deadly water in my tank

M

medusaorange

AC Members
Nov 11, 2005
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i have a big problem - for first time ever.

past this weekend, my whisper 20 filter in my 20 gallon long tank didn't work very well (my new peguin bio-wheel 350 will arrive here in less than a week) and the water got so dirty. so, i did 20 percent to 50 percent water changes lately. but it didn't help and one of my guppies died. one of remaining fishes has a huge black patch on the stomach, so he won't make it i guess.

but my test result really shocked me because two days ago, it was fine. the result says

- on quick dip
pH 7.2
KH 40
GH 75
Nitrite 10
Nitrate 40

- test tubes (i had to make a double sure and i was right)
nitrate 10
nitrite 5.0 - looked like it could be way more than 5.0 because the purple was so dark - pretty enough not to be on a good scale
ammonia 1

now, what am i supposed to do? do more water changes? is there anything i can add to the tank to control this problem? right now, there are 3 guppies, 24 small/medium size red ramshorn snails, 4 full size apple snails, and some live plants. there is no gravel in my tank, yet. just a few of river rocks. oh and the tempature is at 78 degrees.

hope some of you can help me out on this!
jenny
 
Last edited:
water conditioner?

First suspect is chloramine.

Test the tap water for ammonia, then take a gallon of tap water and use the correct amount of you water conditioner, then test for ammonia again. If you now see ammonia, your water conditioner is suspect. If the conditioner does not say "treats ammonia" throw it out. Buy something like Prime or something else that does treat the ammonia as well as the chlorine and chloramine.

Hold off on any waterchanges until you do this testing.
 
okay. i will do that in a little. if the water test is fine, what to do? or if i have a problem with the water, what am i supposed to do? just add the water conditioner (one that treats ammonia) to the tank?
 
test result:

without water conditioner -
75 GH
40 KH
7.2 pH
between 1.0 and 2.0 on ammonia

with water conditioner -
exact same result as above

so, i will go to LFS on tomorrow morning and pick up a conditioner. which conditioner do you recommend? what can i do about the high nitrate and nitrite?
 
It is likely the nitrite killing you fish. The biofilter is dead or seriously damaged. You need to do water chages sufficient to keep both ammonia and nitrite at undetectable or at least the lowest detectable levels.

You need a conditioner such as Prime that converts the ammonia from chloramines into the ammonium ion (which is harmless to fish but still may show on your test).
 
get some zeolite, it will absorb ammonia and turn it into a less toxic ammonium. Get some hornwort and toss it in, it soaks up ammonia, nitrites and nitrates like a sponge
 
alright. i will get a bottle of prime. :) i hope it will solve my problem! i will get some hornwort from aquabid or somewhere... any recommedations? i don't want to get any from petsmart or another LFS because these places are very loaded with physids.
 
The problem is not with NH3 in your water but rather the high levels of NO2 and NO3. Presence of NO2 level tell me that their beneficial bacteria is not converting NH3 to NO2 and then to NO3.

When you filter broke, did you dismantle it and take it out? or did you remove the filter media? Doing either of them could have compromised your bcaterial colony. And since you have no gravel, the only place the bacterial colony is in your filter media.

Rohn
 
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