Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Okay, Im assuming the problem is my water quality as I had issues with my pumps and now my plants are pretty well dying,

But when I went looking for any dead fish I found this fella with really bad bulging eyes, now I dont know if it is a problem from my water quality ie high ammonia and very high nitrites (salted however) or something else.

Ideas, here he is, what would the remedy for cure be, Ive isolated him and put him into a 10ppt salted tank with low ammonia and low nitrites

Dispatch him...

Yep, he's probably blind. Only thing to do is put him out of his misery, he will die anyway.

Do you think this could have been caused by high ammonia and or high nitrites or something else entirely

I'd say so. Ammonia poisioning will eventually lead to hemorrhaging and then death. More often this occurs internally but it can be external also.

Looks like the poor fella has hemorrhaged in his eyes

Might be an idea to offload your fish to someone and go with fishless cycling until your system settles down.

One other thing, In the aquarium world there exists a product called 'Ammo-Lock', it does not remove the ammonia, however it neutralises its toxicity (whilst still allowing the nitrification process to continue). I've only used it on a small scale (it works very well), so not sure how many bottles you'd need to treat your tank.

Tanks good now, dropped half the water and retested this evening also dropped the ph, well within limits, just got to let the bacteria recover from whatever knocked them off there perch and my system crash, this guy was the only one that appeared to have suffered the other barras are good and so are all my silvers

In general I would counsel against using any aquaria products in AP systems... and IMO... ignore any advice... and temptation to transpose aquaria concepts to AP...

Most are concerned with tropical or other fish not intended for consumption... and are frequently dosed with chemicals that are carcenogenic.... or just downright poisonous...

Sadly, many aquariaist also treat their systems and fish as chemical laboratories and lab rats...

As far as "Ammo Lock" is concerned...

Ammo lock is actually a water conditioner that neutralises chlorine and chloramine by blocking ammonium ... i.e ... it is used to keep chloramine stable from turning into ammonia.

However any test will be picking up ammonium as well as ammonia... while ammonium is harmless, if there is a change in ph (that can be caused by a water change, or algae) you could have a big problem... basically the ammonium will change to ammonia and at the levels you have will quickly kill your fish.

Chemicals should only ever be a short term solution of last resort... and then in my opinon only if you have already lost or have large numbers of very sick fish that might die before any salt treatment can be enacted... even then.. IMO... the system is so compromised that it might be better to dump both the infected fish and system water...

In general... quarantine treatment with salt dips/baths... and salting the tank... followed by water changes will always be better...

Simply because you need to treat the cause not the symptom. If you just treat the symptom the cause will remain and there will be a reoccurance.

The cause is is nearly always likely to be one of too many fish for the tank size, inadequate filtration for the tank size, or something has knocked back the benificial bacteria in the tank, any substrate turning anaerobic... including uneaten feed from over-feeding etc..

True Rupert, I hadnt considered human toxicity, I dont even have a bottle to look up its ingredients.

I can say ammo-lock is perfectly harmless for the fish. Fish tissue can show no ill effects at 5+ ppm once treated. It does work. Dunno about humans but

I agree with Rupe, don't listen to anyone with experience in aquaria telling you what you use... I fell into that same trap at a pond shop... that's history.. but for your info below...

http://www.pondliner.com/product/pond_care_ammo-lock/pond_water_conditioners

Scroll to the bottom...

I've read this statement over and over and I simply can't make sense of it. Ammo-lock simply converts ammonia to ammonium, by way of chemical reaction. Ammonium is non-toxic to fish.

You are right PH plays a part, but I'm not sure on the explanation. Ammonium dissovled in water will only remain ammonium while PH is low (acidic), in the presence of alkaline water, the ammonium will be converted back to ammonia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium has all the gaf, I can't be bothered typing it and I'm not sure you can be bothered reading it

In anycase, I realise this is well off-topic, I shouldnt have mentiond ammo-lock in the first place. Carry on

Simso - have you put the barra out of its misery?





Yes my bad.

Yes I'm bored

Ivan that page you linked to had the MSDS for Ammo-lock

http://www.pondliner.com/downloads/ammolock_MSDS.pdf

Can't say I know what I'm looking for in there, Rupert?

Not quite... Chloramination involves the addition of anhydrous or aqueous ammonia (NH3) before or after the addition of chlorine (HOCl) to produce monochloramine (NH2Cl). This reaction is as follows: NH3 + HOCl = NH2Cl + H20

(Chloramines also form to a lesser extent during conventional chlorine treatment when aqueous chlorine reacts with natural organic nitrogen... which is why we suggest bubbling chlorine treated water before using it for system top ups)

Ammonia exists in two forms, namely, un-ionized ammonia (NH3) and ionized ammonium (NH4+). The un-ionized ammonia is what is harmful to fish...

Both forms are measured together and are referred to as total ammonia. Standard test kits measure total ammonia (ammonia plus ammonium) without distinguishing between the two forms.

Chlorimine ultimately breaks down into the un-ionized form of ammonia.. it's source component..

Ammo-lock contains sodium thiosulfate pentahydrate. Ammo-lock works to detoxify ammonia and remove chlorine and chloramines. It locks up ammonia in a non-toxic form (ammonium) until it can be broken down by the tank's natural biological filter and/or used by plants.

The older "Amquel" or "Ammo-Lock" products, while neutralising the ammonia, do NOT leave it readily bio available for the nitrifying bacteria

Please note, most ammonia test kits will still show ammonia present in the form of NH4 after using this product or in areas where chloramines are used.


True... pH is a measure of the H+ ion ...acidic solutions have an abundance of this free ion..

Or in alkaline solutions the hydroxide OH- ion...

Free H+ ions bond readily to ammonia ... H+ + :NH3 → NH+4 ... to form the less lethal form of ammonium...

Which is why AP systems that run with low pH have a higher tolerance to TAN... total ammonia as we see in our tests... and the chart often posted...

When ammonia is dissolved in water, a significant amount of it reacts with the hydronium ions in water to give ammonium ions:

H3O+ + NH3 <> H2O + NH+4

The degree to which ammonia forms the ammonium ion depends on the pH of the solution.

If the pH is high (the concentration of hydronium ions is low), the equilibrium shifts to the left... the hydroxide ion abstracts a proton from the ammonium ion, generating ammonia...

So adding chlorimine to a system with pH higher than 7.5... will only exacerbate the conversion into ammonia...

Ammo-lock will simialrly breakdown in high pH solution... releasing the "locked" ammonium... into ammonia...

It initially locks the "ammonia" compounds of chloromine by actually lowering the pH... by several points in fact...

The newer versions of Ammo-Lock... Ammo-Lock2... are supposedly formulated to neutralise this pH effect...

Pop eye can also be casued by too much crap(solids) in the water.

Just re-read this.... apologies.... I understand why it didn't make sense... should have read... "neutralises chlorine and chloramine by blocking ammonia"

Missed it again even when replying... obviously should've gone to bed some time before I did....

Hope the second reply made more sense...