disappearing fish mystery solved

[Litzi1964]

Last week, while I was in NYC with my daughter's girl scout troop, my husband decided to look at our big filter. It is a skimmer attached to a 1200 gph pump and canister filter. He found remains of a deceased fish inside the pump. Apparently the tube from the skimmer to the pump had split in several places. So the water was pulled into the pump unfiltered, and unfortunately my four smaller fish were pulled in to their death. So he pulled the apparatus out. I spent an entire day scrubbing out algae. I cleaned my two box filters five times and I did a total water change. It looks much better.

 

[addy1]

bummer at least fixed now

 

[Litzi1964]

I feel rather guilty that this was my fault or I was negligent, and that they suffered. Even though the other tube on the skimmer looked ok I had my husband replace it as a precaution, since the tubes are the same age.

 

[Litzi1964]

You live in Frederick? My sister lives in Hagerstown!

 

[addy1]

Yep frederick, if you come to visit her, come do a drop by. I could send you home with lots of plants...........lol

I lost a ton ...........well 25 gf , feeders, when I started up my pond. Let the water cycle for months, finally added the fish, all died, I felt horrible. That is when I found out our water is very acidic, like 5.5, well water.

We have all made mistakes that cost fish their lives, well some of us. But as long as you learn and fix things will get better.

 

[Litzi1964]

Thanks for your kind words.

Our water tends to be very hard. Wow 5.5 ph that's really acidic--break out the baking soda

 

[addy1]

Ours is very soft and acidic, I get almost no reading when I test GH KH

Between the plants, bog and crushed oyster shells I manage to keep the hardness in 100 range and ph around 7.6.

 

[cr8tivguy]

I have one little Sarassa Comet that continues to swim into the opening of the basket that holds my filter (basket keeps floating debris from getting caught up in the intake). He doesn't go down around the intake of the pump-just swims around the top.

I swear he's going to pull a "Nemo" and get sucked in one of these days. I'm hoping as he gets a little bigger, he won't go in there exploring anymore because he won't fit.

In the meantime, I need to put a cover over the opening!

 

[Litzi1964]

Now that my skimmer is back in, some of my fish think the door for the water inflow is a water slide. They swim up it, they don't enter the skimmer, and they slide back down. They also like swimming into the water outflow currents made by the pumps. They remind me of kids at a water park.