Ammonia Poisoning

maronov

maronov

AC Members
Dec 14, 2006
356
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0
New York, NY
I made an absurdly stupid mistake of cleaning both my filters at the same time and pretty much crashed the ammonia-nitrite-nitrate cycle in my tank. I realized this when I noticed that my Oto's gills were bright red, like they were bleeding. Ammonia test was 0.25-0.50ppm, so I immediately changed 50% of the water. So basically, my tank is now going through a fishy cycle except, oh yeah, my tank is fully stocked! I do have plants which I suppose should alleviate the situation somewhat, but I'm still not really sure what to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
I know some have had mixed reviews, but I had great success cycling a tank with Bio-Spira. It's not available at a lot of the big stores like Petsmart and Petco, but try your LFS, they might carry it. It has to be refrigerated until use but it worked like a charm for me. My new tank was cycled in 3 days. Good luck!
 
I'm just a newbie but I'm fairly sure it would help if you try and find someone in your area to give you some filter media from their cycled tank -- if you could get a filter pad full of bacteria then hopefully that would sort things out fairly quick. Fingers crossed for you & your fishies!
 
Lesson learned. It's a mistake that lots of people make. How did you clean the filters, and what kind of filters do you have? Did you rinse the media in tap water? You may just be experiencing a mini-cycle, where you have bacteria in your system, but just not enough to keep up with the bioload (since bacteria grow on all surfaces in the tank, and not just filter media). In that case, you shouldn't be cycling for too long, the bio filter just needs to catch up. And yes, your plants should help a little.
 
Did you clean them in tank water.? Water changes should be enough, iv cleaned all my filters at once and did'nt have any problems......:)
 
I gave them a thorough cleaning with tap water to get rid of the sludge building up in the tubes. I don't know what I was thinking, really. So you guys are saying I should just do frequent water changes? Are we talking 50% daily, or 20% daily, or what? And will the bloody color of my Oto's gills go away over time?
 
Change as much water as is necessary to keep ammonia and nitrite under .25. Do not vacuum the gravel or clean the filters until you are sure the tank is stable. Next time, get a bucket of tank water and just swish the media around in the bucket.
 
severum mama said:
Change as much water as is necessary to keep ammonia and nitrite under .25. Do not vacuum the gravel or clean the filters until you are sure the tank is stable. Next time, get a bucket of tank water and just swish the media around in the bucket.
Click to expand...

Yes, a couple of 50's TO START WITH until you see it come down, with water conditioner of coures, iam not pushing prime, but it worked the best for me...GL...:)
 
Water change whenever you see ammonia or nitrites at .25
 
Getting a hand-full media or a foam pad from an established tank is the best. Otherwise I think adding a bunch of anacharis would be quite helpful. It grows fast by sucking up ammo and nitrate, and is cheap.
Thx.
 
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