Cycle crashed

[xraycer]

normally i dont clean both at the same time and its fine, yes i always wash it in tap water, i know i shouldnt!

and thats a good point i did forget to add my declorinator, we have a new baby so my mind was else where and i just wanted it all clean... should i water change or let it run its course and carry on as normal?

Just add dechlorinator asap and check water parameters. If BB population did collapsed, the you will need to cycle the tank again. Which means big daily water changes everyday until parameters are back to normal

 

[justarn]

It is not clear why you think you crashed your cycle. Certainly cleaning your filter with chlorinated water can do that (though depending on your media, even this will leave much of the bacterial population intact, and even if there is a problem it can quickly balance out again). But this will happen exactly as much if you change out 70% of the water or 20% or whatever...the bacteria don't live in the water column, they live on surfaces and most importantly, the huge surface area of good biolgical medium (like Matrix) in your filters. Remember that the cycle is fish produce ammonia, and bacteria consume it as it is produced, so there is no ammonia left in the water. These bacteria excrete nitrite, which a different kind of bacteria consume as it is produced, so there is no mitrite left in the water. These bacteria produce nitrate, which we generally remove/dilute with water changes (since plants, even if present, consume it but generally are enough given our fish load vs. plants, typically, and the bacteria that consume it are anaerobic and generally our set-ups don't support it enough.

A crash of the cycle is basically the bacteria dying. So the ammonia doesn't get consumed and ultimately converted into relatively innocuous nitrate. Ammonia is very toxic to fish so if your fish seem comfortable then it is very unlikely that you have a problem that needs action (meaning it it does not sounds like you have ammonia or nitrite, which would distress the fish greatly). In any case, test your water, but in the meantime I would just wait for the cloudiness to clear and use your regular routine.

Great looking tank, by the way!

Fish are fine mate, so your saying leave it and xracer is saying water change every day.... hmmmm



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[justarn]

Great looking tank, by the way!

thanks, bit foggy tho!-)

 

[Dr_Shakalu]

The first and most important thing to do is get a water test kit. You'll save a lot of time doing water changes when you find out exactly what is going on in the water. Also, this probably won't be the first or last time you'll use it so it's a pretty good investment. Almost all of the answers to questions regarding water and water problems begin with asking what the water parameters are.

 

[justarn]

i have a kit mate... i will test it now. like i said i was hoping someone would know. ammonia test takes 20min before you can read it tho, yawn!!

 

[xraycer]

Fish are fine mate, so your saying leave it and xracer is saying water change every day.... hmmmm



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If tank indeed has inadequate BB then ammonia is going to keep building up. Then only way to remove ammonia would be water changes until BB population builds back up.

 

[wrslrcichlid]

Basically the difference in the two suggestions is different interpretations of what may have occurred (we can't know without knowing water quality levels from a test kit: ammonia, nitrite, nitrate).

You should not clean your filter media with tap water, but you can clean the filter with tap water (just remove media from filter). Cleaning your filter media with tap water means you are killing some portion of the BB (maybe all, but unlikely), and causing at minimum a mini cycle every time you clean it.

If you don't want to buy a water test kit, most fish stores will test your water for free - you should really at least do that. The levels will let you know what is needed because it answers the following question: Are you having an algae bloom or is the tank cycling? If it is cycling, then large, daily water changes are in order. If it is an algae bloom, then just follow your normal schedule and it will usually fix itself.

If you forgot to add water dechlorinator, then add that immediately. Chlorine (and chloramines) are very toxic to fish and can kill them them in a matter of hours - I talk from experience when I was first starting out.

 

[xraycer]

i have a kit mate... i will test it now. like i said i was hoping someone would know. ammonia test takes 20min before you can read it tho, yawn!!

20mins! My liquid ammonia test takes about 5mins start to finish

 

[wrslrcichlid]

What kit do you have that takes 20min? The ones I know of take just a few minutes.

 

[Simcan]

Agreed. Either you killed off the bacteria (and chlorine and chloramine are designed to do just that) or you did not. If you did kill off lots of it or all of it, you crashed it (though again, the size of water change changes nothing in this regard). Let us know what the test says. If you crashed, you have to do lots of water changes as the bacterial population re-establishes itself. Otherwise you don't. If you have another tank, you can also jump-start a new cycle by adding biological media from another filter into this one.