Yeah, I know all about cycling. Once the pH gets closer to 6.8 or so, if I don't see a rapid drop in ammonia levels, I'm going to reseed the filter from one of the filters on my turtle tanks to get it jump started again.
high ammonia levels
- Thread starter Sploke
- Start date
wataugachicken said:
Sodium Chloride will not alleviate the ill effects of ammonia, but it can help curb the negative effects of nitrite. A little bit goes a long way in this case.
So even with such soft water you don't think I should try to buffer it at all to help stabilize the pH?
sploke said:
I have the exact same problem with extremely low KH. It's lower now than when I measured it a couple months back. I am going to slowly add sodium bicarbonate (pure baking soda) to raise my KH to at least 2. Hopefully, this will not raise my pH above 7.0, it's 6.5 now.
Here's a thread I posted with my questions.
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60287
Yeah I actually just read your post. I added some baking soda earlier today to help bring up the pH slowly, and I figured it would help to buffer it a little too. Once I can get the pH up and stabilized I'll be back to cycling the filter, but as long as I can get the water stabilized, I think I should be in good shape.
Well the pH has stabilized at around 7.0-7.2, the fish are still looking alright. Ammonia is still pretty high. I seeded the filters with some lava rock from my turtle tank filter, so hopefully I'll start seeing a noticeabl drop in the next day or so.
Glad to hear things are headed in the right direction. With such a low hardness ( ihave that as well) it is really important to keep up with weekly water changes. The reason it drops is that all of the biological processes of nitrification create an acidic environment and this eats the buffer away. But even with a low buffer a weekly water change will be able to keep the pH stable. I need to do at least 20% per week to keep my pH up.
Your tank has been going through old tank syndrom. If this happens again I suggest doing small water changes rather than large ones. It seems likely this is how you re-established your buffer already. Doing really large water changes can lead to massive swings in pH and this is the worst thing you can do at that time.
Adding something to keep the buffer high is fine as well, but whenever you add soemthing you must be able and willing to keep track of it. Just dumping in some baking soda and leaving for a month will leave you with the same problem you already have.
Also salt (as mentioned earlier) is good for high nitrites not ammonia. And watch out for any nitrite spikes that may occur when the ammonia bacteria re-establish themselves.
Good luck and here's hoping the fish make a speedy recovery.
Your tank has been going through old tank syndrom. If this happens again I suggest doing small water changes rather than large ones. It seems likely this is how you re-established your buffer already. Doing really large water changes can lead to massive swings in pH and this is the worst thing you can do at that time.
Adding something to keep the buffer high is fine as well, but whenever you add soemthing you must be able and willing to keep track of it. Just dumping in some baking soda and leaving for a month will leave you with the same problem you already have.
Also salt (as mentioned earlier) is good for high nitrites not ammonia. And watch out for any nitrite spikes that may occur when the ammonia bacteria re-establish themselves.
Good luck and here's hoping the fish make a speedy recovery.
Thanks, I added enough baking soda to the tank to raise it to about 3dKH, so hopefully that should help with the pH swings. Its something I'm going to have to keep track of when I do my water changes, but I think its going to work out to adding about a half teaspoon or so, possibly less, for every 20% water change.
Checked the tank this morning, things are looking better. pH is hanging at 6.8-7, ammonia is still way high but I'm starting to see some nitrites, at around .25-.5ppm right now. I'm going to keep an eye on it, hopefully won't get any big spikes.
