Cant Figure Out this Ammonia Spike

cwj108

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Mar 26, 2013
211
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Texas
I have an established 90 gal aquarium with 4 small SA/CA cichlids (All under 5 inches) and a 6 inch jaguar cat. I am running 2 Rena Filstar XP3 and a Penguin 350 Power filter(I was only running mechanical filtration and biological filtration, no carbon). I feed twice a day (Hikari bio gold and mix in some occasional spirulina pellets or freeze dried shrimp/blood worms). I noticed about two weeks ago my tank started to get really cloudy so I started testing my water daily and was still getting zeros across the board (Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate). After 4 days of testing water twice a day and getting zeros, I went back to testing twice a week. At the end of the week I tested ammonia and was shocked that it was at 2ppm!! (Nitrite and Nitrate 0). I freaked out and started doing daily water changes (30-40%). After a week of doing daily water changes and adding a bag of carbon to each of my filstars, my ammonia will not go below .50 ppm but my water is crystal clear. My Nitrite and Nitrate have never spiked, they still remain at 0. Every day when I check ammonia it is either at .5 or 1, I do the water change and it goes down to .5 but never below. I figured when it first spiked, that my jag cat died since I only ever see him when I move stuff around to gravel vac, but he was alive and well. I am getting frustrated and sick of daily large scale water changes, its breaking my wallet ( I use seachem stability and prime). Can anyone offer advice or help??
 

cwj108

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Mar 26, 2013
211
16
33
Texas
I changed out two pads that were really bad and upgraded to thicker ones, and I rinsed off my other filter pads in a bucket of aquarium water (I did this a week ago and at the same time put in the carbon bags). I am thinkin along the same lines of a recycle but am just a little confused because the nitrite and nitrates have been 0 for 2 weeks now? I use prime, could that be affecting it at all?
 

hanwyz

Gambusia
MFK Member
Feb 8, 2013
299
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United Kingdom
I know you've probably come across this, but prime can give a false positive for ammonia for 48 hours after it's been used if the usual liquid test is used... Just thought I'd mention it if you hadnt thought of it... Hope you get it sorted :)

Sent from my GT-I9100 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
 

cwj108

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Mar 26, 2013
211
16
33
Texas
I am amazed at how clear my tank has gotten over the last couple days, I havent seen it this clear in weeks, I just wish my ammonia would drop.
 

cwj108

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Mar 26, 2013
211
16
33
Texas
The only other think I can think of... the first day that it was at 2ppm, I was in panic mode and did an in depth gravel vac of the tank... maybe cleaned up too much? The other weird thing is my bio load dropped a week ago, I had to put my 5 inch Oscar out of his misery, he started picking on my Dempsey and the Dempsey wasn't having it, the Oscar backed him into a corner and they lip locked but the Dempsey literally broke off the bottom half of his jaw and it was just hanging there. The Oscar was just swimming around with his mouth open, couldn't even shut it. My Dempsey has a nice little set of teeth on him and is peaceful in the tank unless he gets pushed around. As sad as I was to see my Oscar go, I thought maybe the reduction in bio load would help but it didn't.
 

Drstrangelove

Potamotrygon
MFK Member
Oct 21, 2012
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The cloudy water to me is the concern.

1) the cloudy water (2 weeks ago) seems likely to have been a bacterial bloom. Heterotrophs will explode to handle an abundance of organic material. In doing so, the ammonia does not immediately spike (or nitrites) because they are insanely inefficient. However, they consume a lot of oxygen and compete with the nitrosomonas for food and space.

2) vacuuming the tank likely led to a die off of the heterographs (once the food was exhausted) and also may have removed the only active large population consuming ammonia, which may be why there was an ammonia spike. The nitrobacter likely did not have the same level of die off. The bacteria populations aren't equally affected by temp, pH, oxygen etc. This is just a conjecture since you have low nitrites.

3) removing seeded pads and physically rinsing the other pads likely rinsed off even more BB, although it's hard to say how much. Losing the Oscar did reduce the bio load.

4) the current state seems as if you are rebuilding the populations. It's possible if you reduce feedings, you won't see a spike in nitrites.


The repeated WC and the reduced bio load have possibly kept many of the parameters in check given that you do have BB, albeit low amounts.
 

cwj108

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Mar 26, 2013
211
16
33
Texas
Thanks for the info, how long does it take for ammonia levels to come back down? I have been at these water changes for over a week now, sometimes everyday and it wont go below .5ppm Is this normal?
 

strollo22

Siamese Tiger
MFK Member
May 21, 2012
5,786
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It's a catch 22. The more water changes you do, the slower it will cycle because the less ammonia you have in the tank. I would keep treating the water with prime or some ammonia/nitrite detoxifier and do like 10% water changes every other day. Hopefully it should be fine in about a week.
 
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