RE: Water conditioner problem??

["Giancarlo Podio" <gp at isaconsulting_com>]

Hi Mark,

Last water change was the previous saturday, none of the fish are gasping
and the plants are pearling which would lead me to believe O2 levels are
good. I vacumed the gravel two weeks ago (I do that monthly).  I'm wondering
if the change in metal concentrations caused some sort of shock to the
cichlids, perhaps too much iron? I did not change the daily fertilizer dose,
perhaps seeing AmQuel does not bind certain metals I should have taken that
into consideration and reduced dosing?

BTW the local breeder I buy my dwarf cichlids from said he has used AmQuel
and never had problems with it. Hopefully things are as I left them this
morning (no more deaths), I guess there is little I can do at this stage, I
don't want to add any new cichlids in there until I have a better idea or
I'm sure everything is back to normal, the other fish appear to have
suffered less from whatever caused this and I have no intention on
performing any new test with water conditioners. I guess I have a large
bottle of AmQuel up for grabs.

Thanks
Giancarlo Podio

----- Original Message -----

  a.. To: "'aquatic-plants at actwin_com'" <aquatic-plants at actwin_com>
  b.. Subject: RE: Water conditioner problem??
  c.. From: Mark Wolek <mwolek at omiintl_com>
  d.. Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 15:46:48 -0600

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If its any consolation I have been using amquel exclusivley as a
decholinator for many many many years.  Did some tests awhile back, and
Amquel was the only dechlorinator to test 0 for phosphates and nitrates.
Pretty important IMO for non plant tanks or salt water.

When was your most previous water change before?  Are the fish gasping for
air at all?  I twice whiped out my cichlid tank by doing a gravel vaccuuming
after not doing one for 6 months, and toxics built up by anerobic(I think?)
conditions were relased (a form of nitrogen I think) which depleted the o2
in the tank, and killing off many many many fish.

Sounds kind of what may of happened from what you explained, your water
would test fine if this happened.

Mark