Anyone willing to sell a few stones?

[mikev]

...covered by appropriate algae....

To explain:

I mentioned before that I'm having pretty bad problems with the toxin in the NY tap water...that problem, incidentally, has been worsening to a point that a single water change with tap is quite likely to kill someone, the very last EVER tap water change killed two, and not even hillstreams. The tap issue itself I think will be under control pretty soon, what I am doing now is safe for the fish, just inefficient for me, and remaining part of the solution should be in place within a week or two.

Besides working on fixing the problem, I've been learning quite a lot about the toxin and other features of local water, in part because there was a clear effect not just on fish, but also on some plant species (two known now) and algae.

Specifically, on algae: it appears that the toxin, together with very high phosphate readings, is damaging to the kinds of algae I would like. I could never produce the "rivertank" algae, and the higher toxin/phosphate concentrations lately had a negative impact on GSA: I have less of it now, and fully lost it in one tank. The connection between high phosphates and bad GSA growth is known, I'm conjecturing that the same connection exists between other rivertank types of algae and phosphates.

Now, with luck I will have no toxin and phosphates in the tank after 2-3 water changes, but then I will have another problem: reestablish the algae for the hillstreams. Since the water used for changes is nearly chemically pure, I don[t think that the right kind of algae will find its way to the tank (it should be able to grow fine now, however.)

So back to the question: is anyone who has a healthy rivertank willing to sell a couple of stones from it?

[mistergreen]

wow. sorry to hear about the fishes & the water.. Have you thought about investing in a RO or DI unit?

I have a feeling it's due to heavy metals like copper. Phosphate actually is a nutrient and is gladly taken up by plants and algae. It shouldn't kill algae. Copper on the other hand is used as a weed killer and fish(loaches) are pretty sensitive to it. You can get a heavy metal test kit at the hardware store I think.

[mikev]

I'm under a dual DI right now...this will be the backend, a cascading RO is the part that is hopefully coming soon, to create a six-level filter that will take out anything. (My previous line of defense worked for a while and then collapsed, due to higher amounts of toxins and my stupidity of relying on what manufacturers said...)

Almost certainly, not metals. I think I know what this is, I just don't have enough of a proof yet.

Fish loss, btw, was huge. Unfortunately, it had to be this way for the patterns to build up.

[mistergreen]

i think I know what it is... They might be using zinc orthophosphate for the pipes. Zinc is pretty bad.

You'd have to call them up to see what phosphate salts they're using. It's most likely zinc.

oh, as for the algae rocks, it's pretty easy to make. All you need is good water, a container of some sort and sun light, and nutrients. If you can get access to a roof top, that's a perfect place to put the container.. The algae will need N, K, P to feed.. Put a little potting soil in the container with the rock & water. You'll have algae in less than a week.

[mikev]

zinc orthophosphate is certainly a possibility and it is quite likely is in the phosphate mix they use. There are a couple of things in the data collected so far that do not match it, but this is the direction in which I'll be looking if I cannot confirm what we suspect.

BTW, I was on the phone with them daily for a while. So far did not get anywhere, except for creating a large file or requests and complains.

Algae making: yes, I can try it. It did not work with tap water (?!), maybe DI will do better. But actually I would still prefer to get a sample of proper algae if anyone is willing to sell.

[shari2]

Mike, I have plenty of green algae rocks if you'd like some (free). Just a question of picking them up, or meeting somewhere. But the hillie's don't really eat it much. They spend most of their time on the rocks, but don't seem to be eating, they do rasp the walls, and primarily eat the food provided, now. Thus the numerous green rocks...

[mistergreen]

those rocks are darn heavy..

Use your filtered water. If it is zinc, things will be problematic.

Man, I'm sorta glad I don't live in nyc anymore. Water that can't even grow algae can't be healthy for you. I did drink lots of bottled water.

[mikev]

Shari,

These look very attractive! Thank you!

They are mostly on prepared/frozen foods here too, but I _think_ some of them actually eat algae (gastros for sure), and what is even more important, they eat small creatures that live in algae. A few months back I lost a small cheni, we did a necropsy and saw a small copepod being digested...quite a view...so this seems to be the natural food they want. Not sure this applies to all other species, but probably to most.

[mikev]

Man, I'm sorta glad I don't live in nyc anymore. Water that can't even grow algae can't be healthy for you. I did drink lots of bottled water.

It grows hair algae just fine (groan).

The darn thing is very selective: it kills some species, fish and plants, and does not seem to bother other much.

As for drinking water: we got a DI filter for ourselves too. Given the wall I'm hitting when talking to the city, I really don't think this is zinc, it is more interesting....we'll find out eventually.

The real interesting question is why this has not been noticed yet, in all likelihood it affects the entire city and Westchester too...there ought to be lots of dead loaches and perhaps people out there.... I finally found a real good confirmation from another part of the city today but it is only one, and there ought to be much more to it....

[mikev]

Mistergreen,

Here is why I doubt it is zinc orthophosphate:

My initial approach to the problem was to run anti-phosphate media in the tanks,..this even worked for a while.

In fact, this worked very efficiently: there were only two deaths when the tank was running with new anti-phosphate media, and both occurred short time after it was added...it seems to take about 48 hours to detox the tank. I could not obviously measure the amount of toxin removed, but I could and did monitor the phosphates: I was removing about 50% of them.

It indicated to me that antiphosphate media was removing the toxin much better than it was removing the phosphate, thus the toxin is not a phosphate, just something similar. Now, I have discussed this on other forums, where water chemists dwell, and among many interesting things learned it turned out that antiphosphate media we use was originally designed for removing As: this is the primary reason for its existence...it just happens to somewhat remove phosphates too.

A few other things match As really well, so this remains the primary suspect for now. At some point the testing kit will arrive (backorder--dddarn) and we'll know instead of guessing...if As is excluded, then some malignant phosphates would become the most likely suspects, and it would be really hard to get the exact picture, since measuring the concentration of particular phosphates would require a real chemical lab.

[mikev]

Mistergreen,

The expert on the marine forum where this is being discussed nixed Zinc as insufficiently toxic and other reasons. I probably will know better by about Monday, my testkit has finally been shipped.

Meanwhile, I'm curious: anyone else here in NYC or Westchester (not NJ or LI)? (I'm pretty sure there are a couple of people at least). If yes, any seemingly random losses, especially among loaches and small cyprinid dither since late 2006? Any details will be helpful in reconstructing the picture.

[mistergreen]

well, let us know what the root issue is. I'm curious.

Usually a trace amount of metals like zinc & copper is good in a planted tank (trace elements).. But too much is poisonous. We just need to know what concentration is in your tank. I think for copper, I'm not sure about zinc, .4 ppm or .4mg/L is considered toxic.


If you want to talk to some peeps from nyc, try this forum
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/new-york/