Hi all, I have a major problem with the chemistry of my water. I have a 55 gallon with a Whisper Power 60 filter along with an underground filter. The tank has been up and running for just about 4 months. The tank contains 5 penta-barbs (ca. 1 in. each), 3 balas (ca. 4 in.), 1 albino gourami (ca. 6 in.), 1 powder blue gourami (ca. 2 in.), 1 fuzzy tiger pleco (ca. 3 in.), and 1 common pleco (ca. 8 in.). I had been keeping up with the tank with testing every couple days at first, then I started slacking because everything was good. Well for the past 3 weeks I've been battling to get my ammonia levels down (my test kit has a color coded card, yellow being 0ppm, gradually shading down to dark green, 8.0ppm). When I tested the water, I watched the colore change all through the scale, past green to blue. Nitrite is 0ppm. pH I hope is 6.0 (the reference card only goes to 6 and is light yellow, my water is a little more golden). I've used ammo-lock to detoxify the ammonia, and have been adding stress-zyme to help establish more bacteria (stress-zyme for about a week). I know the problem started when I cleaned the filter bio-bags. I'm kind of a newbie, and didn't quite understand the whole biological filter thing. Well, I know I need to do a partial water change, but how much? I don't want to get rid of whatever bacteria I have! Any suggestions on chemicals, or bacterial additives I could use to help stablize my levels? I'd like to get an external bio-filter that hangs off the back of the tank, with like a sand substrate, but heard they're expensive. Any suggestions are sincerely welcomed!
Sincerely,
Slowly Killing Myfish
Sincerely,
Slowly Killing Myfish