Got a .25 ppm amonia spike.

[aquaculture]

cycle is just what i can get locally and ive seen the stuff work enough times for me to purchase and use it. I,ll just put in some more of the media from my pond in the tank.

but this spike has to be an odd thing to hapen without a usual cause.

 

[jschall]

Do you use RO water? If so, do you have filtration or aeration? BB typically don't work as well under about pH 6. You might have CO2, nitrates, or tannins causing a pH drop. Apart from that, the BB need oxygen. Test pH, add 0.5-1.0 tsp baking soda (not baking powder) if pH 6 or lower. Also, BB can't survive drying out, so if you let your media dry out completely or almost completely then you may've caused a spike.

Apart from that, all I can think of is a snail death, chlorinated water killing BB, or just insufficient BB in the first place.

 

[knifegill]

You sound a informed as anybody here. Keep scratching that scalp and the answer might come.

 

[aquaculture]

No ro water just my tap treated with prime,filtration hooked up with aeration, part of the filter could have gone dry about a 1/4 of an inch of it, so that would probably have been it , and ph for me stays about 7.5-7.6 range.

thank you so much hopefully this will not happen again it definately shouldn't since i belive i have everything worked out to be good.

I always test my water before i purchase a fish so i know if i could bring it home or not and this was one of those cases.

to kep the ph stable , because of using driftwood, i have 5 lbs of opalized wood similar to petrified wood so its all minerals and looks like a fossilized version of one of my driftwoods so it rocks, and some clam shells placed in the tank.

but i swear i kept that filter moist during the large water change. but that is the only thing that could have been it,it getting a liitle dry that is.

water is also somewhat on the hard side.

 

[tcarswell]

The only bb I believe in is Dr. Tim's One-and-Only. I've used many, and this is the only one I've used and seen any real results.

Never tried DR tims but I have successfully used seachems stability many times