ammonia spike and new fish.

[duanes]

if you have a bare bottom tank, your filtration (while not the sole supplier of bio filtration (the walls contain some biofiltration) is very crucial in maintaining balance.
With substrate, if you power goes out, the interstitial spaces between sand grains will be a significantly larger source for using the ammonia your fish produce.
Where I live, in the "3rd world" power outages are a normal part of everyday life, and I haven't lost fish "yet" due to them.
My sump os heavily planted, and even though the main tank cannot support aquatic plants, terrestrial plants, sunken wood, and substrate all provide ample bio-film, and once power is restored, there is no lag time once flow from the sump starts to crank up.
Without the substrate, the aquatic plants, the terrestrial roots, all the bacteria they hold, with the frequent power outages here, circumstances would probably be quite different.

 

[milkman407]

if you have a bare bottom tank, your filtration (while not the sole supplier of bio filtration (the walls contain some biofiltration) is very crucial in maintaining balance.
With substrate, if you power goes out, the interstitial spaces between sand grains will be a significantly larger source for using the ammonia your fish produce.
Where I live, in the "3rd world" power outages are a normal part of everyday life, and I haven't lost fish "yet" due to them.
My sump os heavily planted, and even though the main tank cannot support aquatic plants, terrestrial plants, sunken wood, and substrate all provide ample bio-film, and once power is restored, there is no lag time once flow from the sump starts to crank up.
Without the substrate, the aquatic plants, the terrestrial roots, all the bacteria they hold, with the frequent power outages here, circumstances would probably be quite different.
View attachment 1525838View attachment 1525836

beautiful tanks, it honestly looks a lot like mine ( the bottom picture ). I have a ton of anacharis that I grow out for my smaller FRT to graze on when she's bored.
My pothos are pretty new to the setup, but seem to be doing really well. it's also heavily stocked with driftwood as it gives my dats room to get away from each other.

 

[jjohnwm]

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.

Lol, there are threads on here stating any number of fanciful and foolish things; the fact remains that the third-world power supply of northern rural Ontario left me in the dark for much more than a mere 6 hours on several occasions....once for well over 6 days!...and I did not experience anything like a complete die-off of my bacterial colonies or any kind of ammonia spike. In fact, that concern never even entered my mind, at least not until several days had passed. My worry was almost always the cold.

Lots of other factors come into play; certainly, a canister filter, sealed up tight and with no source of oxygen to replenish that used by the trapped bacteria, will "die off" faster than a sponge filter sitting in the tank (I find an hour difficult to believe...), but you have both, no? And I don't want to sound like a Tank Nazi, but...your tank started out way more crowded than I like to keep mine, and then you added a bunch more fish. That had to have an influence on this whole thing. I rarely have a tank stocked to the extent that it even requires a filter; filtration certainly improves my water quality, but virtually any tank I have could, with increased water changes, function quite adequately for the stock contained for an extended period with no electrical assistance outside of heating.

 

[milkman407]

I don't find my tank to be crowded, a 2-3" ngt, my arowana and 6 clown loaches, is hardly full for a 60 gallon. I would consider it over stocked when I added 7 more datnoids ranging from the indos 2-3" to the 2x ntt at 4".

I've been on here since 2006 and have seen much more crowded tanks lol

but I do agree, and when adding more fish, you will definitely see an ammonia spike for a few days, but for it to continue to climb even after the removal of some of those fish, and adding another sponge filter which was seeded. doesn't make sense. especially with all the driftwood, live aquatic and non aquatic plants.

and not that I care about any of that atm it's not relevant. trying to find a way to get my ammonia down and my bacteria back up is the only point of this thread.

 

[duanes]

When everything is humming along the way its supposed to,.... your 60 gal may not have seemed crowded with its initial stock, but
In my opinion that amount of stock, needs a tank double that size to be able to buffer even a minor anomaly, much less, a 6 hour power outage.

Just curious, what is your normal nitrate level in the tank before a water change? or even after?

60 gallons is quite a small volume of water, and even if a slight anomaly happens in that tiny volume can be very easily degraded in only a few hours..
Of course there are many overcrowded tanks here, but are they stable if a similar anomaly hit? Or .... a disasters on a razor edge?
Since you have been here since 2006, I'm sure you've seen the hundreds of tank disasters regularly posted.

There are no quick fixes for such anomalies, especially in a minimal size tank like a 60 gal, other than massive water changes, until theammonia is diluted, and then, rectifying whatever lead to the problem in the first place. (under filtration, lack of substrate, crowded conditions, nothing to mitigate nitrate etc etc)
To me a can, and HOB filtering a bare bottom tank of that limited water volume, with that stocking level, is not adequate, and does not take into account any aberrant fluctuations, as small as adding some new fish, combined with a power outage, or even a slowdown causing blockage in a canister line, or single sand grain choking out a HOB..

If it were me, that 60gal, would have been a 120gal, and the 60 would been its heavily planted sump filter.
I realize that may sound a bit like overkill, and my anal attitudes on filtration may be excessive compared to the accepted norms, but they have served me well over 60 years of fish keeping.

.

 

[milkman407]

Lol, there are threads on here stating any number of fanciful and foolish things; the fact remains that the third-world power supply of northern rural Ontario left me in the dark for much more than a mere 6 hours on several occasions....once for well over 6 days!...and I did not experience anything like a complete die-off of my bacterial colonies or any kind of ammonia spike. In fact, that concern never even entered my mind, at least not until several days had passed. My worry was almost always the cold.

Lots of other factors come into play; certainly, a canister filter, sealed up tight and with no source of oxygen to replenish that used by the trapped bacteria, will "die off" faster than a sponge filter sitting in the tank (I find an hour difficult to believe...), but you have both, no? And I don't want to sound like a Tank Nazi, but...your tank started out way more crowded than I like to keep mine, and then you added a bunch more fish. That had to have an influence on this whole thing. I rarely have a tank stocked to the extent that it even requires a filter; filtration certainly improves my water quality, but virtually any tank I have could, with increased water changes, function quite adequately for the stock contained for an extended period with no electrical assistance outside of heating.

When everything is humming along the way its supposed to,.... your 60 gal may not have seemed crowded with its initial stock, but
In my opinion that amount of stock, needs a tank double that size to be able to buffer even a minor anomaly, much less, a 6 hour power outage.

Just curious, what is your normal nitrate level in the tank before a water change? or even after?

60 gallons is quite a small volume of water, and even if a slight anomaly happens in that tiny volume can be very easily degraded in only a few hours..
Of course there are many overcrowded tanks here, but are they stable if a similar anomaly hit? Or .... a disasters on a razor edge?
Since you have been here since 2006, I'm sure you've seen the hundreds of tank disasters regularly posted.

There are no quick fixes for such anomalies, especially in a minimal size tank like a 60 gal, other than massive water changes, until theammonia is diluted, and then, rectifying whatever lead to the problem in the first place. (under filtration, lack of substrate, crowded conditions, nothing to mitigate nitrate etc etc)
To me a can, and HOB filtering a bare bottom tank of that limited water volume, with that stocking level, is not adequate, and does not take into account any aberrant fluctuations, as small as adding some new fish, combined with a power outage, or even a slowdown causing blockage in a canister line, or single sand grain choking out a HOB..

If it were me, that 60gal, would have been a 120gal, and the 60 would been its heavily planted sump filter.
I realize that may sound a bit like overkill, and my anal attitudes on filtration may be excessive compared to the accepted norms, but they have served me well over 60 years of fish keeping.

.

Normal nitrate level on that tank is around 10ppm maybe 20ppm if I go longer than 2 weeks without a change. The Anacharis really eat through everything, it seems like. Again this isn't a permanent tank for these fish, it's just a grow out for, they go from the 60gallon, to the 60"x30"30, then into the 360. The tanks been stocked this way for roughly a year (minus the time it took to cycle, so we'll say 7-8 months in total). This and the FRT tank are the only ones that are bare bottom now that I think about it and the FRT tanks are in the dining room next to a window so the plants are a little ridiculous. I think from now on if I can find an adequate source for some type of 3m color quartz sand product, i'll just use that from now on and stay away from bare bottom tanks unless they're larger and hooked up to a wet/dry. The problem has been resolved though, took some pvc and a new pump, but it's now running off of my 360 gallons sump as well.

 

[milkman407]

adding this to the thread as I've noticed most of my tanks are starting to read on the lower end, not so much this low though. PH on this tank tested with a calibrated hannah monitor and blue lab was reading at a 5.44. My other tanks are in the low 6.3-6.5 area which I expected as our water here is great for wild caught bettas and angels, but this isn't even ammonia at this point, that's straight ammonium. Ph comes out at like a 8.7 from the tap, after 24-48 hours it drops to a 6.5.

 

[code]

I was once told by a LFS Owner that it would be no problem to put 30 guppies in a nine gallon tank. People say all kinds of things. It's my opinion that slightly understocked is always best. I like space for my fish to be able to swim. Youv been on here for much longer than me. You have lots of experience. I'm not a biologist. I work with biologists though. In the rockys in Canada so it's not aqurium related. However, lots of the knowledge of ecological systems is transferable. It was said above, I agree. The issue with canister filters is that when they shut off they only have the gallon or some more of water in them containing oxygen. What ever you have in the tank has the oxygen from the full 60 gallons. It sounds like if it where not for your sponge you may be pulling dead fish from your tank rather than battling to keep them alive. Your tank is over stocked with large heavy bioload fish. Your making this hard for your self. You have no redundancy in event of a set up. If your canister fails that's all you have.

 

[code]

I'm batteling my own problems right now. I have a 30 gallon tank with cherry shrimp in it. I have an excess of detritus worms, scuds and copepods. I'm I'm removing all the substrate and going bare bottom aswell for a while. I removed 1/8 th of the substrate this week and will continue to remove 1/8 th every week untill it's bare. I added an extra sponge filter today. The reason I don't just pull it all out in one go is because it's my redundancy ( saftey net) and half of my filtration. Iv got my fingers crossed for you. I've never kept an Arrowana. Iv seen people who have though in smaller tanks and the poor guy barely had room to turn around to swim to the other end. For my personal preference and maybe not agreeable to all. If I was keeping an Arrowana. I'd be looking at a 200 gallon tank minimum for that guys pleasure