API test kit, help!

[duanes]

OP
Can you give us a little background on the tank for perspective?
How many gallons you tank?
How many, what species, and what size are they?
How big was the arowana before it was sold.
What is your normal water change (frequency and @ gallons) and filter cleaning routine.
Do you vacuum?
How often is the tank fed? What foods?
Using you new API kit, test your "tap" water, for ammonia, pH (using high and low range) and of course nitrate (shaking the tube vigorously for at least a full minute, before reading..
Rinse the test tube 3 times after and between tess, "if possible" using D I water.
How does your water provider treat your water? Free chlorine? cnoramine (AKA total chlorine?) other?
Is it had water? soft?
What is its source, reservoir ? well? lake? river?
These are all things any serious aquarist should know off the top of the head.

 

[Caveden]

1. With sump, around 310 gallons
2. 6 large bichirs (varying size) a datnoid (11-12”) channa maru (16”) at the moment. The arowana was replaced with the maru.

3. Arowana was 15-16” before sold
4. Changed 50-60% water every 5 days. Recently changed from sponge biomedia to ceramic biomedia. Told sponge biomedia is absolutely terrible, beneficial bacteria cannot thrive well.
5. No vacuum, I have no substrate
6. 2 or 3 times a week, however 2 weeks ago I fed everyday
7. What is DI water?
8. What do you mean water provider? I don’t know what that means
9. My pH is usually 6, but I increase the pH to exactly 7 with sodium bicarbonate
10. Reservoir

 

[duanes]

Just to illustrate with my own info example
My current tank is a 180 gal with a 125 sump/planted refugium for filtration.
4 Andinoacara coerleopuntatus (5-7") 2 Roeboides buchellei tetras (5") 1 Ancistrus chagrasii Pleco (7")
My normal water change routine is 30-40% toal sump and tank volume every other day
I do not vacuum, because of plants
The tank is fed for 2 days, not fed every 3rd day with pellets, insects, ocean fish trimmimgs
My tap water has a pH of @ 8.2, with 0 ammonia, 0 nitrate.
The source is desalinated sea water, treated with free chlorine...and filtered rain water off my roof pH 8.2

Tank left sump right

Tank pH above, tank nitrate below

 

[Caveden]

Just to illustrate with my own info example
My current tank is a 180 gal with a 125 sump/planted refugium for filtration.
4 Andinoacara coerleopuntatus (5-7") 2 Roeboides buchellei tetras (5") 1 Ancistrus chagrasii Pleco (7")
My normal water change routine is 30-40% toal sump and tank volume every other day
I do not vacuum, because of plants
The tank is fed for 2 days, not fed every 3rd day with pellets, insects, ocean fish trimmimgs
My tap water has a pH of @ 8.2, with 0 ammonia, 0 nitrate.
The source is desalinated sea water, treated with free chlorine...and filtered rain water off my roof pH 8.2
View attachment 1498660
Tank left sump right
View attachment 1498661
Tank pH above, tank nitrate below
View attachment 1498662

Sorry I honestly have no clue what free chlorine means. I just know Singapore water comes from reservoirs, with some water coming from high tech reverse osmosis ?
My fish are fed Japanese herring/ market prawns 2 or 3 times a week
Is that enough information? I can’t figure out the reason

 

[duanes]

DI is deionized water, it can come from the grocery store, and because it has almost zero mineral will sufficiently rinse out tubs of chemical residual.
Sometimes rinsing with tap water, or tank water leaves chemical residual that can skew results.
Water provider is where you get your water bill, the water company.
In Wisconsin, mine came from the Milwaukee Waters works, with Lake Michigan as a source.
They used Chloramine and Ozone as disinfectants.
If your on a private well that is your source, if you live in a rural farming area, wells can often be high in nitrate, and other chemicals.
If you get a water bill, some of the info may be supplied.

IMO you need to double your water change routine with that size of your stocking, and its numbers.
You have very similar water volume to mine, but your stock is about double, so with only 1 50% water change per week, nitrate will accumulate very quickly.

 

[Caveden]

DI is deionized water, it can come from the grocery store, and because it has almost zero mineral will sufficiently rinse out tubs of chemical residual.
Sometimes rinsing with tap water, or tank water leaves chemical residual that can skew results.
Water provider is where you get your water bill, the water company.
In Wisconsin, mine came from the Milwaukee Waters works, with Lake Michigan as a source.
They used Chloramine and Ozone as disinfectants.
If your on a private well that is your source, if you live in a rural farming area, wells can often be high in nitrate, and other chemicals.
If you get a water bill, some of the info may be supplied.

IMO you need to double your water change routine with that size of your stocking, and its numbers.
You have very similar water volume to mine, but your stock is about double, so with only 1 50% water change per week, nitrate will accumulate very quickly.

Beneficial bacteria is found on tank walls filters and biomedia as I correct? Not found floating with the water itself? So doing many water changes would not affect anything?

 

[esoxlucius]

Recently changed from sponge biomedia to ceramic biomedia.

This has the potential to send your parameters all over the place, depending on how you went about changing over your media. You've got to be on top of your game to start messing with your bio side, especially if you don't have a test kit to monitor what's going on.

How did you go about doing it?

 

[duanes]

If I had your type fish, my preference would be to do, small frequent water changes throughout the week.
The Dats and Channa live in very stable water conditions, and stability's often realized with frequent small changes ever other day or so, instead of large once per week changes, where nitrate and other nutrients have a chance to accumulate throughout the week.
I don't know if you have plants, but for your type fish, lots of floating plants would be my preference, water sprite, and other fast growing nutrient sponges can slightly help mitigate nitrate between water changes.
Normal bio-filtration helps with ammonia and nitrite, but does not reduce to any degree, the presence of nitrate.
In fact the end result of metabolism occurring in filters, produces nitrate.

 

[Caveden]

This has the potential to send your parameters all over the place, depending on how you went about changing over your media. You've got to be on top of your game to start messing with your bio side, especially if you don't have a test kit to monitor what's going on.

How did you go about doing it?

I changed the biomedia AFTER the sudden ammonia outbreak. My sump has 3 compartments, all filled with sponge media (blue things shown below).
so I replaced 2 of the compartments with the ceramic media instead, and transferred some of sponge media into the 3rd compartment before throwing the rest away. Before I added the ceramic biomedi, I washed them in my tank water, and added beneficial bacteria inside.

 

[Caveden]

If I had your type fish, my preference would be to do, small frequent water changes throughout the week.
The Dats and Channa live in very stable water conditions, and stability's often realized with frequent small changes ever other day or so, instead of large once per week changes, where nitrate and other nutrients have a chance to accumulate throughout the week.
I don't know if you have plants, but for your type fish, lots of floating plants would be my preference, water sprite, and other fast growing nutrient sponges can slightly help mitigate nitrate between water changes.
Normal bio-filtration helps with ammonia and nitrite, but does not reduce to any degree, the presence of nitrate.
In fact the end result of metabolism occurring in filters, produces nitrate.

I’ll try to do that water change regime.

what type of Low light floating plants would you recommend? My light is not extremely bright because bichirs don’t like very bright lights. The floating plants shouldn’t be too small either or they would get sucked into my overflow box. Do youhave an idea of any?