Problems and How to solve them:
Brine
Shrimp Eggs Not Hatching:
Filters
not working/water not flowing properly:
All
or most fish in one tank are suddenly dead:
Usually a
problem in recently cleaned tanks, or overstocked tanks.
Monitor N levels monthly and
note level on tank. When a tank has
detectable nitrites:
-
add 5-15 ml of
Prime (more directions on bottle of Prime)
-
Add another
filter
-
Move some fish to
another tank
-
Recheck N next
day, continue above steps until problem solved
-
If above doesn’t
work, can also reduce N levels by emptying 1/3 of the water in the tank and
refilling, daily.
The most effective method of
reducing nitrates seems to be reducing the number of fish per tank on crowded
tanks. When putting an extra filter on
the tank, make sure it’s grungy (= more bacteria to help break down the N). If you have time, you can avoid having
nitrite problems on newly set up tanks by stocking them with a couple
unimportant large fish until the N cycle gets established (~2 weeks), then
moving the stocked fish. When cleaning
filters, don’t clean everything really well (leave the box a little slimy,
don’t change the charcoal and angel hair at the same time, and put a small
piece of old angel hair in with the new stuff).
Potentially disastrous if it
happens to all Brine shrimp jugs at once.
Backup food is in the freezer (frozen Daphnia) for the larger babies,
preferentially feed any living brine shrimp to the smaller babies, and mix with
paramecium from the small tank in the courtyard.
Check:
-
lightbulb is on (eggs need 24 hour light) – set up another in
case they’re not getting enough light
-
air supply is
working and hoses aren’t blocked up (set up with electric pumps if it fails, or
always have half on electric air in case this happens)
-
temperature of waterbaths should be
between 27 and 29 degrees C. Adjust as
necessary with screwdriver, on the tops of the heaters, make sure the heater is
working (more heaters in a marked box in the mainlab)
-
water in the waterbath is clean enough to allow light
-
salt level of the water should be between 28-32 ppt. Adjust by
adding salt or water as necessary. If
adding salt, allow some time for it to completely dissolve before checking
again.
-
Scrub jugs out
with cloth. Sometimes they get slimy with bacteria.
-
Make sure you’re
using dechlorinated water for all steps
Eggs are currently on a 24
hour hatching/feeding cycle. I used to
have them on a 48 hour cycle, but was having a lot of problems with them dying
too fast/going bad. Seems to be going
ok, haven’t had problems for the past year.
Check whether it’s a single
filter or a bunch in one area.
If single:
-
check if it’s
plugged in (make sure it’s not a new baby tank and therefore supposed to be
unplugged)
-
check power bar
is working
-
jiggle motor fan
with finger to get it working again (sometimes they jam)
-
check u-tube and
downspout are attached properly near the motor and are sucking up water
(sometimes the filter is on, but no water is cycling – especially important to
check after cleaning filters)
-
check that the
downspout isn’t blocked (plant material/dead fish/mesh clogged with dirt)
-
check for broken
parts and discard broken bits, re-assemble filter with new part (there’s boxes
of filter parts in one of the rooms, including motors, bodies, fans etc)
If bunched:
-
follow the power
to where it doesn’t work (the power bar has probably gotten wet or there’s a
short somewhere)
-
determine where the problem is (shorting filter unit or power
bar, wet power bar, wet lights etc) and fix it.
There are fuse boxes in the hallway for rooms 1421 and 1433. Room 1434’s are in the frog room (1422), and
the rusty cold room is outside near the door of the upstairs area. Look for an obvious problem first (water in powerbar), otherwise isolate by unplugging everything
affected, flipping the switch back to on (either in the fusebox,
or at the plug-in point (red button), depending on the room) and plugging
things in one at a time. Don’t
electrocute yourself.
-
Jump start all
filters that don’t automatically restart themselves, but do it after you’ve
sorted the problem out or you’ll be restarting things all day.
Horrifically bad if this
happens and needs to be fixed immediately or all the fish will die (Not a good
thing). Needs to be
fixed within the day.
-
Check that the
air conditioner is on and working. If
it’s broken or blowing out warm air, check the settings. If they’re set above 20, turn down. If they’re set below 20, something’s wrong
with the air conditioner. If it’s the
air conditioner in the Valentine room, try turning it off and then back
on. Wait to see if it starts blowing
cool air. If it’s during the week, hop
down to see Don or Bruce in the shop and ask them to have a look. If they can’t fix or they’re not around, phone
plant ops ‘trouble calls’ (ext 2-2173) immediately,
and tell them it’s crucial (for some reason this always happens on a weekend or
late Friday afternoon).
-
If
air-conditioner is working (blowing out cold air), make sure all the doors and
windows to the room are closed. On hot
days the rooms will heat up if you leave the doors open.
-
check the
insulation on the windows and fix if it comes apart (duct tape, Styrofoam,
cardboard and garbage bags are the current insulation)
The morgue has an alarm for
when the temperature is too low or high (set according to points we
program). While you’re re-setting the
points on the inside of the room, you can temporarily turn down the sound of
the alarm with a screwdriver (the alarm is on the outside wall of the morgue,
with a little red light. It can be very
loud). During a power failure, these might
go screwy, so re-check after power outages.
The other rooms need to go by how it feels (no alarm, just temp
gauges).
Not a good sign. Move any remaining fish while you sort out
what happened.
Look at the history of the
fish and tank.
New Tank:
-
Potential N
problem, check and fix
-
If the tank is
full of dead babies it could be genetic or food related, but check N, pH and
NH4 levels (buy some indicator strips, we don’t have any right now). Don’t put any more babies in here until
you’re absolutely sure none have survived (either empty and refill tank, or add
some hungry lab-raised, large adults to eat remaining bb’s), and you’re sure it
wasn’t tank related.
Established Tank:
-
Check dead fish
for signs of ick or other disease, if tank has ick, do not move remaining fish. Take out charcoal from filter and throw in
garbage, then add 27 drops of Ick treatment (blue jug
under main rm sink), follow directions on back of jug
for follow up treatment
-
If tank doesn’t
have ick, Move any remaining fish to a new tank. Might be NH4 spike, N spike, or some other
chemical that got into the tank. I
actually have never been able to figure out what went wrong when this happens
(unless it turns out to be N) because it only happens once a year with
lab-raised fish
-
If it’s N, don’t
clean the tank, but do sort out the N problem until it settles down, then you
can re-use for fish. You can empty half
the tank and re-fill with water, just don’t clean completely (to avoid ‘new
tank’ N issues)
-
If it’s not N,
empty most of the tank and re-fill, anyway.
Change the charcoal. Clean only if
it’s had wild fish in it.
Tank with Wild Fish:
-
If the fish have
been brought back recently (less than 2 days), it’s probably something that happened
to them when in transit (too cold, too crowded, too hot, not enough air, etc),
or the tank and water they’re used to are wildly differing pH’s. Try to match the pH of the tank to the pH of
their lake (within 0.5 – indicator strips are accurate enough). Also check the NH4 and N levels in the tanks
just to be sure, add 5-15 ml of prime as precaution. Decide whether to move them or not.
-
If fish are wild,
but have been in the lab for more than 2 days, follow the same directions
listed for an established tank