Ammonia Spike

[skjl47]

Phosguard kill good bacteria?

it is made to litteraly kill bacteria. and it doesnt know the difference

Hello; I am not familiar with this product so cannot say what it will kill, but I suggest a search on the phosguard.

I was having an brown algea problem. That's why I started using it. It killed the algea. Everything has a white powdery substance on it. I've been alternating a 25 and 50% water change. Thinking that it's probably going through a mini cycle, I've added water from one of my other tanks to get my nitrates up. Nitrates are only 5.0.

Hello; The usual goal is to get the nitrate numbers as low as possible. At first thought I see no benefit from using old tank water at all.

The ammonia is 2.0, nitrite is 0 and nitrate is 5.0. I

Hello; These numbers sort of indicate a tank that is not cycled except for the presence of the nitrate. Two things come to mind. One is the nitrate test is not reading true. This is the one where the vials need to be shaken a lot, so perhaps more shaking. The other is you are truly adding nitrates from the other tanks.

4 other tanks that I get perfect readings

Having other tanks means you can take solid surfaces from them which have beneficial bacteria (bb) on their surface to seed the tank in question.

Hello; I will add a couple of links about cycling and bb.

Aquarium cycling links


http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/nitrogen_cycle.html


http://www.bioconlabs.com/nitribactfacts.html

 

[Romona]

I have another exterior filter that I switched a tray that has ceramic and bio balls, I also switched a filter.
I took the fish out of the tank a week ago because I lost a couple of them.