Frustrating...

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>:(

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Dec 10, 2007
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Elsinore
Ok, I did a bad thing and decided to do a vacuum gravel a filter media change and wiped down the glass all in one day on my 30 gallon tank two days ago. I had forgotten that I had cleaned the glass earlier that morning and then went on to do more maintenance that afternoon. This is a well-established tank that has been running over a year.

A few hours later, I come into the room to a cloudy tank. I realized my mistake right away and I figured it was just a bacteria bloom. So, I just decided to let it go overnight and see what happened since ammonia measured 0, nitrites were 0 and nitrates looked like they were at slightly less than 10. It was slightly clearer that morning, so I just did a 30% water change and went to school. I came home and it was much clearer, so I left it.

It looked about the same this morning so I did another 30% and went off to work. I came home and it was worse than ever. The fish are acting normally and ammonia is still 0, nitrite 0, but nitrates are now at 15, 80 degrees, Ph 7.2. It looks terrible, but the fish seem fine and hungry, but I've cut back on their feeding just in case.

My question is should I wait it out for a few days and just hold back on water changes? It seems they make things worse. Something else I can do?
 
i suggest just leaving it be, just sounds like its cycling, and cleaning it doesnt really help the process, just if you have to, do one more water change, and leave it be. i was in your position not too long ago
 
I just can't believe I forgot. I will never clean that much again. Scout's honor.:grinno:

I'm just watching for an ammonia spike, so far it's steady at 0. I was going to pull some media from my 55, but then I remembered I used coppersafe in it a while ago to get rid of a few hydra. So, the media is probably now deadly to all the shrimp in my 30 gallon....
 
Just back off the water changes unless you see a spike for about a week. You should be back to normal real quick.
 
I keep my tanks very clean but learned the hard way of how too much cleaning can be bad by ending up in the same situation you're in now. Take too much and your bb colony ends up on its face.
 
Fixed. I added a tiny bit of cycle to the filter out of curiosity and it cleared up overnight. Awesome.
 
Sounds like you just needed more bb alive at that point I'd say in 1-2 weeks your bb colony will be 75-100% recovered and back to normal.
 
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