Chemical spike

[erlyon]

G'day guys

I did my usual weekly water change on my SW tank yesterday and after tests today I have had a major jump in both ammonia and nitrite levels. For months everything has been fine. I also noticed my pH had dropped to 7.8 from 8.2. Any suggestions to what could have happened there?

I have a 500 Litre SW tank with around 400 kg of live rock and live sand. No new fish have been added for a month or so. They get fed every other day.

Cheers for any suggestions !

 

[Mystix212]

Could of been something in your water. Do you age your water? If you did, the pH of the water prolly declined to fast. Thus when you put it into your tank, it dropped the pH. Yet the buffers should bring it up...

 

[ShadowBass]

Do you do your water changes with tap water?

Is there any way something in your tank could have died and you didn't notice?

Do you have a skimmer and are you sure it's working properly?

Have you moved any rock or anything?

Your pH could have dropped because of the elevated ammonia and nitrite levels.

 

[Pufferpunk]

That's odd... generally, higher ammonia will make the water more acidic, causing the pH to lower. Missing any inhabitants? I'd seriously tear apart the tank loooking for something that is dead in there. Are you using RO water? If not, check your tap water, there might be something in there.

I had a tank crash & it took me 2 weeks of daily 80% WC to finally find a rotting carcass inside a statue.

 

[Onion01]

did you mess with your filter? Remove filter material? Remove a lot of rocks from the tank? These all house bacteria, and if they die, then you get a mini-cycle.

 

[ShadowBass]

That's odd... generally, higher ammonia will make the water more acidic, causing the pH to lower. Missing any inhabitants? I'd seriously tear apart the tank loooking for something that is dead in there. Are you using RO water? If not, check your tap water, there might be something in there.

I had a tank crash & it took me 2 weeks of daily 80% WC to finally find a rotting carcass inside a statue.

His pH did lower from 8.0 - 7.8. I think they way it was written it looked the opposite since I thought that at first too.

 

[erlyon]

The most I did was add another powerhead and nothing else was touched. The saltwater is fresh filtered salt water that I buy in from the company that services just about all the tanks in the Perth (Western Australia) area. I even checked my stock of water for problems and ran it through some tests in school (I'm a high level chem. teacher) and found nothing. Water levels (apart from pH) are back to normal now. pH is up to 8.0 (used a pH meter). I reckon it was like you guys said a mini cycle. Definitely nothing dead though and the fish all seem quite happy.

Cheers