at all cost. I cant call the water company until monday to see what they use for chloranation. I have used rain water until now, but all the barrels are empty and no rain coming for a while.

Am I ok with putting the cats in with the tilopia and do they make anything to take the chloramine from my water, if the water company uses it? ...John

TCLynx said:

You will want to find out if your city water has chlorine in it or actually chloramine.  Chlorine will escape from the water after a few days of bubbling and circulation but chloramine will take several weeks to go away so you would have to use a product to take care of the chloramine.

Question though, what is your system?  You mention the IBC but you didn't say what sort of filtration you have set up.  Personally I fear that 40 channel catfish will be too much for a new IBC fish tank system and I don't even know how much grow bed you have.  Is it going to be 40 cubic feet of media?

You might be better off cycling up fishless and getting the fish after you have gotten cycled up.

[TCLynx]

Don't get that many channel catfish if you only have a grow bed that is only 9" deep and is the top of the IBC.  I would say only get 12 if you only have that small amount of grow bed and that might still be too many.

I don't know how big the tank you have the tilapia in is or how much filtration you have set up for it to know if you could handle putting catfish in it.  I don't really think 6-7 inch catfish are likely to hurt 5 inch tilapia but I don't know the conditions or how much you will be able to feed in the set up you will be adding them into so no guarantees.

There are products that can be used to deal with the chloramine (beware it splits the chloramine apart so there will be ammonia in the water which can help start the cycling process but that wouldn't be very good if you already have too heavy a load of fish going into the system.)  I don't know which particular chloramine removal product to recommend because I use well water but the sodium thiosulfate is the active ingredient.

[John Wroten]

I have a 180 tank in my greenhouse. In it is 12 tilopia, and still 9 gold fish. I have 24 sq feet of grow bed, 12 inches deep, there. I will be adding lots of grow bed to my IBC tote, but for now it is just the 12 sq feet that you get when you chop off the botom and use it for the grow bed. In it will be my cool weather crops, in the basement,  and the other grow beds will be outside.

Thanks TC. I will put the cats in with the tilopia, get the goldfish out as soon as I find out what the water co uses. I will use them to see if I get all the chlorine out. You dont think the differences in the PH had anything to do with the fish kill?

TCLynx said:

Don't get that many channel catfish if you only have a grow bed that is only 9" deep and is the top of the IBC.  I would say only get 12 if you only have that small amount of grow bed and that might still be too many.

I don't know how big the tank you have the tilapia in is or how much filtration you have set up for it to know if you could handle putting catfish in it.  I don't really think 6-7 inch catfish are likely to hurt 5 inch tilapia but I don't know the conditions or how much you will be able to feed in the set up you will be adding them into so no guarantees.

There are products that can be used to deal with the chloramine (beware it splits the chloramine apart so there will be ammonia in the water which can help start the cycling process but that wouldn't be very good if you already have too heavy a load of fish going into the system.)  I don't know which particular chloramine removal product to recommend because I use well water but the sodium thiosulfate is the active ingredient.

[TCLynx]

That shift in pH might not be good for the fish but I wouldn't expect it to kill goldfish over a few days unless there was also a high amount of ammonia too.  goldfish are usually pretty tough.

But while you are waiting to find out what your water is treated with you might see about adjusting the pH of your new tank down to about 7 so when you move the fish next time it won't be as big a change.  You can adjust pH using muratic acid (hydrochloric acid) found in the hardware store they use it for cleaning concrete for staining, just be sure you have plenty of ventilation where you do it and some extra buckets of water on hand or a hose in case of spills or splashes.  Wear gloves and safety glasses/goggles.  Otherwise some phosphoric acid from the hydroponics shop would also work.

[John Wroten]

Thanks TC, that is my plan of action...John

TCLynx said:

That shift in pH might not be good for the fish but I wouldn't expect it to kill goldfish over a few days unless there was also a high amount of ammonia too.  goldfish are usually pretty tough.

But while you are waiting to find out what your water is treated with you might see about adjusting the pH of your new tank down to about 7 so when you move the fish next time it won't be as big a change.  You can adjust pH using muratic acid (hydrochloric acid) found in the hardware store they use it for cleaning concrete for staining, just be sure you have plenty of ventilation where you do it and some extra buckets of water on hand or a hose in case of spills or splashes.  Wear gloves and safety glasses/goggles.  Otherwise some phosphoric acid from the hydroponics shop would also work.