Evil Food...

[Kyohti]

My tank's nitrogen and ammonia readings went crazy after some food got stuck under a rock and rotted. I didn't know anything was wrong until I woke up yesterday to see my water was looking greenish-yellow and slightly cloudy when I looked through it long-ways.

I knew something was wrong and I tested everything with my API. Just as I had feared, I had a freakin' neon rainbow in my four test tubes. Nitrites, nitrates, and ammonia were all reading WAY too high. pH was slightly low, but not anything to worry over. So I did a 60% water change and vacuumed the detrius out of my substrate.

In the past, I was never one to strictly retest anything but Ammonia. I chock it up to inexperience and childhood irresponsibility. So to be honest, I have no idea how long it would take for my levels to normalize or how many water changes I should continue to make and how much I should replace each time. As I said, each was showing mid-range on my scales... Ammonia not as much as the rest. Is this the fault of not enough filtration? I seem to have a lot of accumulation at the bottom of the tank. My frustration is that my new HOB's filter intake tube only reaches halfway into my aquarium and I'm used to having the intake only about 2 inches from the bottom.

Or is it simply that the rotting food under the cave caused this spike? The fish are fine... the water change seemed to cause more stress than the nitrogen and ammonia have. What gives?

 

[Marinemom]

Rotting food in the tank will mess with water quality. If this was under a rock then when you do your water changes I would make sure that you get under all the rocks and decorations when you are gravel vacing during a water change.I would continue to do water changes daily if necessary until the levels are back down where they should be. If the fish are stressed it is because they have gotton used to the water the way it was and now they think it is too clean. Just do small water changes until the problem is resolved so the fish will not get stressed.

Marinemom

 

[Kyohti]

I was worried that if I didn't get the nitrate/nitrite/ammonia down... that it would have long-term detrimental results on my fishes' health. When I checked in on them this morning, the only one that'd been showing stress, 'Lem', was fine and back to his usual color.

I vaccumed a lot of detrius out of the gravel. Perhaps part of the problem is that my substrate is so large and traps so much stuff in it that my fish can't access to eat, so it rots? I think I need to switch to a finer grade of gravel... or a coarse sand...

Either way, I intend to check my perimeters every night and continue 25-50% water changes until the water is clear and the levels are back to normal. Thanks for the advice. I'll vacuum the pleco's hidey-hole too. I've noticed a lot of her fecal waste is stowed up in there!

 

[mooman]

You might have it with the large grade substrate. I would switch to a small grade gravel.

 

[Kyohti]

Yeah, I'm thinking that is the main culprit and the cause of all my consternation. : /

If only good gravel weren't so freakin' expensive here...

 

[wataugachicken]

how deep is the gravel? you could always remove some or most of it, or all of it. if you really want to keep it, 1/4 - 1/2 inch is enough to cover the bottom of the tank. the deeper it is, the more waste will continue getting trapped in there.

you might even want to try going bare-bottom in the tank - it really doesn't look empty if you have other decorations in there, plus you get a neat mirror effect when you look in. my 50g tank is bare-bottom, but i have a lot of rocks, plants (wedged between the rocks), and driftwood to look at. plus the mirror thing really helps because i can see the reflection of plecos who think they are hiding.

 

[Kyohti]

I wouldn't like bare-bottom... I like a very natural look and it just wouldn't appeal to me. I'm thinking I need to go with a finer substrate so less waste will get trapped between the pebbles. And the more I look at it, the more I'm thinking my Cascade filter is MUCH too small for the job I'm needing it to do, so I'll be buying a secondary HOB to help get the job done.

I dunno... maybe I wasn't finished cycling with my tank, or maybe it was me adding three large fish in all at once that caused this. Maybe it's the poor filtration or the gravel... I don't know.

My Ni, Na, and Am levels have decreased by one level each (the ammonia never having been high at all to start with. Zero then, zero now.) I'll do another 50% water change and vacuum under the rocks and see if that helps because it seems the water stays clear for about 24-48 hours before it starts fogging up and getting that slight yellow-green tint. : /