Something happened...HELP!!

B

blankenship

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Sep 27, 2004
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Ok, so I've been cycling my tank for a little over 4 weeks, and everything was going along great. All readings looked normal. Then one night everything got unplugged for about 8 hours (heater and filter mainly). I took some readings today, and I think I'm in big trouble. PH crashed from 8.0 to 5and KH is low. Am I ever going to get fish????

Here are my readings:

KH = 1.9
Alkalinity = .69
PH = 5
Ammonia = 5 mg/l
Nitrite = 3.3-33 mg/l
Nitrate = 100mg/l

One note about the ammonia reading. My test kit read 5 mg/l, but the Ammonia Alert in the tank reads safe. So now I don't know how much ammonia is actually in my tank. What do I do?? Please help!!
 
the Nitrogen Cycle quickly uses up any trace minerals dissolved in the water which buffer your pH (hence the KH dropping and your pH dropping.) Baking Soda can prevent this- whenever your KH gets low, add some until your hardness gets back up to a desirable level. This will increase the pH, but it will also buffer it so it will be stable.

Happened to me very suddenly on the tank I was cycling, but came up with an idea that seems to be working. I did a huge water change (70%) and then vacuumed my current healthy gourami tank and betta tank and put the lovely nasty tank water in with my new water change. From then on, my ammonia has been dropping faster, I'm not reading any nitrites, and I'm seeing more nitrates. Not sure if anyone has tried this before, but it seems to have worked for me.
 
Ok, I'll try some baking soda. I also forgot to mention one thing that may be important. The reason why everything was unplugged was because the filter was noisy. This was because about 5 inches of water had evaporated and the water coming out of the filter was making a big splash. So after I plugged everything back in I refilled the tank. Is it possible that the addition of the new water caused a change?
 
Depends on the pH of the water out of the tap- but my money is on the Nitrification... It rapidly uses up KH and if you're not doing small water changes or adding baking soda to keep it up, then that's probably the culprit. When you let 5 inches of water evaporate, that means less dissolved solutes to buffer the tank. That also means the same amount of ammonia/nitrites/nitrates in a smaller volume of water, which probably greatly lowered your KH as well, and caused a pH crash.

Keeping the water level up will keep your tank quiet- and as a general rule, the more water there is, the harder it is to mess up the water parameters.
 
So how far back to you think I am set back??

And can I test the tap water right away, or do I have to let it sit out first??
 
I've heard to let it sit for a day- I test before and after. Mine doesn't change all that dramatically after 24 hours.

Time will tell how far you're set back. Keep track of your readings and hope for the best. If you have another tank, grab some gravel or vacuumings or something. That reaaaaaaaally helps. I don't think 8 hours would do too much damage unless the filter was completely dried out- even then bacteria should still be residing in the gravel as well... The biggest danger is the pH.

Don't worry or get discouraged- it happens. If having an aquarium was a no-brainer, we wouldn't be here. There's a lot to learn, and I'm still VERY new. Now you know what to look for. The acidity might have killed off some bacteria, but hope for the best, keep an eye on your parameters, and resist the urge to just run out and grab fish anyway.

Believe me, I'm in week 3, and I know how much fun an empty tank is. However, when our cycles are complete, we won't have to worry about new tank syndrome- and there's a dozen Zebra Danios that are thanking their lucky stars that we chose fishless cycling.

Cheers!
 
A little update:

I added 1 tsp of baking soda about 6 hours ago and now my KH is 3.8 and my PH is 7.5. So it looks like things may be back to normal, and now hopefully I just have to wait for the cycle to end.

I put a bowl of water out on the counter and will test it tomorrow for ammonia and PH.
 
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