# major problem with new filter



## BASSFISHERMAN (Feb 22, 2004)

It killed my fish!
I installed a new fake eheim 2028 canister on a 55g with a 5" smallmouth bass yesterday and today the fish is dead. How could this be? Could the filter have contained toxic chemicals and should it have been cleaned before i put it on the tank? I'm clueless here, please help guys. thanks.


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## deezdrama (Jul 9, 2005)

Um as far as I know all you should of needed to do is rinse the filter and media real well before seting up....I would look elsewhere for your problem...check your water parameters


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## patriotsfan (Sep 6, 2005)

yea you have to rinse the media for the filter and by changing the whole filter you lost a lot of the good bacteria


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## rchan11 (May 6, 2004)

patriotsfan said:


> yea you have to rinse the media for the filter and by changing the whole filter you lost a lot of the good bacteria


The filter is NEW so there's no bacteria.


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## Derek4real (Sep 10, 2005)

^^^ That's even worse ^^^


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## BASSFISHERMAN (Feb 22, 2004)

the media i put in the filter was media from my other tanks that had already been in use + the media inside the filter i had on the 55g before i replaced it with the canister. 
all water params are normal


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## rchan11 (May 6, 2004)

I know alot of chemicals are involved in making a filter out of plastic and perhaps some were left on. You should of washed it out before installing.


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## deezdrama (Jul 9, 2005)

ive never rinsed anything but the media when getting new filters and have not had a problem- I just bought 2 of the big jebo cfs4 canisters and they work fine with no problems and I think they are a eihem fake too


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## rchan11 (May 6, 2004)

You don't know what came in contact with the filter in the factory. Perhaps someone was spraying for insects and sprayed the filter as well.


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## BASSFISHERMAN (Feb 22, 2004)

What do you guys suggest I do now?
Should I let it run for a few weeks and do waterchanges every week and hope that whatever chemicals were in it are gone? then I could test it with some cheap fish i guess.


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## P-22 (Oct 5, 2005)

bassfisherman said:


> What do you guys suggest I do now?
> Should I let it run for a few weeks and do waterchanges every week and hope that whatever chemicals were in it are gone? then I could test it with some cheap fish i guess.


i think you may be over reacting to the lose, the fish may have just died from stress of being put into a tank or another cause unseen from water perameters, did you catch this smallmouth out of a lake? was he flashing/jumpy? did you add some salt before putting him in? id be shocked if it were something in the filter unless you bought it from a very sketchy source on ebay or something, id say that has less then a 1% chance of being the cause of your(probably better put the fish's) problem.


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## BASSFISHERMAN (Feb 22, 2004)

P-22 said:


> What do you guys suggest I do now?
> Should I let it run for a few weeks and do waterchanges every week and hope that whatever chemicals were in it are gone? then I could test it with some cheap fish i guess.


i think you may be over reacting to the lose, the fish may have just died from stress of being put into a tank or another cause unseen from water perameters, did you catch this smallmouth out of a lake? was he flashing/jumpy? did you add some salt before putting him in? id be shocked if it were something in the filter unless you bought it from a very sketchy source on ebay or something, id say that has less then a 1% chance of being the cause of your(probably better put the fish's) problem.
[/quote]
I had the fish for like a month and it was eating like a pig and swimming around normally before i put the filter on. I caught it in a lake.
The place i got the filter from on ebay has sold tons of these and received many positive feedbacks for them.


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## dipset.taliban (Sep 8, 2005)

i got a fake 2028 and put it right on my tank... no problems
probably from something else.. maybe lack of oxygen??


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## BASSFISHERMAN (Feb 22, 2004)

dipset.taliban said:


> i got a fake 2028 and put it right on my tank... no problems
> probably from something else.. maybe lack of oxygen??


how could the fish go from acting normally to dead in just one day if it was a lack of oxygen?


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## dipset.taliban (Sep 8, 2005)

do u have an airpump or powerhead?
what filters were u using before u installed the bootleg 2028


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## BASSFISHERMAN (Feb 22, 2004)

dipset.taliban said:


> do u have an airpump or powerhead?
> what filters were u using before u installed the bootleg 2028


penguin 330 and no airpump or powerhead


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## P-22 (Oct 5, 2005)

bassfisherman said:


> do u have an airpump or powerhead?
> what filters were u using before u installed the bootleg 2028


penguin 330 and no airpump or powerhead
[/quote]

that's not a ton of oxygen, i still dont think you can discount the amt. of stress that may have been put on the fish making a transition from a lake to a tank even if he where seemingly healthy for a couple of weeks. maybe even part of the diet you were giving him, do you qaurantine your feeders? the conditions in whatever lake you pulled him out of were most likely light years different than your tank. i guess im just very hesitant to put the blame on the filter


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## BASSFISHERMAN (Feb 22, 2004)

P-22 said:


> do u have an airpump or powerhead?
> what filters were u using before u installed the bootleg 2028


penguin 330 and no airpump or powerhead
[/quote]

that's not a ton of oxygen, i still dont think you can discount the amt. of stress that may have been put on the fish making a transition from a lake to a tank even if he where seemingly healthy for a couple of weeks. maybe even part of the diet you were giving him, do you qaurantine your feeders? the conditions in whatever lake you pulled him out of were most likely light years different than your tank. i guess im just very hesitant to put the blame on the filter
[/quote]
Actually, on a coldwater tank (because colder water holds more oxygen) with a small bio-load the penguin should have provided ample oxygen and circulation. Remember, it was a 5" bass in 55 gallons of water. I had him for a month, not just a couple weeks.
I never gave him feeders. He only got fish fillet, shrimp, and earthworms and loved it.
It really bothers me that this fish simply dropped dead on me within a span of a single day which was coincidently right after i put the filter on.


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## dipset.taliban (Sep 8, 2005)

well theres ur problem... u had surface agitation from the penquin producing oxygen.

unless ur output from the fake 2028 was above the water to produce surface agitation no oxygen was being provided into the tank.

also ive taken bass out of lakes, river and put em in fishtanks and they've liven years.


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## BASSFISHERMAN (Feb 22, 2004)

dipset.taliban said:


> well theres ur problem... u had surface agitation from the penquin producing oxygen.
> 
> unless ur output from the fake 2028 was above the water to produce surface agitation no oxygen was being provided into the tank.
> 
> also ive taken bass out of lakes, river and put em in fishtanks and they've liven years.


i dont have the spray bar on the output and the water sprays out at the surface creating tons of surface agitation, more than the penguin. I have also had bass live for years without any problems. In fact I had a bass live through a blackout of over 36 hours with absolutely no circulation at all. I think it could have even gone much longer as bass are such tough fish. That's why this situation bothers me so much.


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## dipset.taliban (Sep 8, 2005)

hmm u got me.. maybe he just wanted to croak


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## BASSFISHERMAN (Feb 22, 2004)

does anybody else have any ideas?


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## BASSFISHERMAN (Feb 22, 2004)

bump


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## P-22 (Oct 5, 2005)

bassfisherman said:


> bump


i really dont think youre going to ever get a pin point answer here, i think you just have to accept that it happened, some animals (never heard of it in fish) just dont cope with change well, a dove losing its' pair, a parrot changing owners... maybe this specific fish just missed his huge lake and bite it after a month

also a 5" bass is pretty darn young and wouldnt handle the transition as well as a larger one obviously, even if he was seemingly doing well


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## BASSFISHERMAN (Feb 22, 2004)

P-22 said:


> bump


i really dont think youre going to ever get a pin point answer here, i think you just have to accept that it happened, some animals (never heard of it in fish) just dont cope with change well, a dove losing its' pair, a parrot changing owners... maybe this specific fish just missed his huge lake and bite it after a month

also a 5" bass is pretty darn young and wouldnt handle the transition as well as a larger one obviously, even if he was seemingly doing well
[/quote]
We'll see...tomorrow I'm getting some cheap fish to test out the water again. I'll let you guys know what the results are.


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## BASSFISHERMAN (Feb 22, 2004)

I got a couple dozen small feeders on tuesday to test the water out and did a 50% water change right before and tested my water after the water change. I used two different test kits. Here are the results: ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 5, pH 7.3, temp 71. And guess what? every single feeder is now dead.


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## dipset.taliban (Sep 8, 2005)

hmmmm sounds like ur fucked
lol 
is there any chlorine in the water????


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## boozehound420 (Apr 18, 2005)

thats messed up!!!, what about oxygen??

do you use a dechlorinator


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## BASSFISHERMAN (Feb 22, 2004)

yes i treat my water with seachem prime and my other tank with rbp's is fine with it

plenty of oxygen as this is a 320 gph canister with the output right at the surface


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## boozehound420 (Apr 18, 2005)

mine aswell start the tank over again with a new cycle with everything scrubbed clean...unless somebody else knows what it could be.


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## BASSFISHERMAN (Feb 22, 2004)

boozehound420 said:


> mine aswell start the tank over again with a new cycle with everything scrubbed clean...unless somebody else knows what it could be.


but my point is it's something in the filter, not from the tank. how should i clean my filter to get out whatever harmful substance is causing every fish to die?


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## dipset.taliban (Sep 8, 2005)

well it should have already leached in to the water....
i would put the intake in sum new fresh water and put the output down the drain and let it rinse itself out


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## BASSFISHERMAN (Feb 22, 2004)

dipset.taliban said:


> well it should have already leached in to the water....
> i would put the intake in sum new fresh water and put the output down the drain and let it rinse itself out


ok i'll try that


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