400 gallon ray tank water problem?

[seangtat2kc]

The tank is a 400 gallon ,Filtration is a dart pump 3600gph wet/dry filter that goes through filter pad, carbon pad, filter pad, and onto bio-balls (half submerged) and out into a Rubbermaid and then returned. I also have a eheim professional canister filtering water in the Rubbermaid sump. Something went wrong and my ammonia levels went up. I changed filter pads and carbon pads out around a month ago but the bio-ball weren't touched. I have done 6 50% water changes a total of 1200 gallons over the last 5 days and I cant get my levels at 0. my ammonia reads .25ppm-.5ppm nitrite 0 and nitrate 20-40ppm.
-I know that rays are very sensitive and cannot take any exposure to ammonia...will the exposure to this low ammonia have long term effects are possibly kill my rays and fish?
-could my changing out of the pads caused lost beneficial bacteria?
-I have a lot of large fish maybe i need more filtration?
96"x48"x20" 400 gallon dart pump rated at 3600gph
marbled motoro 14''
motoro12''
3 silver arowanas 24''
black arowana 20''
2 fire eels 15''18''
Clown knife 18"
Royal clown knife 15"
ghost knife 10"
Florida gar 18"
Rocktiel severum 7"
Gold severum 7"
15 clown loaches 7"-4"

 

[seangtat2kc]

bump

 

[cchhcc]

That is a HUGE biomass of fish, and your BB may not be enough to handle their waste. Honestly, 29 large fish is MUCH too much for a 400....... Sorry, but it's really too much. You may have been right on the brink of enough beneficial bacteria when you removed all the pads at once. That may have set you over the edge, but clearly that's a ton of fish.


With that level of biomass, I would expect to use at least 4 cubic feet of bioballs --- probably 5 0r 6 (all out of the water; non-submerged for maximum nitrification) with water changes a couple of times a week minimum.

Honestly, and no offense intended, that's just a very overstocked tank.

 

[ronin_man]

i would add some more filtration for sure, and also maybe add some air stones under your bio balls that are submerged for added gas exchanged.

 

[seangtat2kc]

That is a HUGE biomass of fish, and your BB may not be enough to handle their waste. Honestly, 29 large fish is MUCH too much for a 400....... Sorry, but it's really too much. You may have been right on the brink of enough beneficial bacteria when you removed all the pads at once. That may have set you over the edge, but clearly that's a ton of fish.


With that level of biomass, I would expect to use at least 4 cubic feet of bioballs --- probably 5 0r 6 (all out of the water; non-submerged for maximum nitrification) with water changes a couple of times a week minimum.

Honestly, and no offense intended, that's just a very overstocked tank.

15 of the 29 fish are small clown loaches so I wouldn't consider it 29 large fish. I am purchasing two Xf5 to help out with filtration. Do you think this will be enough?

 

[Arozilla]

thats gonna be a monster tank!@

 

[Miles]

Stack the FX5s with biomedia and you should be fine..

 

[flamenco-t]

What's your water turnover rate ?

After head los how much does your sequence pump puts out ?

 

[cchhcc]

15 of the 29 fish are small clown loaches so I wouldn't consider it 29 large fish. I am purchasing two Xf5 to help out with filtration. Do you think this will be enough?

You could take out the clowns altogether and it's a huge biomass. It's really not close. Half of those fish would still be a huge load. Sorry......... Imagine the mess a puppy would make in a 400 gallon "cage".........and you've got more biomass than one puppy!