Sudden jump in Amonia

[TonyB]

hi all

been running my tank for about 2 1/2 half months, had it all, deaths, births (!), cloudy water etc etc

anyway, for the last 3 weeks or so, everythings been good. Fantastically clear water etc etc

Last night, i noticed that the gravel was quite dirty so i thought i would give it a clean as best as i could. I also carried out a 25% water change.

My weekly maintence is about 20 - 25 % but i missed out cleaning the gravel last week .

this morning, i checked the tank as usual, all fish are there but the water 'smells' far worse than normal, dare i say it, an amonia smell :mad: (and more than it did before the water change last night)

I'm not too happy but i am now looking at causes. I have one, quite large plant in there (one thats attached to a piece of wood, i cant remember the name at the moment!) and the leaves are looking quite brown (the plants about a month old)

Could the plant be the problem?

To be honest, i'm quite worried about the fish at this moment. I always thought that water changes help keep amonia levels (well, partly anyway)

[TKOS]

Did you change the filter media?

[Grassguy]

Did you test for ammonia, or does the water just smell?

[JSchmidt]

It would probably be a good idea to test ammonia/nitrite, but I'd be surprised if those are the problems. Even tanks dosed up to 5-7 ppm ammonia don't have an ammonia odor. I'd be looking for other causes... blue-green algae (cyanobacteria), for example, can make a tank particularly stinky. The plant seems a likely culprit, too... Might want to check the underside of the hood; sometimes if food or algae is attached to that, it can stink.

HTH,
Jim