ammonia vs. ammonium HELP!!!

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
HarleyK said:
Howdy,

That's a tough case.

Please refresh my memory: Whart size is your tank, and what fish do you keep? I found your filtration above. What do you feed, how much, and how often?

Think back to the origin of your problems: Did you change anything on your set-up right before ammonia started to rise?

Last but not least: You mentioned test strips and drip tests, which basically rules out test malfunction. But do you get a negative reading with distilled water?

HarleyK
Click to expand...
My tank is a 220 and I currently house a 16" silver aro, 6" prochilodus, 2 3.5" clown loaches, 8" pictus catfish, and I just picked up a 15" royal clown knife but this problem started before the knife purchase and hasn't got any worse since adding him. I feed every night but have been skipping a night here recently trying to figure this out. it hasn't helped. I feed all frozen food and it is usually all gone in 3 minutes or so but I clean up any that has been missed after 15mins or so. I haven't changed anything but adding melafix 1 time and that was months ago.

Also as stated I am getting readings on my strips and drip test only and not on my ammonia alert... the coclusion I came up with was that I had ammonium and not ammonia. Since the strips and drip test measure both I am getting a reading of .25 ppm I have not tested distilled water but my tap water checks out with no ammonia as do the rest of my aquariums.. still mind boggled with this problem I hope I get it figured out soon. I have already lost 2 royal clown knife fish but I don't think this was the reason..
 
Man, this is a tough one!

Next question: What substrate do you have (grain size), how deep, how long has it been sitting in your tank, any substrate fertilizers, heater cables, do you have trumpet snails, do you gravel vacuum everywhere, any UV sterilizer that we should know of?

As an estimate of your bioload: What are your nitrate and phosphate levels? Any nitrite recently?

And just out of curiosity: What plants do you have?

HarleyK
 
HarleyK said:
Man, this is a tough one!

Next question: What substrate do you have (grain size), how deep, how long has it been sitting in your tank, any substrate fertilizers, heater cables, do you have trumpet snails, do you gravel vacuum everywhere, any UV sterilizer that we should know of?

As an estimate of your bioload: What are your nitrate and phosphate levels? Any nitrite recently?

And just out of curiosity: What plants do you have?

HarleyK
Click to expand...



puzzle of the week harley.
 
HarleyK said:
Man, this is a tough one!

Next question: What substrate do you have (grain size), how deep, how long has it been sitting in your tank, any substrate fertilizers, heater cables, do you have trumpet snails, do you gravel vacuum everywhere, any UV sterilizer that we should know of?

As an estimate of your bioload: What are your nitrate and phosphate levels? Any nitrite recently?

And just out of curiosity: What plants do you have?

HarleyK
Click to expand...
I have norlmal size black aquarium gravel its about 2" deep. I do place flourish tabs in my substrate about once every 4 months or so. Its been in my tank for almost 9 months or so. I don't have any snails in this tank that I knoe of do to my clown loaches and when I did they were pond snails. I gravel vac every water change but I do my tank in sections as to not remove to much bacteria. no other equiptment other than filters and normal heaters in mu sump filter.. My nitrate rarily goes above 15-20ppm and my phosphate stays around 1 or 1.5ppm. I haven't had nitrite since I cycled the tank..

for plants I have 4 different anubius plants. 2 small java ferns, 1 large and one small amazon sword plant and a bunch of vals. Still stumped?
 
Yep, I am stumped. I would try the zeolite chips for the heck of it.
 
I read through this thread and I see a couple things that stand out.
First, are you having any die offs in the java ferns and vals? Be sure to remove any plants that die before they break down as they release the nitrogen products they have bound up as they decay. This is probably a minor problem.
Second, how is the growth rate of your plants, without growth plants don't use much nitrogen (in any form). Fast growing plants like water lettuce or elodea are best for that purpose.
Third, as Harley asked, how well/often do you do a thorough gravel vac? Substrate is often a holding place for nitrates that can break back down into other forms of nitrogen. Unless you are using a UGF you can do the whole thing and not worry about the bacteria you are losing, without water flow through the gravel it is not doing much for you anyway. In planted tanks there are often areas that do not get cleaned well, this is one reason I like small pots for my plants.
Fourth, Go very light on the flourish tabs, it doesnn't take much in a tank containing fish.
Last, You should not change your filter media very often, that is where the working colony of de-nitrifying bacteria resides. Just replace the first filter pad and rinse out the rest in dechlorinated water. Also, in hang ons I usually slice open the charcoal pack and replace the charcoal with small fragments of lava rock or even just cut to fit some bulk filter pad material to provide more surface area for filter bacteria. By discarding the old media every time you are minimizing the filters effectiveness in biofiltration.
 
Yeah, could be decaying plants, didn't think of that.
 
guppy said:
I read through this thread and I see a couple things that stand out.
First, are you having any die offs in the java ferns and vals? Be sure to remove any plants that die before they break down as they release the nitrogen products they have bound up as they decay. This is probably a minor problem.
Second, how is the growth rate of your plants, without growth plants don't use much nitrogen (in any form). Fast growing plants like water lettuce or elodea are best for that purpose.
Third, as Harley asked, how well/often do you do a thorough gravel vac? Substrate is often a holding place for nitrates that can break back down into other forms of nitrogen. Unless you are using a UGF you can do the whole thing and not worry about the bacteria you are losing, without water flow through the gravel it is not doing much for you anyway. In planted tanks there are often areas that do not get cleaned well, this is one reason I like small pots for my plants.
Fourth, Go very light on the flourish tabs, it doesnn't take much in a tank containing fish.
Last, You should not change your filter media very often, that is where the working colony of de-nitrifying bacteria resides. Just replace the first filter pad and rinse out the rest in dechlorinated water. Also, in hang ons I usually slice open the charcoal pack and replace the charcoal with small fragments of lava rock or even just cut to fit some bulk filter pad material to provide more surface area for filter bacteria. By discarding the old media every time you are minimizing the filters effectiveness in biofiltration.
Click to expand...
Thanks for helping me out here.
First off my plants are pretty healthy. my java fern has never lost a leaf and my vals are sprouting new plants weekly.. also my anubius are all growing new leaves and occasionally flowers.
I gravel vac weekly but I was hitting it sparingly as I didn't want to remove my BB. I now see that thats not an issue so i will do a major spring cleaning of my gravel. As for my plants I have removed my swords as they were showing the least improvment and were actually loosing leaves.. also they trapped alot of food and were a pain anyway. All the rest of my plants are attatched to my driftwood so they won't be a problem when vacuuming.

For my filter media I only change it when its wore out. I rinse it, and only when I notice significant water flow restriction. As you I to cut out the carbon in my emporer filters and rinse these as well.

so this is what my first steps are.
1. remove my swords
2. gravel vac entire substrate until clean
3. keep up water changes

does this look like a step in the right dorection??

thanks again for everyones help
 
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