ammonia is back, WHYYYY!YY!Y!

[gagaliya]

i am so pissed. About 10 days ago my ammonia finally dropped to 0. I continued testing every day onward, and ammonia stayed at 0. Nitrite spiked and were going down slowly. So looks like my tank is finally getting cycled right??? WRONG!

today while doing testing, my ammonia reading is back to 0.5ppm for no reason! i have not changed anything. always do water change every 3 days, feed once a day just enough for all the fish with no leftover etc. Havent cleaned the filter or anything. So why is ammonia going back up!?!?!?

The only thing is i have one of those #*(@#* biorb. Everyday i hate this thing more and more. Is it because it doesnt have enough gravel for the bacteria to grow on as the nitrite bacteria do a hostile takeover on the ammonia bacteria? seems very unlikely though, i have 6 zebra danio and 4 whiteclouds and have filled the base with a large surface area of the special gravel that is designed for bacteria to live on.

So what gives? think i should just ebay this piece of #@*# bowl to some betta lover and buy a regular 10 gallon instead? And to think, i spent almost $250 on this biorb + its special accessories...

 

[mishi8]

Have you tested your tap water? What is it treated with: chlorine or chloramine? What conditioner do you use? Have you always added (enough) conditioner during water changes? What are your tank parameters? Any nitrate readings?

You mentioned that you haven't cleaned your filter. Have you ever rinsed it out (in old tank water) during water changes? Have you replaced your filter cartridges at any point since setting up the kit?

Any type of gravel will do for growing bacteria, however the largest colony will grow in your filter media. Which size of Biorb do you have? 30 or 60 litres?

 

[gagaliya]

i have the 30L/8gallon version. always used biosafe for tap water. For the last 10 days it has been 0 ammonia, 1 -> 0.5 nitrite, and 10-30 nitrate.

No have not touched the filter at all in the past 10 days. It's just a ugf sponge filter.

 

[hurricanejedi]

I'm doing a fishless and something like this happened to me. The only thing I did was a 30% water change with the filter off. Still no cause for having my ammonia go up again. I think today it should be back down to 0 but it took 5 days for it to recover from whatever happened.

 

[Roan Art]

What's your pH at?

Roan

 

[Star_Rider]

I have to agree..test your tapwater..

if they use chloramine you will get a positive ammonia reading

you could try treating the tap and testing before you put it in the tank

 

[gagaliya]

my ph from tap water is at exactly neutral - 7.

the puzzling part is if the ammonia is just from chloramine / biosafe reaction then why dont i get it for the last 10 days? i should have the same 0.5 everyday not 0 for the past 10 days.

i will test the tap water when i get home.