eldaldo
Member
- Joined
- May 7, 2007
- Messages
- 217
- Reaction score
- 10
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- 18
- Location
- Pittsburgh
- Country
- United States
- Display Name
- Patrick
Hello. Long story incoming.
I have four tanks.
Tank 1: Adult Karelinni, established for many years with gravel bottom, plants, snails, and all sorts of microfauna.
Tank 2: Adult Marmoratus, established for 4 years with gravel bottom, plants, and not as many microfauna.
Tank 3: 1 Baby Karelinni from last year, established for a year, glass bottom, lots of plants.
Tank 4: Recently set up to house adult karelinni since they laid eggs again. Glass Bottom put some plants in but they have yet to really establish themselves.
Last November the T. Karelinni in my Tank 1 laid eggs and I moved them into the Tank 4 so that the babies could eat all the great microfauna in the Tank 1. Interestingly enough the adults continued to lay eggs in tank 4 and I kept moving them to my established tank. Everything was going fine until about a month ago, my youngest newt which was alone in tank 3 died. I hadn't been checking the water quality because for years I hadn't had any problems. When I checked the water in the dead newts' tank the nitrates were off the charts, the water very acidic and there was no alkalinity. The water was weirdly super hard as well. I figured, well that's what killed her
I checked Tank 4 and it had the same high nitrates and acidity. I immediately moved my adults to the established tank (tank 1) and the Larvae to tupperware which I have been refreshing frequently. No one else has died.
I figured the problem was the glass bottoms so I took tank 3 and added some gravel to it as an experiment to see what happened. Over the next couple weeks tanks 3 and 4 developed a thick white film on the top.
Today the nitrates in the dead Newt's tank (tank 3) came down, it is now approaching the conditions of my established tank (tank 1). Tank 4 has not changed and remains high nitrates with low alkalinity and ph. Today, I checked tank 2 with my marmoratus and plants and gravel and it's PH has surprisingly crashed and it also has low alkalinity (no nitrates though).
Nothing really has changed since the last year, except me bringing tank 4 out and putting water and plants in it. I make a habit of never sharing water between tanks, the plants in tank 3 came from tank 2 a year ago, and when I set up tank 4 I seeded it with plants from tank 3.
Based on my experiment of adding gravel to tank 3 and seeing tank 3's conditions improve, I was sure that lack of substrate was what caused the poor water quality, but now tank 2 which has always had good water quality and gravel has low PH and Alkalinity.
What is even more strange and crazy is that while I was testing the quality of tank 4 today I found two relatively mature larvae in it which appeared to be totally fine (from eggs I must have missed). The nitrates in that tank are off the chart (super pink), the PH is around 5. Also, I am unaware of there being any significant microfauna in that tank.
What do you think is causing the PH of Tank 2 to crash? I am doing water changes to deal with the problem, but to me frequent changes is more a treatment of symptoms than cure for the root cause. Has anyone had the experience where the alkalinity and PH of one of their stable and established tanks crashed?
Also, if Larvae in their most delicate stage can survive in the conditions which killed an adult who could have escaped the water if she wanted, what killed the newt?
I have four tanks.
Tank 1: Adult Karelinni, established for many years with gravel bottom, plants, snails, and all sorts of microfauna.
Tank 2: Adult Marmoratus, established for 4 years with gravel bottom, plants, and not as many microfauna.
Tank 3: 1 Baby Karelinni from last year, established for a year, glass bottom, lots of plants.
Tank 4: Recently set up to house adult karelinni since they laid eggs again. Glass Bottom put some plants in but they have yet to really establish themselves.
Last November the T. Karelinni in my Tank 1 laid eggs and I moved them into the Tank 4 so that the babies could eat all the great microfauna in the Tank 1. Interestingly enough the adults continued to lay eggs in tank 4 and I kept moving them to my established tank. Everything was going fine until about a month ago, my youngest newt which was alone in tank 3 died. I hadn't been checking the water quality because for years I hadn't had any problems. When I checked the water in the dead newts' tank the nitrates were off the charts, the water very acidic and there was no alkalinity. The water was weirdly super hard as well. I figured, well that's what killed her
I checked Tank 4 and it had the same high nitrates and acidity. I immediately moved my adults to the established tank (tank 1) and the Larvae to tupperware which I have been refreshing frequently. No one else has died.
I figured the problem was the glass bottoms so I took tank 3 and added some gravel to it as an experiment to see what happened. Over the next couple weeks tanks 3 and 4 developed a thick white film on the top.
Today the nitrates in the dead Newt's tank (tank 3) came down, it is now approaching the conditions of my established tank (tank 1). Tank 4 has not changed and remains high nitrates with low alkalinity and ph. Today, I checked tank 2 with my marmoratus and plants and gravel and it's PH has surprisingly crashed and it also has low alkalinity (no nitrates though).
Nothing really has changed since the last year, except me bringing tank 4 out and putting water and plants in it. I make a habit of never sharing water between tanks, the plants in tank 3 came from tank 2 a year ago, and when I set up tank 4 I seeded it with plants from tank 3.
Based on my experiment of adding gravel to tank 3 and seeing tank 3's conditions improve, I was sure that lack of substrate was what caused the poor water quality, but now tank 2 which has always had good water quality and gravel has low PH and Alkalinity.
What is even more strange and crazy is that while I was testing the quality of tank 4 today I found two relatively mature larvae in it which appeared to be totally fine (from eggs I must have missed). The nitrates in that tank are off the chart (super pink), the PH is around 5. Also, I am unaware of there being any significant microfauna in that tank.
What do you think is causing the PH of Tank 2 to crash? I am doing water changes to deal with the problem, but to me frequent changes is more a treatment of symptoms than cure for the root cause. Has anyone had the experience where the alkalinity and PH of one of their stable and established tanks crashed?
Also, if Larvae in their most delicate stage can survive in the conditions which killed an adult who could have escaped the water if she wanted, what killed the newt?
