If you already have a DIY sponge your golden. If it was my tank I would get some Dr Tims. Turn off all filters and seed the sponge with a turkey baster. I use micro bacter in all my tanks and when I add a higher bioload, I seed my sponges and substrates with micro bacter. Other people on here may have different opinions but this is my experience
ammonia spike and new fish.
- Thread starter milkman407
- Start date
I added a second brand new one to the tank today, Also moved the clown loaches to my perch tank with a divider. So hopefully that bioload has now dropped by a lot.
Can someone explain this to me.
Removed 6 clown loaches from the tank, put them in a separate tank.
tested my ammonia on multiple tanks, all read 0 besides this one which is now reading at a 4. ( no ammonia burn, no fish loss, feeding once a week)
did a 50% water change, waited about 10 mins ( tank has a ridiculous turn over rate ).
ammonia still reads at a 4.
nitrite 0
nitrate 5-10ppm ( I did leave the tank alone for a week to see if this climbed, it did increase)
tapwater :
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
0 ammonia
Removed 6 clown loaches from the tank, put them in a separate tank.
tested my ammonia on multiple tanks, all read 0 besides this one which is now reading at a 4. ( no ammonia burn, no fish loss, feeding once a week)
did a 50% water change, waited about 10 mins ( tank has a ridiculous turn over rate ).
ammonia still reads at a 4.
nitrite 0
nitrate 5-10ppm ( I did leave the tank alone for a week to see if this climbed, it did increase)
tapwater :
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
0 ammonia
I have been told and read from multiple sources that water conditioners like prime can give false readings on Ammonia for up to 48 hours. Have you tested the tap water? Is there Ammonia comming from the source.
I'm not sure on the exact chemistry and how exactly this works. Water conditioners like prime bind Ammonia and make it non toxic. However as far as I understand it, the Ammonia is still had the bio-availability for your nitrifying bacteria to feed on. So when you dose a conditioner like prime ( I assume you are since you mentioned you where using other seachem products) it binds the Ammonia into a non toxic form. Not harmful to fish or inverts bit will show up on an API test. I just Posted a few different threads on here about an Ammonia spike on my new cherry shrimp tank. I was going through exactly what it sounds like you are going through in minuture form. While I was waiting for the biological filtration to catch up I dosed a double dose of prime every 24 hours to detoxify the Ammonia and keep my shrimp safe. If you use Prime it says this right in the directions. If you don't use prime It's my recommendation that you get some. It's the best product of its kind I have personnally come across. It is probably the most recommended water conditioner because it detoxifys chlorine, chloramphenicol aswell as Ammonia. I believe it says right on the bottle it can be dosed up to 5x the recommended dose safley during aqurium upsets.
I'm not sure on the exact chemistry and how exactly this works. Water conditioners like prime bind Ammonia and make it non toxic. However as far as I understand it, the Ammonia is still had the bio-availability for your nitrifying bacteria to feed on. So when you dose a conditioner like prime ( I assume you are since you mentioned you where using other seachem products) it binds the Ammonia into a non toxic form. Not harmful to fish or inverts bit will show up on an API test. I just Posted a few different threads on here about an Ammonia spike on my new cherry shrimp tank. I was going through exactly what it sounds like you are going through in minuture form. While I was waiting for the biological filtration to catch up I dosed a double dose of prime every 24 hours to detoxify the Ammonia and keep my shrimp safe. If you use Prime it says this right in the directions. If you don't use prime It's my recommendation that you get some. It's the best product of its kind I have personnally come across. It is probably the most recommended water conditioner because it detoxifys chlorine, chloramphenicol aswell as Ammonia. I believe it says right on the bottle it can be dosed up to 5x the recommended dose safley during aqurium upsets.
Chloramines not chloramphenicol. Lol
This is why when people recharge purigen with bleach they use prime.
That brings me to another suggestion. When I'm battling Ammonia, live in cycles. As well as all the time in my planted tanks I use purigen to keep the bioload down on top of all above mentioned.
So for me
Prime in the water to detox Ammonia
Bacteria additive to media to build the filter
Purigen in the canister to pull organics out of the water.
This is why when people recharge purigen with bleach they use prime.
That brings me to another suggestion. When I'm battling Ammonia, live in cycles. As well as all the time in my planted tanks I use purigen to keep the bioload down on top of all above mentioned.
So for me
Prime in the water to detox Ammonia
Bacteria additive to media to build the filter
Purigen in the canister to pull organics out of the water.
so If I test in 48 hours I should see a different reading? I use prime on all my tanks when I do a w/c. I did test the tap and everything is reading 0. The other two tanks I have running ( 3 if you count the hospital tank ) all get prime as well and ammonia is at 0 with those.
You will not see a different reading if you haven't addressed the source of the Ammonia. It will be the same. However while your sorting your problem out if you stop dosing prime the Ammonia will become toxic and become harmful to your fish.
Get extra filtration or media in the form of what ever you want. Add some sand, it's not the worst thing in the world and can be vacuumed up later. Get more sponge filters and hook them up. Or buy a few large lava rocks and place them in the middle of the tank as a center piece. Get Dr Tims or Micro Bacter. Dose it on your media. Keep dosing prime and only change enough water to keep your Ammonia at 2ppm. It's possible that your filters not building because by doing water changes to reduce the Ammonia your reducing your filters food source. So In doing that your preventing your biological bacterial colony from growing large enough to handle the bio load. You have to ride the cycle out. Even though it wasn't your plan, your doing a fish in cycle right now. However you got here who knows. It just happened to me on an established tank with cherry shrimp.
I handled my problem by doing this.
Adding extra media to my tank from other established tanks.
Dosing prime daily to detox the Ammonia and keep my pets safe during the re cycle process.
STOP doing large water changes, or water changes at all because your taking away your filters food source so it won't grow and you will be stuck in water change/ Ammonia spike stage forever.
Does a high quality nitrifying bacteria additives like Dr tims.
If you buy some sponge pages on Amazon. Or local fish shop. Lay them on the aqurium floor (cut to size) seed it with Dr Tims or micro bacter. You then have a temporary substrate. Once the tank is established you could slowly remove it.
In short, it's my opinion that you need to
Dose prime every 24 hours to keep your fish safe ( detox your Ammonia)
Add more surface area to seed with bacteria untill the tank is established.
Seed that surface area properly by turning the filters and power heads off and allowing the bacteria to colonize.
Keep your Ammonia level around 2ppm until it drops below 2ppm with out a water change.
If you can afford it, buy some purigen and put it in the canister to help handle the bioload while re cycling.
Of you have sponges or bio medua from another tank you can afford to use toss them in the tank.
When my shrimp tank did this and I realized what was happening, the first thing I did was double dosed prime daily and stop water changes. That was a bandaid. I then addressed the problem.
Bare bottom tanks are fantastic when they work. This one is not working right now you have to do somthing different. Try laying filter foam on the tank floor and seeding it. You already have filtration, it sounds like you need more surface area.
Or, Stop doing water changes triple dose prime as per the recommendation for aqurium upsets and let your filter grow. I'm sure there are numerous ways you can attack this. In any scenario though, like your fish if you take away food ( ammonia) from your filter it will not grow
Get extra filtration or media in the form of what ever you want. Add some sand, it's not the worst thing in the world and can be vacuumed up later. Get more sponge filters and hook them up. Or buy a few large lava rocks and place them in the middle of the tank as a center piece. Get Dr Tims or Micro Bacter. Dose it on your media. Keep dosing prime and only change enough water to keep your Ammonia at 2ppm. It's possible that your filters not building because by doing water changes to reduce the Ammonia your reducing your filters food source. So In doing that your preventing your biological bacterial colony from growing large enough to handle the bio load. You have to ride the cycle out. Even though it wasn't your plan, your doing a fish in cycle right now. However you got here who knows. It just happened to me on an established tank with cherry shrimp.
I handled my problem by doing this.
Adding extra media to my tank from other established tanks.
Dosing prime daily to detox the Ammonia and keep my pets safe during the re cycle process.
STOP doing large water changes, or water changes at all because your taking away your filters food source so it won't grow and you will be stuck in water change/ Ammonia spike stage forever.
Does a high quality nitrifying bacteria additives like Dr tims.
If you buy some sponge pages on Amazon. Or local fish shop. Lay them on the aqurium floor (cut to size) seed it with Dr Tims or micro bacter. You then have a temporary substrate. Once the tank is established you could slowly remove it.
In short, it's my opinion that you need to
Dose prime every 24 hours to keep your fish safe ( detox your Ammonia)
Add more surface area to seed with bacteria untill the tank is established.
Seed that surface area properly by turning the filters and power heads off and allowing the bacteria to colonize.
Keep your Ammonia level around 2ppm until it drops below 2ppm with out a water change.
If you can afford it, buy some purigen and put it in the canister to help handle the bioload while re cycling.
Of you have sponges or bio medua from another tank you can afford to use toss them in the tank.
When my shrimp tank did this and I realized what was happening, the first thing I did was double dosed prime daily and stop water changes. That was a bandaid. I then addressed the problem.
Bare bottom tanks are fantastic when they work. This one is not working right now you have to do somthing different. Try laying filter foam on the tank floor and seeding it. You already have filtration, it sounds like you need more surface area.
Or, Stop doing water changes triple dose prime as per the recommendation for aqurium upsets and let your filter grow. I'm sure there are numerous ways you can attack this. In any scenario though, like your fish if you take away food ( ammonia) from your filter it will not grow
In this situation prime I'd my best friend as it detoxes the Ammonia to keep my fish safe while my filter feeds on the Ammonia and slowly grows.
Do some Google searches and watch some videos on fish in cycles. That's what's happening to you right now
Do some Google searches and watch some videos on fish in cycles. That's what's happening to you right now
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.
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.
