Havin an ammonia issue.....

[we4wieners]

I have a 45g that's been set up for several months. It was seeded with a few lbs of well established media from a pretty old tank. It was running with great parameters for 2 months. I cleaned the tank and filter with tank water just like ive been doing for years. After I cleaned the tank, I got an ammonia spike and never dropped below 1ppm. I added more established media and got nothing. I drained the tank and added new water and left the filter as is. It was good for 3 days then back to 1ppm. What the hell is going on? Ive been doing this a long time and currently run a beautiful 180g discus tank problems.

What should I do from here? Tetra Aqua Safestart? let it reestablish with a new cycle? I am at a loss here. Like I said, I am not new to this and have set up many tanks with established media. This tank has me stumped.

 

[jaws7777]

Did you add new fish ? Maybe under dose with water conditioner during the wc ? Are you on well or municipal water maybe they changed something ?

 

[markstrimaran]

Possibly the city water had a higher chlorine content of tap water?
Depending on how close you live to the water tower, or a high volume water main.
In my small town, any time the maintenance crews fixes a water main, I can smell the chlorine coming out of the faucet for a few days.
Any missing fish, that might have died?

 

[we4wieners]

I have city water and yeah it has had a chlorine smell lately. But I do 50% water changes on my discus tank daily with no problem. I always dose Prime to every change. No idea.

 

[hmt321]

Any fluctuations in ph?

 

[Dieselhybrid]

Test the water from the tap before you put it in the tank for reference point

 

[Dixon81]

Would the increase in chlorine (water smelled of chlorine lately) have killed any BB that where established in the tank? or killed off a fair amount, leaving not enough to process the ammonia appropriately.

 

[ragin_cajun]

Test with a second test kit. Be sure your test kit isn't off. Or test both tanks with the same test kit and see if one reads any different from the other.

These types of threads usually have one tank, or a tank that's way overstocked, or a bad run of water. But, you have TWO tanks in the house--one is fine (with discus)--and the other is having ammonia problems?

any fish having ill effects from ammonia? And what are the other parameters--nitrite, nitrate, and pH?

 

[Skalper666]

If you had the ammonia spike like this I would bet that you likely cleaned the tank/filter a little too well and now do not have enough beneficial bacteria to handle the ammonia amount produced by your fish. The tank will now likely cycle. I had this happen to me before on a very established tank. It can also happen if you add too many fish at once of course. I would do more frequent water changes and also add seachem prime (which will make any ammonia and nitrite harmless) until you get through this. Test often, maybe it won't cycle and it will go back down asap.