illusn8 Posted December 7, 2006 Share Posted December 7, 2006 I know that most of us has encounter this problem......... So I just wanted to know the best way to treat the problem and what type of chemical to use???????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Posted December 7, 2006 Share Posted December 7, 2006 have prime or some other ammonia neutralising/locking dechlorinator handy. have a bacteria culture like Seachem Stability on hand to get the bacteria back (assuming the spike is from loss of bacteria). have redundant filters to lessen the chance of it happening in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted December 8, 2006 Share Posted December 8, 2006 Try and identify the reason why it happened. If it is something obvious like a new tank or you just cleaned all the filters then that happens, but if it just happened out of the blue then you may need to look at how your tank is set-up. Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noyd Posted December 10, 2006 Share Posted December 10, 2006 Prime would be a good temporary fix for your problem. What size tank and what filter are you using? What fish and how many... You may have insufficient filtration. If its a new tank, the filter may not be fully estabilished yet. There could be many causes but I will need more information from you to give you correct advice... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
illusn8 Posted December 11, 2006 Author Share Posted December 11, 2006 Prime would be a good temporary fix for your problem. What size tank and what filter are you using? What fish and how many... You may have insufficient filtration. If its a new tank, the filter may not be fully estabilished yet. There could be many causes but I will need more information from you to give you correct advice... 8FT x 2.5 x 2 the I'm running two cannister one Ehiem 2260 and an Aqua-one 1200-CF also a sump filter with twin spinning arms & the pump for the sump does about 3500lph. The tank has been running for about 12mths, currently there is two motoro ray at 16inch and two altifron @25cm.....I had been using Prime and Cycle doing 25% water changes every day but the Ammonia level is still at 1.0.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noyd Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 Prime would be a good temporary fix for your problem. What size tank and what filter are you using? What fish and how many... You may have insufficient filtration. If its a new tank, the filter may not be fully estabilished yet. There could be many causes but I will need more information from you to give you correct advice... 8FT x 2.5 x 2 the I'm running two cannister one Ehiem 2260 and an Aqua-one 1200-CF also a sump filter with twin spinning arms & the pump for the sump does about 3500lph. The tank has been running for about 12mths, currently there is two motoro ray at 16inch and two altifron @25cm.....I had been using Prime and Cycle doing 25% water changes every day but the Ammonia level is still at 1.0.... Filtration sounds good.. What are you feeding them? Does any food get left to waste? Food that isn't eaten and left over will rott and cause a spike of this sort. Feed them very minimum for a few weeks or a month and slowly start increasing the amount of food given. Do a 40% water change and don't feed them for a few days I'm sure they can handle that. Lowering your pH a little might also help. The higher the pH the more dangerous high levels of ammonia get. Good luck with it! You must also keep in mind that is a very large tank and will require longer period of time to build up good bacteria in the filter. Since you have such large fish, the amount of waste they produce will be very great too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 given the value of the contents get it sorted ASAP! That said, with all that filtration I cant believe it's still no good though. have you tried a different test kit? yours might be a dud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
illusn8 Posted December 13, 2006 Author Share Posted December 13, 2006 given the value of the contents get it sorted ASAP! That said, with all that filtration I cant believe it's still no good though. have you tried a different test kit? yours might be a dud. the test kit is working fine, well i went shopping yesterday and bought a whole heaps of new media for the sump. extra bio ball, bio mat, ceramic rocks and 3 litre of seachem Matrix. I'm going to set them in today..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astric Posted December 13, 2006 Share Posted December 13, 2006 Hi there, just make sure u don't directly replace ur old media with the new media in one go, as all ur bacteria is in the media so if u replaced all the old media with new media u will have problems IMHO. Just a question in regards to ur maintance of ur filters, do u clean the media under tap water??? The reason i ask this is because ur setup sound the goods and ur filtration in more then enough but ur tank is still having ammonia problems which seems strange. If ur cleaning media under tank water this will be the cause as the tap water kills off ur good bacteria which is then the reason for ammonia. Cheers Astric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enigma Posted December 13, 2006 Share Posted December 13, 2006 I had been using Prime and Cycle doing 25% water changes every day but the Ammonia level is still at 1.0.... you could be adding Ammonia into the tank. just noticed today tap water had a little bit of Ammonia. in fact, my fish tank water is better than the water coming from the tap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noyd Posted December 13, 2006 Share Posted December 13, 2006 I had been using Prime and Cycle doing 25% water changes every day but the Ammonia level is still at 1.0.... you could be adding Ammonia into the tank. just noticed today tap water had a little bit of Ammonia. in fact, my fish tank water is better than the water coming from the tap Wow.. so we drink poopoo water? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
illusn8 Posted December 13, 2006 Author Share Posted December 13, 2006 Hi there, just make sure u don't directly replace ur old media with the new media in one go, as all ur bacteria is in the media so if u replaced all the old media with new media u will have problems IMHO. Just a question in regards to ur maintance of ur filters, do u clean the media under tap water??? The reason i ask this is because ur setup sound the goods and ur filtration in more then enough but ur tank is still having ammonia problems which seems strange. If ur cleaning media under tank water this will be the cause as the tap water kills off ur good bacteria which is then the reason for ammonia. Cheers Astric I never use tap water to clean the media always rinse them in aquarium water except for mechanical parts & hosing I wash them under tap water... I had been using Prime and Cycle doing 25% water changes every day but the Ammonia level is still at 1.0.... you could be adding Ammonia into the tank. just noticed today tap water had a little bit of Ammonia. in fact, my fish tank water is better than the water coming from the tap I never thought of testing the ammonia level in tap water, I will test it today... thanks enigma Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irsacae Posted December 13, 2006 Share Posted December 13, 2006 What is your ph have you checked it.You mite have a situation were the the ph has crashed due to a low kh and that is why you have amonium not amonia if this is the case be careful increasing the kh/ph you mite fry the skin of them if you push the ph up to high to quick. I have seen this a fair bit in the hills area of Perth were the tap water is very soft the nitrifying bacteria appear to be inhibited/knocked off when the ph drops really low Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
illusn8 Posted December 13, 2006 Author Share Posted December 13, 2006 What is your ph have you checked it.You mite have a situation were the the ph has crashed due to a low kh and that is why you have amonium not amonia if this is the case be careful increasing the kh/ph you mite fry the skin of them if you push the ph up to high to quick. I have seen this a fair bit in the hills area of Perth were the tap water is very soft the nitrifying bacteria appear to be inhibited/knocked off when the ph drops really low if I can still remember the last time I tested the tap water it was about 8.0 and in my aquarium 6.0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irsacae Posted December 14, 2006 Share Posted December 14, 2006 If your ph is 6 and it has dropped from 8 without you having made any effort to do so you probably have a low kh if you are not checking your ph often you mite find it could be 5 point something or lower this is when I have seen the nh3/nh4 problems I mentioned this is a very common thing I encounter on a regular basis get your ph and kh checked I think (dont quote me though) the magic number for kh is 20+ppm to matian a stable ph and allow the correct nitrifying processes to occur cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
illusn8 Posted December 17, 2006 Author Share Posted December 17, 2006 I had tested the tap water on the weekend and the result was pretty shocking, the reading was 0.50ppm!!! all the water changes I did when I thought I was adding clean water into the tank to dilute the ammonia but instead of adding to more to it....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trojan Posted December 17, 2006 Share Posted December 17, 2006 I had tested the tap water on the weekend and the result was pretty shocking, the reading was 0.50ppm!!! all the water changes I did when I thought I was adding clean water into the tank to dilute the ammonia but instead of adding to more to it....... But doesn't Safe or Prime bind up the ammonia as well ... or is it binding up the ammonia and your test kit is showing ammonium instead? Still, pretty shocking the quality of water we have in Sydney ... this would be consistent throughout sydney right as we all get our water from the same dam? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
illusn8 Posted December 17, 2006 Author Share Posted December 17, 2006 Could someone please explain to me what is the different between ammonia and ammonium??????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Posted December 18, 2006 Share Posted December 18, 2006 ammonium in acid water (less harmful) ammonia in alkaline water (more harnful) it's to do with the loss of an electron or something, I think? I've probably got it backwards but the acid = safer & alkaline = dangerouns bit is right at least Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozarowana Posted December 22, 2006 Share Posted December 22, 2006 Your tap water ammonia reading is probably from chloramine (assuming the water co adds in to the water). Most test kits will read total ammonia and so will detect prime bound ammonia. Sounds like your lower pH may be inhibiting/impairing bio filter function. I would be adding prime (degrades after about 24hrs releasing bound compounds) daily until you have it under control. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
illusn8 Posted December 22, 2006 Author Share Posted December 22, 2006 These couple of days I had been doing daily water change about 25%, thinking it'll reduce the ammonia but instead risen to about 6.0ppm. 3 days ago the water was crystal clear and suddenly over night it has gone all cloudy, I think its a bacterial bloom and the only chemical I'm using at the moment is Ammo-Lock. I think my tank is going through the whole process of recycling. I also bought 4 litres of Cycle I hope it'll speed up the process.....has anyone experience this problem??????? does the cloudy water harm the fish?????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laurie Posted December 22, 2006 Share Posted December 22, 2006 at 6.0 do you have a spare tank to put them in??? if all your trying isn't paying off, I would save the fish by putting them in a 'safe' tank before you keep tinkering with the chemicals... just my opinion, but i would be getting them out if the water turned cloudy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trojan Posted December 22, 2006 Share Posted December 22, 2006 If your ammonia was really that high, your fish would all be dead or at lest gasping as their gills would be severely burnt. Probably more likely what ozarowana said and it is chloromine your test kits are detecting. Cloudy would highly be likely bacteria bloom - it does not harm the fish IMHO I wouldn't use Ammo lock ... it could lock up all the ammonia and starve your bacteria. If your tank still contains the right bacteria (e.g. you haven't killed them with chlorine in the tap water of dried them out, etc) then they should reach fulll capacity very rapidly. I set up a new tank and took and internal filter from an established tank and the new tank's sump was fully populated in 2 days. Your 25% water change daily would help keep the ammonia/nitrites/nitrates low while letting your bateria levels build up. Agree with Laurie, if you have a tank to put your livestock in, put it there ... especially considering yours the rays are worth so much!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeW Posted December 25, 2006 Share Posted December 25, 2006 You can also alleviate the problem by: 1. Keeping the pH under 7. The higher the pH the more toxic (by facts of 10!) the ammonia (it's to do with the ammonium/ammonia thing). 2. Reduce feeding markedly. Fish can survive on very minimal food (which reduces the amount of waste ergo ammonia they produce). D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laurie Posted December 26, 2006 Share Posted December 26, 2006 wow it's been a long time since chemistry but what i think is happening is this... i cold be very wrong I might add so jump in and tell me I'm an idiot if you feel the need. your pH being over 7 is a comparative reading of OH- as a radical in the water, mix this with the ammonia NH3 and you have: 2OH- + (NH3)- => O2 + NH4 which is, you now have oxygen and ammonium this would explain the bloom in bacteria as all the extra oxygen would help in booming its reproduction. production of ammonium is generrally slow and is dependant on factors like heat and pressure, so if you have taken your fish out and want to treat your tank more quickly I would also remove the heater. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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