fish4fish3 Posted October 29, 2012 Report Share Posted October 29, 2012 (edited) Problem:-milky sewer water in tank... pretty sure it was from using out of date Bio Aid (sold out of date)... Bio aid is a pro biotic bacteria that improves the water quality of your water by digesting solid and disolved waste. Any one had this problem before or similar I'd like to hear back from you... If you have bought a similar product that was out of date I'd like to hear back. And deffinately if you've resolved a problem like this I definately want to hear back. Any ideas? I'd like to hear back cause I'm about to throw everything out... filter, pump, pipes, substrate and sterilise tank with vinegar and lemon juice ( this combination will kill 99% of all bacterias and fungi) Cheers in advance Ph:- 8 Ammonia:- 0.1 Nitrate:- 0.1 Nitrite:- 0.2 Gh:-100 Kh:- N/A Size of tank:-1200ltr Temperature °C:-28 Been running for:-new tank, new substrate, Mature filter 2 -3yrs Filtration:-Canister/Sump/Internal Filter/Sponge:- Pond one Claritec 15000UV (canister) Fish in tank:- 8 goldfish left for cycling purposes only Plants in Tank:-nil Feeding:- What food and How often - Aqua munch morning and flake arvo Recent Medication Treatments:- dose of Aquasonic Bio-Aid (out of date) to fix 1tr seachem stability over a period of 1 month+, a single dose of Seachem clarity. Last water change:- 2 weeks ago Water change every Day/Weekly/Monthly - First month 10% weekly second month 10% fortnightly. I set up a new tank and substrate used a mature filter from the old tank with all the water from the old tank 500ltr to keep the fish soup and remainer tap water (declorinated). I dosed with the bio aid and when I woke the next morning the tank was milky and thought nothing of it as it's normal with new substrate. At the time I had 11 cyp moba and 12 Xenos. A couple days later one of the xenos died and when netting it out noticed foul smell (sewer water) bought stability and done a 25% water change. dosed daily and after the second day lost another 2 xenos and 2 of the cyps in the same day. Removed all fish into garage. removed all the water and syphoned the gravel heavily with around 1100ltrs as some remained. Cleaned media with tap water to start again and replaced the ceramic sub with coral chunks of same size. Filled tank again and dosed with stability. Next day milky water was back and smell too. Bought clarity and double dosed, tank went yellow but returned to it's milky sewer state. Continued to dose with stability daily as well as feeding the filter with flake food to get it loaded with organic matter. Water changes were done weekly 10% Ph:- 8 Ammonia:- 0.1 - 0.2 Nitrate:- clear - 0.1 Nitrite:- clear - 0.1 Gh:- 100 a few weeks later (month from starting I added 11 goldfish) In the first week I lost 4 goldfish... 1 replaced to have 8. Continued to do water changes fortnightly 10% and dosing with stability daily. Fianally milky water and smell went away towards the end of the second month and test results showed that filter was colinising and in second stage. Ph:- 8 Ammonia:- 0.1 Nitrate:- 0.3 Nitrite:- 0.1 Gh:- 100 Problem solved? Nope don't think so... Bought a 6ltr hex tank at garage sale. Set up using the gravel from the 1200ltr tank and used mature media from filter in the garage. the next morning a few cherrys had died and noticed that the water was smelling like sewer water and faintly milky. Now I don't think that silica can cause a problem like this but could it be the out of date Bio Aid causing such a big problem? And how can something like this be fixed as in all my years I've never had any thing of the sorts... The worst I've had was white spot a few years back and a bloated ranchu. Edited December 2, 2012 by fish4fish3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ash Posted October 29, 2012 Report Share Posted October 29, 2012 Go back to the basics. Start a fresh. Let a cycle run its course, the old school way. No chems needed. Just add water and dechlorinator, and something to start the nitrigen cycle. Have test kit ? Watch water parameters and when all good start adding fish. Some people swear by bio bacteria in a bottle, others don't. Personally, old school all the way for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Tech Den Posted October 29, 2012 Report Share Posted October 29, 2012 Hi Fish4fish3, With Bio-Aid, it does not have an expiry date on it. It does have a packing date and will also mention that it will last up to 18 months refrigerated and 6 months un-refrigerated. Although it was not purchased though us we would still like to get the answers you require. We have forward through to our Aquasonic Rep your situation. He is currently on the road but it is hoped that there may be some information for you as soon as possible. Do you happen to have a picture of the tank? Could this be an algae bloom? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerbeer Posted October 29, 2012 Report Share Posted October 29, 2012 Clarity and bioaid are both bacteria in a bottle products, not the true nitrifiers, but beneficial bugs. Your water is cloudy due to a bacterial bloom. I would stop feeding the tank anything and let it sit, keep up filtration andmaybe add some airation as you have fish in there. I would also check your dosage sizes and ask for dosage sizes and dates, asI am a bit confused on exactly what was done. I am sure the tank can be fixed without throwing anything away..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fish4fish3 Posted October 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 29, 2012 Thanks Techden but I have spoken to Mark at Aquasonic regards this as process of elimination but they have no info regards what happens if used out of date. The bottled date is 31/05/11 and was sold off the shelf giving it a 6 month life on the shelf. Bought it on 16/09/12 almost 16 months from bottled date... didn't check, didn't know but was told to keep it in fridge after opening and would last 18 months. Bad info! people should know there products if they are going to promote them! It's not a seeding agent and I had started a fresh using stability but the bacteria must have attached itself to the substrate & pipes as it came back like I nothing happened bacteria blooms have sewer smell? Have dropped in 1kg of salts and there is super plenty oxygen in there from the spray bar. have over all used 1ltr of stability and haven't added any for more than 2 weeks when it ran out. there was little to none Nitrate for algae to bloom at the time and to continue. Nitrates were only detected a few weeks back. I had done a test in the garage with 2x 6ltr tanks, no fish 1 drop of Bio Aid... the first had just dechlorinated tap water and a clean sponge in the filter... everything clean... no results... The second test had matured media placed in a filter and fish tank water... same sewer smell and light milky water resulted. And whatever it is, it's still in the gravel (Aqua one silica) as I mentioned with the new hex tank getting the same problem. Thought the 1200ltr tank was all good until this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pet_City Posted October 29, 2012 Report Share Posted October 29, 2012 What colour is the gravel? Crazy I know, but we used to have a black silica that we were using in some display tanks - and the water didn't go murky but if you would disturb the substrate it would let off a foul-ish smell. So every time we did water changes we would get stink water. Changing the gravel to Coff's we didn't have stink water. I don't know if it could have been just something about the size of the gravel and perhaps how well it impacted and created an anaerobic zone, or maybe it was a bad batch or something. I say this as it was also your gravel that is a linking factor from your main tank in your smaller test tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fish4fish3 Posted October 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 29, 2012 (edited) it is black silica 3mm grain size but I think it's a little larger. Only difference here is that the gravel wasn't distrurbed until I syphoned it but still then it wasn't distrubed much when I filled the water back in. so why the milky water? bacteria bloom? here is the pics from the first day... The milky wasn't so strong until the third day where it was twice as bad. And you can see the snails are closed up so something is astray... I find that snails are the best indicators of something wrong with the water. Edited October 29, 2012 by fish4fish3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerbeer Posted October 29, 2012 Report Share Posted October 29, 2012 I stand by bacterial bloom. Looks right, smells right..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fish4fish3 Posted October 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 29, 2012 Before I continue I'd like to say thanks to everyone for there input... and I'm not trying to slam down these ideas I just want to be sure before I make my next move as I've allready spent enough cash on getting it running properly and would like to start spending for doors shelves and floor in the cabinet. Cheers Roman Hey Gingerbeer... Can it kill fish? xenos and cyps to be precise. And remember it was only the Bio Aid at this point in the tank. The stability came in halfway through the week the day after it became really milky and how come it started when I put the rinsed silica in the other tank and hadn't dosed it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerbeer Posted October 29, 2012 Report Share Posted October 29, 2012 Bacterial explosions can tend to pull all the oxygen out of the water - hence lack of oxygen is I suspect the cause of death - and would bet that fish were gasping at the surface! I don;t really get the moving to another tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fish4fish3 Posted October 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 29, 2012 they weren't gasping for air... 1 died one day... hmmm? the next day it was a case of... one minute they looked fine, the next they started dropping like flies! I'm not loosing $1200 worth of fish and 6 months of raising them to first stages of breeding to hope it was just a fluke that 4 died all of a sudden. on the second day I installed a spray bar the whole length of the tank and with 10000lph I get enough surface break to make fish float! (since then brand new inline pump had failed so the 10000lph garage back up was fitted) Just one of the other probs I've had. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
