Toxic drum???

[wild_amazon]

I lost 3 wild heckels many weeks ago over no obvious reason.
Hasn't bought anymore discus since but something is going on with my setup.

I just got back from 10 days holiday and before I left I put around 100 peppermint bristle nose babies into one of my 3' tank. Didn't feed them with anything for 10 days and when I got back they all survived. The tank has plants so they can find algae.
Anyway, I then siphoned some dirt from the botom of the tank and top up the tank ( less than 15% of the tank volume) with aged water (10 days old) from a 44 gallons plastic drum. I bought this drum second hand from food processing factory few months ago, I also added 1 capfull of seachem prime (200ltr/cap as per the instruction).
I did the same with my two other tanks.

The next days I found 15 dead fry at the bottom of the tank, a day after 15 more fry and yesterday another 20.
I lost a large mail praecox (neon) rainbow in other tank and few bristle noses on my 4x2x2 setup where I made 10% water change.

I usually make more water change but I've loosing fish everytime I do big water change. I thought it was because they couldn't tolerate big water change and something with the tap water.
Now I think it's the drum. The water was 10-11 days old and possible more concentration of chemical from the drum polute the water than usual. I always do weekly water change.
I lost half the the bristle nose spawn in 3 days (around 50 fry).

I am going to get a new drum and carbon to remove chemical. Probably will not use the seachem prime. Will carbon do a better job than prime?

Has anyone experience this problem or heard about it???

[Merrilyn]

Just a few questions here. The water in the drum was 10 days old. You changed 15% of the water in the BN tank, so on a three foot tank, that holds about say 120 litres. That means you only changed about 20 litres or so. But you added a full cap of Prime, enough to treat 200 litres. Hmmm not a good move, but in itself, that should not have caused the death of around 50 BN fry.

Seachem Prime is an excellent product, but you only need to add enough to treat the amount of water that you have replaced, not the whole tank.

In this case, I do think the problem is with the drum contaminating the water, although with a food grade drum, that's not supposed to happen.

Definately change the drum, or at the very least fill it with plain bleach and water, and leave it standing for 24 hours before thoroughly rinsing it, and allowing it to stand in the sun for a week.

[lesxda]

I have had a 220 ltr drum for 6 weeks

I washed the drum out and I made sure I put a good dose of water ager in the drum for 2 days.

I cut the top off and its totally open but inside
I have heater, water pump and airstone in the drum and I make sure the ph matches in the tank I am filling up.

touch wood I have had no trouble but the water only stands in the drum only for 5days no longer,

les

[wild_amazon]

I actually put 1 capfull of seachem in the 220 liters drum each time I fill up the tank from almost empty.

Looks like I am going to loose most of the BN batch because they are still dying.

Can you tell me what bleach will do? Wouldn't it be toxic if the drum absorb some of it?

Will carbon effective in removing chemicals in the water. Maybe I should use carbon in drum instead of seachem to reduce amount of chemical in the water?

Analysis so far:
Drum - contamination (most likely)
Water - contamination (not likely)
PH movement - minimal (no likely)
Temperature change - 1 degree (not likely)
Seachem Prime - bad batch (unknown)
Disease in the drum - (not likely) looking at the symptoms.
Equipments (pump, garden hoses, heater) - not likely

Water in the tanks have almost 0 reading on nitrite and ammonia.

[Merrilyn]

I think it's probably a combination of things.

The fact that the fry were not fed for 10 days has got to weaken them. They would have very quickly eaten out any algae in the tank, leaving them with nothing.

I do think the water has played a part in this, especially sitting in the drum for 10 days. Any toxins that may have been in the drum would have had plenty of time to leach out into the water.

You can use carbon in the drum. But it will not remove chloramines from the water, only chlorine.

You can safely use plain bleach to clean the drum. It's simply chlorine, the same stuff they put in our drinking water to kill any bugs, although at a much reduced concentration than what you will need to clean the drum.

Chlorine disipates in sunlight, which is why you have to keep adding chlorine to your swimming pool, so letting the drum stand for 7 days in sunlight will remove the last traces of chlorine.

[discusguy]

you said a garden hose, that contributed majorly to it. if water was setting in the hose that is. if so chemicals in the rubber hose will leech into your water and kill your fish, but other wise i'd put my money on the barrel. try this, chip off a peice of the barrel, and put it in a pot to boil it for about 10 minutes. test the water before you boil it, then afterwards, this will show if anything leeches out and changes your water. as far as testing for chemicals though, i don't know you might just have to rely on your better instincts there.


HTH

[Proteus]

Some garden hoses contain anti-algae agents, which can be dangerous to fish.

[wild_amazon]

I have a garden hose that is connected to a water pump to draw water from the drum to my tanks. The pump sits at the bottom of the drum so part of the hose stay submerged all the time.
It's about 3 - 4 foot (90 -120cm) of the hose stay under water, will this affect the quality of the water???
I also use a garden hose to fill the drum but it's not submerged.

Could it be the hose not the drum???

[discusguy]

if water is setting in the hose long enough (about 24 hours or so) then it can be.