Insufficient Filtration

[messesb52]

Is your bio really dirty? My bio balls would get caked with crud and my nitrates would creep up really high. I always cleaned it when needed. I'm sure this could lead to an ammonia spike

My bioballs dont appear to be too dirty, although i've never cleaned them. But i feel like dirty bioballs would raise my nitrate rather than ammonia.

 

[messesb52]

Just thought I'd mention, if your seeing signs of ammonia poisoning it may already be too late. Generally speaking, once visible symptoms become apparent the fish is already too far gone to cure... but hopefully this isnt the case.

I highly doubt this is the case... My bass and eartheater are acting completely normal, and the ray is just underweight although he is still eating. I have observed some minor ammonia burn on some of my fish in the past, although none of them appear to have any at the moment.

 

[Jc1119]

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Looking at these pics makes it even more confusing. I used basically the same wet dry with a heavily stocked 220 salt setup and never had ammonia issues, but if you haven't medicated and its been chronic for awhile and its not in your supply water.....

You need more bio/filtration. Looks like it should be able to handle those 3 fish though. Test kit new?


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[messesb52]

Also im really worried because im going on vacation for a week in 2 weeks so i dont be able to do a water change for a week when im away, although i will have someone feeding my fish. i need to get this problem fixed so i can get my ray back to eating and fatten him up in case the person feeding him doesn't do a good job when i go away, and so i dont have any problems with ammonia that require an emergency water change when im away.

 

[Chrisplosion]

Thread cleaned

 

[Pharaoh]

100% yes. It will only get worse as the fish get bigger too. You could add an AC110 hob filter and you'll be set. Fx5 or comparable would be great too but the 110 is a lot cheaper.

False! Filters do not remove ammonia. You obviously need to get your water changes on track. Your water should be changed by atleast 80% each week. Even if filters did remove ammonia the water being returned to the tanknwould still be run thrum the coagulation of it. Lets think here just for a second

This is incorrect. If you have adequate biological colony established, ammonia would be turned into nitrite and thusly turned into nitrates. I don't suspect large water changes to be the fix here.

Sorry even if filters removing ammonia is "common knowledge" I strongly disagree. Out of the 50 plus tanks my father n I have running if we did not do water changes regularly the ammonia would spike sky high reguardless of how much bio media the sumps have.

If you have to do 80% water changes on you tanks every week just to keep your tanks under control; you have one of two issues; your tanks are severely overstocked or you have inadequate biological filter media in your system/tank and it cannot keep up with your stocking.

Regarding the presence of ammonia and biological media, I would refer you to the nitrification cycle to have a better understanding of what role biological media plays in the cycle of an aquarium.

So the water params are ammonia .25, nitrite 0, and nitrate 15 ppm. I have been doing 50% water changes twice a week over the past month or so. I highly doubt that there is anything rotting in the tank because i have been having problems with ammonia for probably 2 months ( which already killed my arowana a few weeks ago). As for the uv its a corallife 36 watt sterilizer.

Have you added any medication recently? How old is your test kit? are you using a liquid test kit? Or testing strips? Are you SURE your not overfeeding?

Even so i suggest cutting back even more on food. This will help with the ammonia since the fish wont be pooping as much.

I would check for a couple things, mind you, I haven't made it through the whole thread at this point. some good questions in the two quote above.

1. Ammonia in your source water. If you have chloramines in your water, you could show ammonia as chloramines are a bond of chlorine and ammonia. Can you elaborate more on your water change method and water conditioners? What kind of water do you have? Well water or municiple water? Has anything changed in your water quality report?

2. A faulty test kit. This is possible, but with the aro death, leads me to beleive that this could potentially not be the case.

3. Inadequate bacteria colony establish. I doubt this is it as well, otherwise you would more than likely be seeing a bloom of some sort.

4. Feeding too much. Based on the pics and the setup, I want to doubt this one as well.

5. Sand bed depth. With 2" of sand, you can build pockets of anerobic bacteria. Do you stir the sand when you do your water changes to release any gases that might have built up over the course of a few months?

I'm leaning towards incoming water quality. What throws this diagnosis all out of wack is the fact that the ray is still alive but the aro died. I almost want to say that the aro death was unrelated, but that is just my speculation.

 

[Pharaoh]

I highly doubt this is the case... My bass and eartheater are acting completely normal, and the ray is just underweight although he is still eating. I have observed some minor ammonia burn on some of my fish in the past, although none of them appear to have any at the moment.

Agreed. Your levels do not seem high enough to cause ammonia poisoning to be honest.

 

[mr.bigglesworth]

Also im really worried because im going on vacation for a week in 2 weeks so i dont be able to do a water change for a week when im away, although i will have someone feeding my fish. i need to get this problem fixed so i can get my ray back to eating and fatten him up in case the person feeding him doesn't do a good job when i go away, and so i dont have any problems with ammonia that require an emergency water change when im away.

It is VERY important that you tell them exactly how much to feed. Better yet a week isnt that long, they will probably do ok without food the whole time. Their is a high probability that the caretaker will overfeed. Assuming they have no experience with keeping fish. My neighbor fed my fish SOO much while i was away for 3 days he went through a full pound of flakes in 3 days in my 10g guppy tank. Everything died and their was a 2" layer of decaying flakes on the bottom. I talked to him about it and he said he thinks the fish starved to death. Ammonia was over 100ppm. Not a typo.

 

[messesb52]

This is incorrect. If you have adequate biological colony established, ammonia would be turned into nitrite and thusly turned into nitrates. I don't suspect large water changes to be the fix here.



If you have to do 80% water changes on you tanks every week just to keep your tanks under control; you have one of two issues; your tanks are severely overstocked or you have inadequate biological filter media in your system/tank and it cannot keep up with your stocking.

Regarding the presence of ammonia and biological media, I would refer you to the nitrification cycle to have a better understanding of what role biological media plays in the cycle of an aquarium.





I would check for a couple things, mind you, I haven't made it through the whole thread at this point. some good questions in the two quote above.

1. Ammonia in your source water. If you have chloramines in your water, you could show ammonia as chloramines are a bond of chlorine and ammonia. Can you elaborate more on your water change method and water conditioners?

2. A faulty test kit. This is possible, but with the aro death, leads me to beleive that this could potentially not be the case.

3. Inadequate bacteria colony establish. I doubt this is it as well, otherwise you would more than likely be seeing a bloom of some sort.

4. Feeding too much. Based on the pics and the setup, I want to doubt this one as well.

1. I tested my tap water a little while ago and it showed 0 ammonia. For my water changes, their pretty straight forward; filling up a 4 gallon bucket with water from the bath tub faucet and adding api tap water conditioner and then adding the water to my tank.

2. The test kit is very new and it reads 0 ammonia in my tap water, so i don't think this is the problem.

3. I don't think there is a problem with my bacterial colony as the tank has been established for a while with a full cycling period.

4. I agree that overfeeding is definitely not the problem.

 

[messesb52]

It is VERY important that you tell them exactly how much to feed. Better yet a week isnt that long, they will probably do ok without food the whole time. Their is a high probability that the caretaker will overfeed. Assuming they have no experience with keeping fish. My neighbor fed my fish SOO much while i was away for 3 days he went through a full pound of flakes in 3 days in my 10g guppy tank. Everything died and their was a 2" layer of decaying flakes on the bottom. I talked to him about it and he said he thinks the fish starved to death. Ammonia was over 100ppm. Not a typo.

The person that feeding my fish is fairly experienced with animals and she has been taking care or my pets when on vacation for years now. She took care of my ray last year when he was still in my 45 gallon tank and there wasn't any ammonia or anything when i returned. I just really want to fix this problem before i go a away.