I can't believe it - New Tank Syndrome in established tank

M

MamaBarb

Still crazy after all these years
Oct 17, 2003
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Southwest Ranches, FL
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Well - this is a first for me, and I need some help. In almost 15 years of keeping fish, I have never had New Tank Syndrome. Now I have it in an established tank, and I don't know what to do.

I have a 75 gal that I've had for 3 years, with 2 emperor filters. I have 2 HUGE tinfoil barbs, a pimeloid cat, 4 corys. Over the past 2 months, I have added a total of 6 gouramis - 2 blue, 2 gold and 2 red flame. Everything has been fine. My usual routine for years has been to vacuum & 25% water change every 2 weeks, then to rinse the filters and do 50% water change about every 2 months.

I did the big cleaning a few days ago and the tank started turning cloudy last nite. I noticed it when I did bedtime feeding. I dumped some ammolock in, as I didn't have time to do testing & all at that point. This morning, I couldn't see thru the water at all - white cloudy water. I grabbed the test kit - ammonia 4-5ppm. nitrite .5 and ph was all the way down to 6. The gouramis seemed to be fine, the barbs and the cat were breathing a little fast.

I did a 25% water change, added more ammolock, added ammo chips & fresh carbon to the media baskets' added bacteria starter and Prime.After a couple of hours, the water still hadn't cleared, but the fish weren't breathing hard anymore.

I plan to test twice a day, do daily 25% changes and keep adding bacteria. I will also add ammolock every other day, if the levels require it.

Am I on the right course? Can anyone suggest a way to clear this up more quickly? Becuz of the size of the barbs and the cat, I don't have another tank I move them to.

All help is appreciated.
 
I would quit using the amminolock and start doing bigger water changes.. It does sound like you might have over cleaned (your bio-load might be a little too high now that you have added the new fish, do you have bio-media replacing the carbon in the filter?) anyway.. at 4ppm ammonia I would do a 75% water change to get the ammonia level down to .5 ppm. no amniolock nessisary.. water changes might just become your new freind.. sorry to hear about you bad luck.. :thud:
 
I would stop the Ammo Lock. Just let the ammonia, stay ammonia. Test twice daily and do water changes as needed. Try 50% twice daily. IF that doest bring down the levels, do more. Your water pro bally got cloudy because the bacteria is re forming. But at 5ppm of ammonia, your fish really should be dead. Maybe its really less. What kind of test kit are you using?
 
What brand of "bacteria starter" are you using? Anything but Bio Spira and it would be best to stop adding that as well. Most, like the brand "Cycle" are considered worthless.
 
I am using a Master test kit from Aquarium Pharmaceuticals. I did some more reading in the test kit paperwork, and it says becuz of the reagents used, it will still read high ammonia if there is ammolock present. Apparently the ammolock doesn't get rid of the ammonia, just neutralizes it - but it's still ammonia and the bacteria still have to eat it up. So the high ammonia (I'm still showing 4-5ppm tonite) may be a false reading.

For bacteria starter, I am using Proquatics. It's what I use all the time when doing new tank start up and regular maintenance - not sure if it really works, but I've never ha d a problem.

So, ammonia is the same tonite, nitrites down a little and the ph has swung the other way - went from 6.0 this morning to like 7.8 tonite. Fish seem to be ok but the water is still really cloudy.

Based on you guys' advice, I will stop the ammolock, and step up water changes.

Another though just occured to me - with the weird readings I'm getting and the fact that the fish only stressed little bit this morning - could it be my test kit? Some of the reagents are a couple years old. I don't use them very often - do they "go bad"? I mean - ther's no doubt I have a problem, I'm just wondering about the accuracy of my test kit.

Thanks for your help.
 
It sounds like you are having bacteria bloom. Just keep up the water changes. It lasted around 2 weeks for me before I could see my fish swimming around happily. I had problems with ammonia at that time too. I'm amazed that they all survived :-D I also used ammolock too I stopped using it and switched over to Prime and viola ammonia came down within few days. I was surprised at it. Was it already going down or was it prime that helped? I don't know but all I know is that I'll be using Prime until it fails me lol.
Good luck with water changes.
 
I seem to recall reading that Prime can cause high ammonia reading levels on several different types of tests.. this is from Seachem's Prime FAQ page, hope it helps and good luck!! :)


Q: I think that my Prime™might be old because it smells like it went bad...
A: Prime™has a very distinct odor that is similar to sulfur which is completely normal. Also, the presence of small black specks is normal.

Q: I am using Prime™ to control ammonia but my test kit says it is not doing anything, in fact it looks like it added ammonia! What is going on?
A: A Nessler based kit will not read ammonia properly if you are using Prime™... it will look "off scale", sort of a muddy brown (incidentally a Nessler kit will not work with any other products similar to Prime™). A salicylate based kit can be used, but with caution. Under the conditions of a salicylate kit the ammonia-Prime complex will be broken down eventually giving a false reading of ammonia (same as with other products like Prime™), so the key with a salicylate kit is to take the reading right away. However, the best solution ;-) is to use our MultiTest: Ammonia™ kit... it uses a gas exchange sensor system which is not affected by the presence of Prime™ or other similar products. It also has the added advantage that it can detect the more dangerous free ammonia and distinguish it from total ammonia (which is both the free and ionized forms of ammonia (the ionized form is not toxic)).

Q:I tested my tap water after using Prime and came up with an ammonia reading. Is this because of chloramine? Could you explain how this works in removing chloramine?
A: Prime works by removing chlorine from the water and then binds with ammonia until it can be consumed by your biological filtration (chloramine minus chlorine = ammonia). The bond is not reversible and ammonia is still available for your bacteria to consume. Prime will not halt your cycling process.
I am going to assume that you were using a liquid based reagent test kit (Nessler based, silica). Any type of reducing agent or ammonia binder (dechlorinators, etc) will give you a false positive. You can avoid this by using our Multitest Ammonia kit (not affected by reducing agents) or you can wait to test, Prime dissipates from your system within 24 hours.

 
Thanks!

Thanks to all !!

I have been doing daily 25% water changes - PH is back to balanced (I keep abt 7.2); ammonia is 0; nitrite still has just a twinge of color but not enough to even call it .25

I cut out all the water treatments except the Prime, and a little Stress Coat - my fishies get all worked up over the frequent "invasions of the gravel sucking monster"!

I've been watching them closely (now that I can see thru the water again!) and it seems that the gourami's are pretty healthy poopers - much more so than even my big barbs. So, going forward, I'll do weekly water changes & gravel cleaning instead of every 2 weeks as had been my habit when I only had barbs & catfish in there.

Thanks again for all your advice and support. Proves again why I keep coming back to AC!

Mary
 
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