Frustrated!

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
G

grunzilla

Candiru
MFK Member
Feb 16, 2008
189
0
46
lah lah land.
I had three small fronts and 5 small clown loaches in my 150 along with a flag tail and 3 baby endlis. I had great water parameters.
I sold off the fronts and the loaches and added 3 small orinos. Every morning I wake up and have .25 ammonia and .25 nitite. WTF?
I've been doing small water changes to try to get it down a little.
Is this a Mini Cycle? What do I do?

BTW I also treated the tank with parasite clear about 3 days ago when I found flukes on one of my bichirs.
 
What is your pH? We have really soft water, and this started to happen in our pond. The pH test said 6, but that's the lowest it read, so I have no idea how low it actually was. Essentially, the pH was so low that our water couldn't sustain the necessary population of bacteria. We buffered the water and increased pH with a salt mix, and we have had 0 ammonia since.
 
Okay, then... thought you might be going through the same thing that we were going through. I'm sure some others will have some guesses, too... good luck!
 
justonemoretank;3534834; said:
What is your pH? We have really soft water, and this started to happen in our pond. The pH test said 6, but that's the lowest it read, so I have no idea how low it actually was. Essentially, the pH was so low that our water couldn't sustain the necessary population of bacteria. We buffered the water and increased pH with a salt mix, and we have had 0 ammonia since.
Click to expand...

My SA/CA tank has been down as low as a pH of 5, and has never had a drop off in bacterial filtering capacity. Are you sure that the pH was the cause of the drop off? Was it a sudden (as in a matter of minutes to hours) change of pH from neutral to super low? Bacteria shouldn't have any problems with pH of 6, or even lower.
 
Conner;3535183; said:
My SA/CA tank has been down as low as a pH of 5, and has never had a drop off in bacterial filtering capacity. Are you sure that the pH was the cause of the drop off? Was it a sudden (as in a matter of minutes to hours) change of pH from neutral to super low? Bacteria shouldn't have any problems with pH of 6, or even lower.
Click to expand...

Nope, it lasted a month. Constant low levels of ammonia. We began adding enough of the mix for 25% of the volume (250 gallons), and after the second time, I tested. pH was up, KH was up, ammonia was zero. It was amazing. Nothing else we tried had worked. Our filter is the size of a 125 gallon tank, but taller, stuffed with Matala filter media. Our turnover is 12,000 gallons per hour. Our stocking is relatively light (or just right, depending on who it is that's determining that). I couldn't figure it out. I e-mailed WetWebMedia (props to them... they're amazing); spoke with Bob Fenner, and he recommended this mix. We used it. It worked. I was so nervous for the entire month that we had overstocked, that we didn't filter enough, etc. It was a constant source of stress for me. 3 of these fish are rescues -- talk about guilt when you're subjecting them to ammonia. But it worked. We've been ammonia-free for almost a month, and we even vacuumed the gravel last week. No change (other than nitrate reduction).
 
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