I cant take it, These Parameters are INSANE

Hagermanfd

AC Members
Jan 19, 2007
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I have been in a constant battle with cycling my tank. I added 2 packets of bio-spira to my 55 gallon tank to try and balance the tank out, It has been running since the end of december. Today my parameters were, ph 6.2, ammonia 8.0, NO3 is 10, NO 2 is 5. I did a 40 % water change this morning, then a 25% change tonight and they are about the same. I added prime ammonia remover, oh and also after the water change why water turned very cloudy. I am running two power whisper filters a 60 and 30, but i had to change my cartridges because the water flow was very poor, I rinsed off my cartrdige in the water like it says too keep the bacteria but by doing that it made more of a mess, so as of now both filters are running the fish have been surprisingly well no signs of wackyness or such but i am ready to pull the plug because i dont know what else to do. Any ideas?
 
8.0 ammonia would kill any fish in the tank in a matter of minutes. I expect he means .8, which is still bad, but fish can survive it.
 
When you rinsed the cartridges in the water do you mean in the tank?
 
readings coming out of tap water are ph= 7.2 no 2 = 0, no 3 =10, ammonia = 0... I am using the api test kit, and my ammonia reading in the tank is 8.0!!! it lights up bright green in the test tube and on the card along with it is 8.0 this is insane, the fish are still alive, how i have no idea, they either are mutated superman fish or whatever but i did two water changes today and i am ready to do another to see what happens, this time i think i am going to go for a 50 % change but then im going to lose all my bacteria i just put in i guess which is not good.
 
you sure you're testing right? I think an ammonia level of 8.0 would be bad for a human, no less than a fish.
 
Have you ever used ammo-lock?

IF you have it is possible you are getting false readings.
 
yeah i rinsed them in the tank, bad or no?

you rinsed the filters in the tank ? ummmm no you need to swish them around in the bucket of water you just took out of the tank :) if you rinsed them in the tank your tank would get pretty messed up :lol:
 
No wonder your ammonia is sky high. Your throwing all the junk right back into the tank. So whatever was in there is now doubled. You're supposed to rinse it in tank water but the water you've pulled out during the gravel vacumming.

You're going to need to do as many water changes as possible to get those levels down. If you could do 50% in the morning and 50% at night it shouldn't take too long.

Don't worry to much about the bacteria. It doesn't live in the water column,its in the filter on the cartridges.
 
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