Crazy Water Chemistry

[excuzzzeme]

Ummmm Yep, Prime is quite pungent to be polite about and to be crass it reminds me of boiled eggs and beer farts! Luckily, I only use it on an "as needed" basis.(lol)

Your ammonia of .5 worries me as that is too high and needs to be down around .25 at maximum.

I don't feel that 20% water changes are ever enough and should be no less 1/3 of the tank. Also your Nitrates of 80 is also in the very beginning of the toxic range and should not be that high with plants in the tank. I would do 50% changes everyday until the reading stabilizes. Any chance you are switching the nitrate/nitrite readings?

I would not be too concerned over the pH until you can get everything else under control first. You can be chasing your tail trying to get the pH where you want it without taking care of the basics first.

 

[Vince G.]

Fancy75, I'm not sure if this applies to you, but if you have any plastic ornamental fixtures in any of your tanks, the holes in them that are there to let water in to aid with sinking can be huge traps for debris. I thought that I had all of the mulm removed, but last night I accidentally broke my large dragon bubbler in my tank in half, and a small amount of mulm came out of it. I waited for it to settle, and then vacuumed all of that up. I then took it out of the tank and rinsed it out in the sink (while scrubbing off some BBA with steel wool...man that is a tough algae!) and there was a lot more inside. I'm sure that was probably a trap for waste for a while.

Good luck with your tanks. I'm hoping to see improvement over the next week

 

[jpappy789]

As Dr. Awkward first pointed out the issue with the pH is concerning because it may be what is inhibiting the bacteria, resulting in the ammonia being as high as it is. Since most tests only go as low as 6.0 (as far as I know) it may perhaps be even lower than what you are getting as a reading. No amount of water changes is going to correct that until it is buffered safely.

Changing more water would help, of course, with the nitrate issue. Is the 80 ppm reading before you change the water??? If so, then if you have 80 ppm and only change 20%, but then add 20 ppm in the new water, you're back at 84 ppm nitrate. If you change 40% you have only 68 ppm after the change, etc.

I would be less worried about the nitrate, personally, since in all actuality there is really isn't any range that you can say what is "safe" and what is "toxic" for all fish although most tend to stay below 40 ppm. As the plants settle in a start growing that level should go down. You could add some faster growing plants. Things like anacharis, hornwort, and most floaters are easy to care for plants that are also known to be nutrient suckers. You may want to start feeding less (most of us tend to overfeed). This would all help to lower the nitrate levels before hand.

 

[Fancy75]

Good tip Vince...I learned that the hard way too in one of my other tanks. My Goldie tank has only had gravel in it for the last year or so. I used to have two larger plastic plants in it and a couple of surface floating types but took them out. I have been trying to figure this nitrate issue for well over a year trying this and that from all kinds of advice and I still can't figure it out lol

I posted a thread here in the summer and was off to great start with some excellent advice on finally understanding water chemistry unfortunately, I got really busy ...no excuse I know...I kept up the vacuuming every week and the water changes (anywhere from 25 to 50%) and until recently I've moved two of the fish to seperate tanks to see if I was possibly over stocked........well,,,it's been almost a couple of months with having only the 2 in the 75 gallon and I STILL have high nitrates..UGH! I use crushed coral in one of my filters to assist in the lower PH and it's helped nicely.

All four of my fish are sick now and I'm back here trying desperately to get this all under control. What I'd really love is to find a magical fish doctor who does house calls! LOL.....I've been at this issue on and off over the last two years...I don't think I should have Goldfish but I love them very much and I'm not very good at giving a pet up once I've adopted it (did I mention 2 of my Goldies were rescues?)

Sorry, babbling on here and it's not even my thread!

Good Luck Vince..........I'll be following along so the more detail of your issue you can throw out there the better!

 

[Vince G.]

I'm sure that I have the entire gravel bed clean now, so I'll try doing even bigger water changes(at excuzzzeme's suggestions). I'm sure that I am not mixing up the test readings between the Nitrates/Nitrates. I just tested them again and they are holding steady at about 80ppm (before I change the water). The Nitrates on the tap are coming at a little under 20 ppm after sitting out overnight.

Here are a few pics:




ByThe Way, does anyone know the name of this plant (The tall skinny one sticking up)? I was given this one piece of it when I bought another plant, and it's one of the few plants that seems to grow pretty well in my tank. I'd like to get more.

 

[Fancy75]

Beautiful tank!

 

[Vince G.]

Well, I've been doing water changes religiously every night for almost a week. I don't even put the Prime back in the cabinet anymore! I did another 40 Gallon change tonight, but when I tested earlier today all of the readings were the exact same. Nitrates 80ppm, Nitrites 0, Ammonia close to .50, pH 6.0, kH 0. I'm starting to wonder if my test kit is defective!! One thing is for sure my tank is the clearest and cleanest it has ever looked, and I'm starting to like it. The fish were always active, but it does seem like they are even a little more active since I started doing this. I've also cut down to 1 feeding a day, in the morning. There is hardly anything in the gravel to vaccum up each night. I also moved that bag of crushed coral to the filter yesterday (I originally just put it in the tank), because I read a thread saying that the water movement would help the minerals to diffuse in the water faster and more evenly, which makes perfect sense. I'm going to pick up some more plants tomorrow, and I have found a local hobbyist that sells nerite snails. I'm going to get a few to see if they can help with my algae.
I've been reading also about the idea of adding baking soda to raise pH. In an earlier post Tanker said to use calcium bicarbonate and not sodium bicarbonate. Any ideas about those, and why one and not the other? Also, if I was to do it, should I take the crushed coral out of the filter, to keep from creating too big an increase?

 

[Vince G.]

Finally, a few positive results! I just tested my water and here are the current readings:
pH 6.6
Ammonia .5
Nitrite-0
Nitrate-bet 40-80
kH-0
GH-143.2ppm

It seems that putting the crushed coral in the filter for one day, after having it just sitting in the tank for a day, has raised the pH to 6.6. The kH hasn't increased yet, but I'm going to keep an eye on it. This should at least help my bacteria to thrive a little. If I can hold it close to 7 or a little higher, I'll definitely leave the baking soda idea alone. I've been reading about buffers...Is there something I need to put in the tank to allow it to hold the pH?
The Ammonia is still high, but I'll just keep doing water changes and putting Prime in each night. The Nitrate seems to be getting a little better also. The color of the Nitrate indicator looks to be a little lighter than before (I'm using an API test kit), and it's leaning a little more toward the orange side (indicating 40ppm), but there's still a good amount of red in the color (indicating 80ppm).

I was just thinking, is it possible that my BB were completely dormant, and by increasing the pH and "reawakening" them my tank may begin to cycle again? Should I be on the lookout for a spike in Nitrites over the next week or so?

 

[toosie]

Hi Vince. Another nitrate trap you may not have considered are your hoses that lead to and from your canister filter. I clean mine every month or two with a contraption that looks like this. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1QJDZMHT88QH1XCPX7XC

I picked it up from my local dollar store for about $1.50. I simply lift the hoses out of the aquarium and disconnect them from the canister and take them to the bathtub where I have a 5 gallon pail of used aquarium water to wash them out in. Then I pour a little cleaner fish water through them for a final rinse. It's amazing how much crud comes out of them.

Also, when was the last time you scrubbed the soft decaying wood off of your diftwood. It too contributes to higher nitrates if the decomposing matter isn't removed. It helps to soften your water, but it lowers your ph too... Maybe you would like to try a little less of it to see how much it helps.

 

[toosie]

OH, yes, I also meant to say that because you have levels of ammonia, your tank will cycle again when your bacteria starts to remultiply, so please do keep a close watch on the nitrites and do water changes accordingly. Also, as your ph climbs and until your tank is completely recycled, try to keep the PH BELOW 7.0 the reason is because right now you have acidic water which means you have ammonium which is less toxic than ammonia, once the ph goes over 7 the ammonium will convert to ammonia and you could have nasty fish loss.