Cloudy Eyes, please help

[festaedan]

You're welcome, may not be right but discussion at least may lead us in the right direction. I didn't realize your rays were only 6", you do have a fair bit of room in there and it doesn't seem as heavy as a bioload as I initially thought. So other than not having enough bio media, the ammonia reading may only be a one off since that 80% change, and maybe initial problem wasn't ammonia. You confident your test kit is right, as in do you have another tank to compare it to? How old is it? Don't go overboard on cleaning your sponges if you need bio media, just lightly with tank water to get rid of detritus and potential sources of decay that may be causing ammonia. Whatever maintenance you do, first thing you need to keep at the front of your mind is doing things in a way to reduce the stress of the ray.

I personally don't like to add anything into my tank unless I have to and am sure what I am adding will address the issue. Learned that the hard way once. I guess if you can be certain you are continuing to have ammonia spikes that it wouldn't hurt and I imagine BB in a bottle won't cause a great deal more stress like medication would. Just speculating, I would hold off unless you are confident a lack of bio is contributing to the issue. Maybe a bit of salt but definitely not a full dose, maybe quarter dose. Stress could be as simple as being picked on or being the last to be able to get food. Dents in foreheads don't happen overnight, and truth be told it is a bad sign (again, learned the hard way).

What are your fx6's filled with? Give us some more details about your substrate, your sump setup, and anything else that may hold bio bacteria so we can try to eliminate that as an issue before we go too far down that path unnecessarily. Specific quantities of media will help, and I guess post a list of fish and their sizes, as well as your feeding details. If ammonia is the issue you would think you would see signs elsewhere and it certainly wouldn't be from one spike. Post more test results. I know it seems like I am doing a complete 180 but I didn't realize your fish were so small, I think 2 properly filled fx6's will be able to keep up with most that stock if truly biggest fish is 6", so problem with ammonia may be the media itself or could be a one off, speaking of which let us know your turnover as well.

Im sorry, I miss typed
I mean most of the cichlids are under 6". The 3 rays are between 12" and 10" and the silver arowana is 14". Everything else is just big enough not to be eaten.
I have had great luck with the "smart start" bb. In my experience you really cant add too much and it doesnt shock the fish. The little divet in the head was really worrying me aswell. It doesnt look to be getting bigger and its still pretty shallow.

The tank has 2 pieces of large driftwood, both of which I have kept rays with and the rays didnt get scratched. My hybrid likes to swim all over it and I have never seen a cut or scratch on her other than bites from the other rays. There are also 5 round stones and 40 lbs of torpedo beach sand. There are dual overflows that lead down to filter pads and then bioballs. Then it goes through more mechanical media and then to my 2,500 gph pump which creates crazy surface aggitation. There are also pothos plants growing along the back. I really cant tell you how many but the longest roots are 4-5' long and theres a ton of them. This is why I have virtually no nitrates. The fx6s are filled with all of the mechanichal media they come with and ciramic rings in all of the little baskets. The Uv sterilizer is (I believe) 150 watts.
The rays get 8 shrimp a day, each shrimp is about 1/40 - 1/35 of a pound. The other fish all get pellets and krill.
I clean the tank 50%-75% every week religiously. The tank has lights on from 7 am to 10 pm. The temp is always at 80 degrees. The last fish i added was the leo and she was added 3 months ago.
Do you think another huge water change would hurt if I add some of the bb? I was thinking it would take out the ammonia and the added bb would replace the bb I lost in the water change and the last change.
Thanks again for all the help and suggestions

 

[davenmandy]

Large water changes take out nitrates, I don't know if they have much bearing on ammonia. You know my stance on large water changes, sorry I won't advise you one way or another about that.

Your filtration and cleaning regiment sounds good. Your feeding doesn't seem to be bad either. The sand will house enough BB and as well as your bio balls and ceramic rings, but perhaps I am mistaken on that and someone with more experience can chime in. I just know most serious ray keepers run their k1 moving beds and that gives you PLENTY of bio to support large fish so the issue never comes into question. I guess when you add everything together there is quite a few pounds of fish plus waste in there, not sure. All I know is your ammonia is coming from somewhere, whether that is your rays issue or not.

Did you see her belly, did she possibly get stung?

What is your regular PH level and what are all parameters right now?

 

[Wailua Boy]

How would the water change add ammonia? I know this is probably a stupid question but ever since I started keeping fish I always heard "if you have excess ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate, do a big water change".

I 100% agree large water changes can create re-cycling. I think most people doing large water changes aren't relying on biological filtration too much.

 

[festaedan]

Sorry for not responding
I wrote a crazy long explenation of my tank. As I was about to post it my computer died and it didnt save.
Anyway, yesterday I did a huge water change and cleaned one of the fx6s. I mainly did this to get rid of the salt and help the ammonia a bit. This time I added some of the smart start. I waited to check the water 18 hours after the change was over and to my surprised, its working
ammonia- 0.25 ppm
Nitrite - 1 ppm
Nitrate - 5 ppm
In this tank there is always almost no nitrates because I have some of the biggest pothos vines I have ever seen growing out the back (check the thread on my 300 in my signature). These are 20+ one year old plants and some of the roots are almost 5 feet long. Hopefully the ammonia will be gone by the afternoon and the nitrite will start converting into nitrate and my plants will eat it up.
Thanks for all the help everyone, and I'll keep you posted.

 

[Woefulrelic]

Do you have any concerns about your cycle with that amount of pothos?

 

[festaedan]

Just tested the water and amonia is 0, nitrite is 0, and nitrate is at 5
Threw in some shrimp and all 3 rays ate, thanks for all the help

Do you have any concerns about your cycle with that amount of pothos?

What do you mean?

 

[reddead38]

I personally like to use matrix as my biomedia in my sumps. Glad you seem to have your tank reading under control

 

[Woefulrelic]

Just tested the water and amonia is 0, nitrite is 0, and nitrate is at 5
Threw in some shrimp and all 3 rays ate, thanks for all the help

What do you mean?

I'm not sure of your bioload, just that pothos can compete for the same ammonia that bb need to cycle. I'm probably over thinking things a bit.

 

[davenmandy]

Glad things worked out. As your rays and other fish grow and produce more of a bioload, you will want to make sure it doesn't happen again. Something caused a cycle, try to pinpoint what, and if it happens again be really cognizant of what might have caused it. I personally think you should change up your WC patterns, but I am not going to beat a dead horse. I also know that pothos has done NOTHING for ray keepers in the past as it simply cannot keep up with waste they produce, so for you to say you have zero nitrates regularly is either incredibly amazing or something is screwing with your nitrogen cycle. You would have thought that if your tank was having cycling issues you would have noticed before, or something would have gotten ammonia burn, but I am really having trouble believing pothos is pulling out so many nitrates for you. Maybe it's true or your rays just aren't big enough yet, but just be careful for the next little bit and test frequently, especially after doing tank maintenance, so that no more of your awesome stock go off of food again because of a small cycle. Oh and my two pennies: bacteria in a bottle is just a bandaide solution. You need your system to produce ample amounts of this bacteria and to make sure it has enough places to seed, adding more bacteria from a bottle is good to start things out and may help during min cycles, but it is a temporary solution at best. Overkill is your friend here, you want to be prepared for anything at anytime as you have evidently invested a lot of time and money to your setup. Best of luck.

 

[festaedan]

Glad things worked out. As your rays and other fish grow and produce more of a bioload, you will want to make sure it doesn't happen again. Something caused a cycle, try to pinpoint what, and if it happens again be really cognizant of what might have caused it. I personally think you should change up your WC patterns, but I am not going to beat a dead horse. I also know that pothos has done NOTHING for ray keepers in the past as it simply cannot keep up with waste they produce, so for you to say you have zero nitrates regularly is either incredibly amazing or something is screwing with your nitrogen cycle. You would have thought that if your tank was having cycling issues you would have noticed before, or something would have gotten ammonia burn, but I am really having trouble believing pothos is pulling out so many nitrates for you. Maybe it's true or your rays just aren't big enough yet, but just be careful for the next little bit and test frequently, especially after doing tank maintenance, so that no more of your awesome stock go off of food again because of a small cycle. Oh and my two pennies: bacteria in a bottle is just a bandaide solution. You need your system to produce ample amounts of this bacteria and to make sure it has enough places to seed, adding more bacteria from a bottle is good to start things out and may help during min cycles, but it is a temporary solution at best. Overkill is your friend here, you want to be prepared for anything at anytime as you have evidently invested a lot of time and money to your setup. Best of luck.

Thanks
Unfortunately Im going on vacation in 20 minutes, but yesterday I did a 20% WC and all the rays (including the leo) ate pretty voraciously and all the water params are normal.
Im 90% sure I pinpointed it.
A little while before I topped up my sump as high as it can go without overflowing in a power outage. Since its a wet dry I think I might have killed some of the bb.
Any thoughts on that?
Thanks