AMMONIA SPIKE....CRAP

[xmixmasterx]

You have to be careful with large water changes in older tanks.

You could cause a bacterial bloom because of too much 'new' water. My friend had a spike and he ended up killing all of his fish because he did over-sized water changes.

It's better to do <30% multiple times.

 

[zennzzo]

Do you run CARBON?

 

[channarox]

thanks guys.
i honestly don't know what happened other than i didnt do a water change for pretty long.
and i did a test,and it was the nitrites that were on the high.
but my fish are acting fine now after the 45 percent water change.
i'll keep up water changes for the next few days.

 

[hybridtheoryd16]

well nitrites don't get there unless there was ammonia first. So you probably were spot on with the ammonia spike guess. All this means you had a die off of BB for some reason. I highly doubt that one stock addition would overwelm the bio-bacteria. Unless your bio media amount is at its limit.--------hope every body else pulls thru.

 

[Morledzep]

channa, seriously check under the ornaments and hiding places for meat the fish didn't eat or a dead feeder, check the substrate, maybe do a thorough gravel vac.. these are the things that cause ammonia spikes in longtime cycled tanks.

clean all your filter media, rinse it all out in used tank water. Believe me i've been there.. i've lost fish i love because of pack rat plecos and smelts that i didn't know had been fouled.

if you have another tank grab a filter pad out of there and squeeze the beneficial bacteria into the tank that has the problem to give the new cycle a jump start. or just take one of the filter pads from the other tank and replace it with a clean one and put the used filter pad from the other tank in your filter to jump start your new cycle.
(i hope that made sense.. )

 

[Bogwoodbruce]

channa, seriously check under the ornaments and hiding places for meat the fish didn't eat or a dead feeder, check the substrate, maybe do a thorough gravel vac.. these are the things that cause ammonia spikes in longtime cycled tanks.

clean all your filter media, rinse it all out in used tank water. Believe me i've been there.. i've lost fish i love because of pack rat plecos and smelts that i didn't know had been fouled.

if you have another tank grab a filter pad out of there and squeeze the beneficial bacteria into the tank that has the problem to give the new cycle a jump start. or just take one of the filter pads from the other tank and replace it with a clean one and put the used filter pad from the other tank in your filter to jump start your new cycle.
(i hope that made sense.. )

Excellent advice, that could very well be what caused it.

 

[channarox]

well nitrites don't get there unless there was ammonia first. So you probably were spot on with the ammonia spike guess. All this means you had a die off of BB for some reason. I highly doubt that one stock addition would overwelm the bio-bacteria. Unless your bio media amount is at its limit.--------hope every body else pulls thru.

yea could be.
maybe it was the ammonia first and thats how i lost the pike characin.
and the nitrites must have been what killed the creni...
but...
everythings fine now.
and my stock is much lower now.
my fish are all fine now...
but it seems that my temensis caught ich after that?
but its gone now.

 

[channarox]

channa, seriously check under the ornaments and hiding places for meat the fish didn't eat or a dead feeder, check the substrate, maybe do a thorough gravel vac.. these are the things that cause ammonia spikes in longtime cycled tanks.

clean all your filter media, rinse it all out in used tank water. Believe me i've been there.. i've lost fish i love because of pack rat plecos and smelts that i didn't know had been fouled.

if you have another tank grab a filter pad out of there and squeeze the beneficial bacteria into the tank that has the problem to give the new cycle a jump start. or just take one of the filter pads from the other tank and replace it with a clean one and put the used filter pad from the other tank in your filter to jump start your new cycle.
(i hope that made sense.. )

thanks loads cath.
didnt find anything rotting in the tank.
but i did do a gravel vac.
everything seems fine now.
i really dont know what could have killed off the BB and i doubt thats what happened though...

 

[channarox]

You have to be careful with large water changes in older tanks.

You could cause a bacterial bloom because of too much 'new' water. My friend had a spike and he ended up killing all of his fish because he did over-sized water changes.

It's better to do <30% multiple times.

i didnt do a water change before it happened.

 

[channarox]

Do you run CARBON?

nope.
just sponge for pre filter and bio balls.