Hi Folks,
I've been reading many of the threads, stickys and FAQs, but wanted to hurry up and post also because I may be running out of time and don't want to hurt the fish, so, please bear with me if this has been answered elsewhere (I'll gladly take a link)
I have a problem similar to Dan's thread - an ammonia spike - and I'm trying to find the best way of dealing with it...
Some quick facts:
Tank is about 7 ~ 8 weeks old
36 gallon tank w/ an Aquaclear 50 filter
Water temp: 81.9 degrees
This is an African Cichlid tank - 5 "young" cichlids - all at just about an inch or less in size and we also have 4 'starter' danios (before i found out that they shouldn't be used for such a purpose.. to our defense though - the water had been 'cycling' for two weeks before we added the danios..)
I have 'cichlid salt' in the water also (added during water changes)
The fish are fed 3x's a day.. flakes in the morning, then frozen afternoon, then flakes w/ a shrimp pellet or two at night..
I'm using a Nutrafin "Mini Master Test Kit" which uses the one regent for testing ammonia, my current reading is between 1.2 and 2.4 on their color chart (more deep yellow than the orangey on their chart) and my pH is 7.8 - 8.0 - So - I know this is NOT good for them!!
"What happened" - ok... everything was fine w/ the tank until last week - and then several things 'happened'...
1) We began feeding them frozen food - adding it once a day to their 3x feeding schedule... typical bloodworm type stuff... about 1 quarter of a cube each time (they are small cubes) - all food LOOKS like it's consumed.. i cut them up into 'pellet' sized pieces - giving only about '5 pellets' worth each time...
2) We began feeding vegetables - a small leaf of romain lettuce.. a small slice of 'young sweet cucumber' - using a suction cup clip - leave it in for about 2 days and then remove any leftover - if there is any..
3) Started their first weekly treat of live ghost shrimp - added 8 tiny live ghost shrimp that they ate over the next 3 days.. (along w/ their regular 3x feedings)
4) We decided to do our first vacuuming
OK - that's where things went bad... (or at least appeared to)
I noticed a very very slight ammonia increase - not even to .25.. but we decided to do a water change and test the new vacuum. We moved a few of the decorative pieces out to be able to access a section to vacuum and went to work.. sucked up some junk, took about 20% of the water out...
Then we added the water back in (question on this at the bottom), again using the vacuum thing (Python) - added "Aquasafe" for the chlorine / chloramine, and put the deco pieces back in that we had removed..
We also rinsed off the sponge and the charcoal bag - know now that this was wrong... even worse we did it in tap water... it was just covered w/ gravel dust though.. I'm thinking I killed off lots of our bacteria in doing this. We did NOT rinse the bio-bag section though... left it alone (and slimey)
Right away we saw one of the danios was getting 'pecked' at and was near death (dead now)... he was on his side near the bottom of the tank... Initial theory was that ALL of the fish, including the danios, went to 'hide' in the remaining decoration tunnel pieces, and he got in w/ the wrong crowd and they attacked him.. (?? who knows..)
Took him out... and thought nothing of it.. The next day I decided to test the water again - just to see what a wonderful job we did of clearing the ammonia - so i was SHOCKED to see it had actually spiked up!! And then even more so to see it had gone up MORE after doing another 10% water change a day later...
We are now 3 water changes later, and there are no signs of it getting any better...
Now, after reading Dan's thread, I see folks here recommending 50% water changes (i was told by my lfs never to do more than 20%, and for my ammonia now, i really should only do 10% every couple of days) ?? ack!!
Should we start on the 'once a day - 30% - 50%' water change cycle??
If we DO do a water change, should I go ahead and vacuum at the same time?? Do we have tooo much 'stuff' at the bottom (you can't see it when you look in the tank, but some was sucked up when we used the vac).. or do we need that 'stuff' to stay in there to help promote bacteria?? Again, lfs said to only vac once a month - and only a 1/3 of the tank at a time when we do..
If we use the Python to do the water change - WHEN do we add the chlorine / chloramine conditioner?? To the existing tank water before we start adding the new water?? To the tank after the new water has been added? Or abolish the Python altogether and go back to using buckets and condition each bucket.. (we're using tap water)
Interesting note on the conditioner - I saw in Dan's thread that too much conditioner can give a false positive on ammonia - and i have taken a "better safe than sorry" approach when adding it.. I'd put about a capful for each 4 gallon bucket change - while it looks like that dosage usually treats 20 gallons .. :-O Maybe that's throwing things off??
I have to say - I don't have the obvious signs of trouble like the gulping of air at the top of the tank.. everyone SEEMS to be swimming fine.. one has gotten a lil more adventurous - less shy.. swimming around more - and one (electric yellow) has calmed down a bit, not speeding all around checking everything - but still swims around... and the rest are behaving the same as they always have... so - hard to tell...
I apologize for the long post - and I appreciate all the folks that have read this far - and ANY help or advice you can provide:
In summary:
High ammonia (almost 2.4 on chart)
Could it be false positive from conditioner?? How will we know?
Should we start daily 30% water changes? (and not add the extra conditioner - or any conditioner at all)
Should we vacuum as much as we can while doing the changes?
If we use this Python system - when should we add conditioner to the tank - before adding the new water - or after (if before, do you add conditioner based on just the amount of NEW water you are adding - or you tank size - i.e. 36 gallons in this case - 1 1/2 capfuls) - or just go back to buckets...
THANK YOU SOOO MUCH for any help!
I've been reading many of the threads, stickys and FAQs, but wanted to hurry up and post also because I may be running out of time and don't want to hurt the fish, so, please bear with me if this has been answered elsewhere (I'll gladly take a link)
I have a problem similar to Dan's thread - an ammonia spike - and I'm trying to find the best way of dealing with it...
Some quick facts:
Tank is about 7 ~ 8 weeks old
36 gallon tank w/ an Aquaclear 50 filter
Water temp: 81.9 degrees
This is an African Cichlid tank - 5 "young" cichlids - all at just about an inch or less in size and we also have 4 'starter' danios (before i found out that they shouldn't be used for such a purpose.. to our defense though - the water had been 'cycling' for two weeks before we added the danios..)
I have 'cichlid salt' in the water also (added during water changes)
The fish are fed 3x's a day.. flakes in the morning, then frozen afternoon, then flakes w/ a shrimp pellet or two at night..
I'm using a Nutrafin "Mini Master Test Kit" which uses the one regent for testing ammonia, my current reading is between 1.2 and 2.4 on their color chart (more deep yellow than the orangey on their chart) and my pH is 7.8 - 8.0 - So - I know this is NOT good for them!!
"What happened" - ok... everything was fine w/ the tank until last week - and then several things 'happened'...
1) We began feeding them frozen food - adding it once a day to their 3x feeding schedule... typical bloodworm type stuff... about 1 quarter of a cube each time (they are small cubes) - all food LOOKS like it's consumed.. i cut them up into 'pellet' sized pieces - giving only about '5 pellets' worth each time...
2) We began feeding vegetables - a small leaf of romain lettuce.. a small slice of 'young sweet cucumber' - using a suction cup clip - leave it in for about 2 days and then remove any leftover - if there is any..
3) Started their first weekly treat of live ghost shrimp - added 8 tiny live ghost shrimp that they ate over the next 3 days.. (along w/ their regular 3x feedings)
4) We decided to do our first vacuuming
OK - that's where things went bad... (or at least appeared to)
I noticed a very very slight ammonia increase - not even to .25.. but we decided to do a water change and test the new vacuum. We moved a few of the decorative pieces out to be able to access a section to vacuum and went to work.. sucked up some junk, took about 20% of the water out...
Then we added the water back in (question on this at the bottom), again using the vacuum thing (Python) - added "Aquasafe" for the chlorine / chloramine, and put the deco pieces back in that we had removed..
We also rinsed off the sponge and the charcoal bag - know now that this was wrong... even worse we did it in tap water... it was just covered w/ gravel dust though.. I'm thinking I killed off lots of our bacteria in doing this. We did NOT rinse the bio-bag section though... left it alone (and slimey)
Right away we saw one of the danios was getting 'pecked' at and was near death (dead now)... he was on his side near the bottom of the tank... Initial theory was that ALL of the fish, including the danios, went to 'hide' in the remaining decoration tunnel pieces, and he got in w/ the wrong crowd and they attacked him.. (?? who knows..)
Took him out... and thought nothing of it.. The next day I decided to test the water again - just to see what a wonderful job we did of clearing the ammonia - so i was SHOCKED to see it had actually spiked up!! And then even more so to see it had gone up MORE after doing another 10% water change a day later...
We are now 3 water changes later, and there are no signs of it getting any better...
Now, after reading Dan's thread, I see folks here recommending 50% water changes (i was told by my lfs never to do more than 20%, and for my ammonia now, i really should only do 10% every couple of days) ?? ack!!
Should we start on the 'once a day - 30% - 50%' water change cycle??
If we DO do a water change, should I go ahead and vacuum at the same time?? Do we have tooo much 'stuff' at the bottom (you can't see it when you look in the tank, but some was sucked up when we used the vac).. or do we need that 'stuff' to stay in there to help promote bacteria?? Again, lfs said to only vac once a month - and only a 1/3 of the tank at a time when we do..
If we use the Python to do the water change - WHEN do we add the chlorine / chloramine conditioner?? To the existing tank water before we start adding the new water?? To the tank after the new water has been added? Or abolish the Python altogether and go back to using buckets and condition each bucket.. (we're using tap water)
Interesting note on the conditioner - I saw in Dan's thread that too much conditioner can give a false positive on ammonia - and i have taken a "better safe than sorry" approach when adding it.. I'd put about a capful for each 4 gallon bucket change - while it looks like that dosage usually treats 20 gallons .. :-O Maybe that's throwing things off??
I have to say - I don't have the obvious signs of trouble like the gulping of air at the top of the tank.. everyone SEEMS to be swimming fine.. one has gotten a lil more adventurous - less shy.. swimming around more - and one (electric yellow) has calmed down a bit, not speeding all around checking everything - but still swims around... and the rest are behaving the same as they always have... so - hard to tell...
I apologize for the long post - and I appreciate all the folks that have read this far - and ANY help or advice you can provide:
In summary:
High ammonia (almost 2.4 on chart)
Could it be false positive from conditioner?? How will we know?
Should we start daily 30% water changes? (and not add the extra conditioner - or any conditioner at all)
Should we vacuum as much as we can while doing the changes?
If we use this Python system - when should we add conditioner to the tank - before adding the new water - or after (if before, do you add conditioner based on just the amount of NEW water you are adding - or you tank size - i.e. 36 gallons in this case - 1 1/2 capfuls) - or just go back to buckets...
THANK YOU SOOO MUCH for any help!
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