Hi. I'm having a very frustrating problem and I'm at a loss to explain what's wrong.
I'm trying to do a routine water change for my salt water tank. It's 150 gallons, so I'm trying to mix about 30 gallons of salt water. I do this every couple weeks.
I use a clean 32 gallon barrel, like the ones you'd take the garbage out in. I fill it with tap water (not RO/DI, unfortunately), dechlorinate it, get the temperature up, etc... Once that is done, I add the salt. The pump circulates it for a day or two, I add some buffer, circulate a bit more, check the pH and salinity, then I'm ready to go.
This is how I've done it for a year now.
A week ago, I was about to add some of this newly mixed water to my tank. For kicks, I decided to measure the ammonia in the new mix: 2.0 ppm! Hmm.. that can't be right. I use my other test kit.. same thing! I dig through my closet and pull out yet ANOTHER test it (yes, I'm serious): same thing! I waited another day or so... 2.5 ppm! (nitrate and nitrate were 0.0)
I check the tap water... ammonia is 0.0.
Hmm... must be a fluke. I dump out the 30 gallons of water. I go to the hardware store, buy another barrel, clean it out thoroughly, cleaned out my pump as best I could, then started the process again.
Within two hours of mixing it, the ammonia was over 1.0 ppm. After day two, it was at 2.0... now, at day 3, it's at 2.5. I tripled checked this with three test kits (two different brands). The nitrite in the barrel is 0.0 and the nitrate is 0.0.
(If it matters, temperature is 77.8 F, pH is 8.2, salinity is 1.023.)
What's scary is that this may have been happening all along and I just didn't know; I may have assumed the newly mixed water was fine, and when I was actually siphoning out 0.0 ammonia water I could have been replacing it with 2.5 ppm ammonia water.
My question:
What could be causing this water in the barrel to have such a huge ammonia spike so quickly???
In the meantime, I ended up going to freaking Petco and wasted money on 30 gallons of pre-mixed salt water just to get me by until this problem is solved. (Maybe I'll get a good answer soon so that I can return the water!
)
Thanks everyone!
I'm trying to do a routine water change for my salt water tank. It's 150 gallons, so I'm trying to mix about 30 gallons of salt water. I do this every couple weeks.
I use a clean 32 gallon barrel, like the ones you'd take the garbage out in. I fill it with tap water (not RO/DI, unfortunately), dechlorinate it, get the temperature up, etc... Once that is done, I add the salt. The pump circulates it for a day or two, I add some buffer, circulate a bit more, check the pH and salinity, then I'm ready to go.
This is how I've done it for a year now.
A week ago, I was about to add some of this newly mixed water to my tank. For kicks, I decided to measure the ammonia in the new mix: 2.0 ppm! Hmm.. that can't be right. I use my other test kit.. same thing! I dig through my closet and pull out yet ANOTHER test it (yes, I'm serious): same thing! I waited another day or so... 2.5 ppm! (nitrate and nitrate were 0.0)
I check the tap water... ammonia is 0.0.
Hmm... must be a fluke. I dump out the 30 gallons of water. I go to the hardware store, buy another barrel, clean it out thoroughly, cleaned out my pump as best I could, then started the process again.
Within two hours of mixing it, the ammonia was over 1.0 ppm. After day two, it was at 2.0... now, at day 3, it's at 2.5. I tripled checked this with three test kits (two different brands). The nitrite in the barrel is 0.0 and the nitrate is 0.0.
(If it matters, temperature is 77.8 F, pH is 8.2, salinity is 1.023.)
What's scary is that this may have been happening all along and I just didn't know; I may have assumed the newly mixed water was fine, and when I was actually siphoning out 0.0 ammonia water I could have been replacing it with 2.5 ppm ammonia water.
My question:
What could be causing this water in the barrel to have such a huge ammonia spike so quickly???
In the meantime, I ended up going to freaking Petco and wasted money on 30 gallons of pre-mixed salt water just to get me by until this problem is solved. (Maybe I'll get a good answer soon so that I can return the water!
)Thanks everyone!
