Ammonia & Nitrite in the Water Aging Barrel

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OscartheGrouch

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 2, 2007
262
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Boston
Ok. I have a 45 gal tank with discus and clown loaches. Ammonia and nitrites have been at 0 and nitrates at 10. I did a W/C yesterday. I woke up this morning and found the discus looking stressed. The clown loaches seemed normal. I dunno what kinda happy pill they took. I broke out the water tests and found out the ammonia and the nitrite was at .25 & 1.0 respectively!!! I tested the water again. Same $%&@. I tested the tap. No problem there. The last place I tested was the water aging trashcan. There was the problem. Same readings. After nearly breaking my back changing water with the good old 5 gal bucket, I hope I saved all my fishes. Has this happened to anybody? Can anybody explain why there was ammonia and nitrite in my water barrel? I really loved changing water with the water pump too. :(
 
wtf? I dunno, there shouldn't be any ammonia in your aging barrel unless something ended up there to decompose, and there should most definately NOT be nitrites unless it's been decomposing long enough for you to build up biological bacteria in your barrel somehow.

Test the water in the barrel again. That makes no sense.
 
BTW, clean the barrel really good with a light bleach solution and then allow it to dry. No matter what caused this problem, that should get rid of it.
 
Did you use water conditioner? I have two 35G trashcans for holding water. I pretreat the water with Prime. I should check mine. I would bet it register some ammonia from the Prime interaction with the chloramines. The nitrite could be from a limited amount of bacteria on the walls of the trashcan that is consuming the free ammonia.
 
I dont know what the water quality in like out of Boston taps, but here in the uk ive known it fluctuate considerably. If you havnt managed to nail the cause yet, you might want to consider testing the tap water before you fill your water aging trash can..

other than that,, there is a possiblilty that if you are using a non food grade plastic trash can, its material is starting to break down and cause you problems. As discus can be a little sensitive ?? might be worth changing your trash can for something else, maybe a smaller aquarium which you know is going to be safe long term.
 
I lined the 32 gal trashcan with 2 heavy-duty trash bags. The only thing I can think of is a powerhead I put in to circulate the water. It was a notorious neon tetra eater. However, this was months ago. Besides that, I have a heater and a submersible water pump that I only turn on during W/Cs in there.
 
Windex nor any household cleaners don't even come 5 yards near the water barrel.
 
well, theres still the possibliity that you had a surge of something nasty in your tap water. When I had my shop I would test the tap water every morning. I have known high ammonia levels, high nitrate levels but in particular, ive seen some really scary chloramine readings. sometimes they just go crazy. If you use trash grade anything, there is always the possibility of a reaction occuring with something, even if its just oils leaking onto the water, none of this can be good. IMHO I would never use these things. All my water changes always came from an all glass aquarium purposely bought for water changes. If you do this, at least you eliminate that as a potential problem. If theres a problem with some chemical leeching from the plastic, then adding a powerhead will increase the problem.
Have you dumped the water in the trash can and started again ?? tested the tap water before you start and then monitor the levels in the can for a few days ?? would be interesting to see what happens.

if it all stays clear, i would be inclined to blame the water company, probably because im biased, hate water companies and know how incompetant they can be.
keep letting us know how your doing please.
 
Yeah. I guess I should test the tap water more often. I tested the ph and saw the levels fluctuated like crazy. Coming out of the tap, it was very acidic a month ago and now it's very alkaline. Sheesh. I need to invest in an RO system. I used a diluted bleach wash on the trashcan yesterday and filled it up after it dried. Just gonna wait maybe another day and do some water tests. Thanks for all the helpful suggestions, guys.
 
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