Ammonia, Filtration, Cycle

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DeChrii

DeChrii

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 31, 2010
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NJ
So currently i own a 30g, 75g, and 125g tank and all have nitrates ranging from 20-40.

I've had the 75g tank for 7-8 weeks and rarely tested the nitrite and when i do, it always read 0. Ammonia in the beginning jumped above 4.0 and constantly lowered. Currently there is 2, 6-7 inch oscars in the 75g with 1 emperor 400 filter. Checked the nitrite-0, nitrate-30, and ammonia-about 1.5.
I'm not sure if this is under filtration. I do water changes every day to every other day depending on the ammonia level. The other day i removed the oscars to the 125g to see the ammonia on the 75g, and it lowered down to .25-.5. Then when i added the oscars back in, the ammonia jumped back to around 1 (current ammonia) so im guessing this is under filtration.

As for the 30g, i bought and set up around last week, i used the water from the 75g which read about 1.5 ammonia (before) now reads 0 ammonia with 20-30 nitrate and 0 nitrite. currently stocked with 1, 4 inch bichir. So 30 gallon tank is cycled in a week from using the water in the 75g.

And in the 125g, ammonia reads from 0-.5 depending on the fish, nitrite-0, and nitrate-20-40. I own a very troublesome oscar (red oscar, i might bring back to the lfs) which I move to the 125g and then back to 75g and back and forth. (the 2 oscars in 75g destroy the red oscar) and then in the 125g the red oscar eats all the food leaving none for the others (sometimes attacks the smaller fish). so what could be the case of the ammonia spikes? low filtration for the 125 as well? (2, emperor 400's). (set up the 125g about 5 weeks ago)

Im planning on getting an XP3 canister for the 125g and moving 1, emperor 400 to the 75g to see if it fix's the situation. But could this be the problem?
 
so all of your tanks got high level of ammonia? Do they smell bad? If they do, then you have high concentration of free ammonia which is bad!bad!bad!

Try using bacteria booster, change water 30% every day (not too much) and add bacteria booster like stability everytime. Make sure PH is around 7 if not, buffer up first before adding stability.

Don't blame the fish. it's their nature to claim dominance. (like oscars). Feed the oscar once a day. Enough. At this time don't feed them at all for a week.

Your filter maybe underpower too. I don't know what filter you are using but as a rule of thumb a filter should have 5 times flow rate (gallon per hour) from your actual tank size. So if your tank is 100 gallon then you should get a filter that can do at least 500 gallon per hour. There is no such thing as overkill filteration unless your tank is really small (less than 20 gallon) cause powerful power head can stir up the water and make turbulance.

Use quality food that don't cloud water. Don't use frozen food. It clouds water. (from my experience owning a 50 cm barramundi)
 
Filter isn't strong enough to handle the bio load from an oscar that big. Plus, most likely not enough bio media in a filter that small to begin with.
Cut down on feeding unless if your willing to pay more money to change water/clean filters.
For ammonia spikes, any feedings will tend to cause this but large fish dirty fish will add to it.
My recommendation? Invest in some sponge filters + upgrade your filter and toss in some cycle/bacteria boost or whatever other live bacteria thing is in your market.

If your on a budget, start with the sponge filter and Bacteria first. Then you can grab a good canister and load it up nicely after.
 
So would buying an xp3 canister fix this issue? therefore ill have an xp3 (350gph) + emperor 400 (400gph) which gives a total of 750gph for the 125g and 2, emperor 400 for the 75g giving 800 gph?.
I'm pretty new the the sponge filter, but if i can afford to go straight for a canister, is the sponge filter really important?
Seems unbalanced, since the 75g has a higher gph, unless theres other recommended filters?
 
The xp3 will fix the issue just fine. Although there still isn't a problem putting out like 8 bucks or so for a sponge filter. Basically what it runs by is the air pump, so it can replace the air stone or whatever you have hooked up to an air line and then mass cultivate bacteria to consume ammonia and nitrites.
 
I would have thought that if you are suffering from "underfiltration" then you would also see some accumulation of nitrite. Yet, your nitrite reading appears to be consistently "0". I don't have much to add except that of the three parameters (ammonia, nitrite and nitrate), for me, the ammonia reading has been the least reliable and the most suspect. To tell you the truth, I don't worry much about a 0.5 ppm ammonia reading anymore. I suspect that something is interferring with this test and generating a 'false positive". This could be caused by chloramines, dechlorination reaction products, etc., which generate the illusion that ammonia is present. I would suggest that if your nitrite is zero, you are generating nitrate, your fish are swimming and eating comfortably, then you may want to simply dismiss the 0.5 ppm ammonia reading. For me, the nitrite reading is the key indicator of adequate biofiltration.
 
:iagree:
Best answer, no question!
Well said.
 
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