ammonia spike and new fish.

[milkman407]

If you have a friend or local fish shop that you trust 100% you could try to get some cycled media to add to your system. I’ve done this a few times.

I actually did that about a year ago when I set this tank up. I went and got the water tested to see if the prime was actually causing false readings and that's not the case. So I'm starting to think either adding the new fish was way too much and it caused the tank to crash ( which those fish are now in a different tank ). I've added 3 more sponge filters to the tank, 1 of which was from a established heavily stocked larger tank. and I still see no results.

it's been 48 hours since my last dose of prime, as I want to test the water and see if the reading is the same, fish are all still 100% healthy, no clamped fins, no ammonia burn. one of the fish that had nipped fins has healed completely which blows my mind because if my ammonia is indeed at a 3, that shouldn't happen.

I'm adding Dr.Tims today, I feel like 99% of products available are just trash tbh, but we'll see.

 

[milkman407]

Just to add an example to this. On my established tanks. I can change my canister out completely with little or usually no effect. Or I can vacuum and clean my substrate. I can't do both though because it would disrupt too much bacteria and too much surface area and my tank would begin to re cycle and I would get Ammonia spikes again.

I've always had bare bottom tanks, besides for my 360 gallon. I made sure that if I cleaned a filter, it was one filter on this week, and the next filter 2 weeks after, as I didn't want to do what you mentioned.

I'm going to try the Dr.Tims today and see if it has any actual use. it's wild to see this happen for the first time in 16+ years of keeping fish.

 

[duanes]

With bare bottom tanks, you need to be a bit more careful.
A tank with substrate can have a large population of bacteria spread out that acts as a buffer in case a filter, or its media gets wiped out by some anomaly, or fluctuation in stocking levels.

 

[milkman407]

I guess i'll add sand to it, does anyone know where we can get that 3m pool sand that they used to sell in 40lb bags for super cheap, came in a variety of colors and was too heavy to get kicked up by your fish.. Idk if they went out of business or not.

 

[Joshuakahan]

I actually did that about a year ago when I set this tank up. I went and got the water tested to see if the prime was actually causing false readings and that's not the case. So I'm starting to think either adding the new fish was way too much and it caused the tank to crash ( which those fish are now in a different tank ). I've added 3 more sponge filters to the tank, 1 of which was from a established heavily stocked larger tank. and I still see no results.

it's been 48 hours since my last dose of prime, as I want to test the water and see if the reading is the same, fish are all still 100% healthy, no clamped fins, no ammonia burn. one of the fish that had nipped fins has healed completely which blows my mind because if my ammonia is indeed at a 3, that shouldn't happen.

I'm adding Dr.Tims today, I feel like 99% of products available are just trash tbh, but we'll see.

I cycled my rift tank with tetra safe start and a cycled sponge and that worked great. Took about a week. I do think there’s something to the bare bottom thing since my friend that had similar issues also had a bare bottom setup

 

[milkman407]

Think I found out what the problem was, While I was out of town, apparently we lost power for about 5-6 hours.

 

[code]

That would do it. Glad you figured it out

 

[milkman407]

That would do it. Glad you figured it out

as am I, Apparently the entire grid for our side went out. I'm assuming some of the bacteria survived ( most likely on the sponge filter) and it was trying to do it's' job. but the addition of more fish caused everything to crash.

So let's hope the Dr.Tims one and only works well and that I start to see this ammonia go back down.

 

[jjohnwm]

Mature biomedia, submersed in the water of the aquarium or sump, will not even come close to losing all or even most of its bacterial colony in a mere 6 hours without circulation. I have no explanation for the results of your tests, and I realize that it would be comforting to have an answer, but I don't believe this is it.

Your bare-bottom tank has a ton of surface area for bacterial growth, judging by the description the filtration set up. I agree that bare-bottomed tanks are more sensitive than tanks with substrate, but that is only a concern when biomedia is minimal; far from the case here.

 

[milkman407]

Mature biomedia, submersed in the water of the aquarium or sump, will not even come close to losing all or even most of its bacterial colony in a mere 6 hours without circulation. I have no explanation for the results of your tests, and I realize that it would be comforting to have an answer, but I don't believe this is it.

Your bare-bottom tank has a ton of surface area for bacterial growth, judging by the description the filtration set up. I agree that bare-bottomed tanks are more sensitive than tanks with substrate, but that is only a concern when biomedia is minimal; far from the case here.

there was a thread on here stating that canister filters that have been set up for a while can completely die off after just 1 hour.

it's the only thing that makes sense to me.

but at this point Idc what the cause was, just need that ammonia to go down because I'm not trying to have a leichardti die after I spent 5 years trying to get one imported, lol. I'll test the tank tomorrow ( 48 hours after using dr.tims ) and see if it's gone down any, I'm going to not use prime as I hear it can prolong the Dr.Tims bacteria from eating away at the ammonia, so we'll see. worse case I'll get some ammonia remover chips and leave it at that.