I have a 125 galon tank with 8 medium sized Fronts. Its filtered with an Eheim 2217, 2* AC 110's and a Marinland C360. It has been up for about 2 months and everything is doing fine. The 2 canister filters were running on other established tanks before being transferred to the 125. This weekend the C360 took a dump and started leaking froom the valve block in to the motor head ( apparently very common) so I replaced it with another un-cycled Eheim 2217. At the same time I decided to check the water. To my surprise, there was between 1-2 ppm ammonia according to my API test kit. Then went on to check nitrite and nitrate. The nitrites were 0 and so were the nitrates. I had done my regular water changes, 25-40 % weekly and treated the fresh water with Prime. I feed the Fronts NLS very me carefully, only what they can eat in 1-2 minutes. Does this sound weird to anyone else ?
Mini cycle started ?
- Thread starter Bobbys
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The 2 canister filters are pretty much just bio media and small sponge layer and the 2 AC-110 ( just sponges) are mainly for mechanical filtration.
Yes I feed NLS every day. Keep in mind, only 1 fish is adult size 11-12", the other 8 are 3-5" juveniles. I have another 125 with similar filtration and a colony 20 4-6" Moori's that I feed double the NLS that I do the the fronts and that tank is pristine and registers 0 ammonia.
I would disagree with that. The first front tank I was writing about has 0 nitrate, but the moori tank ( which get more food) has 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 20-30 ppm nitrate. Using the same test kit on the front tank gave me 1-2ppm ammonia, 0 nitrite and 0 nitrate.
Getting 0 nitrate on a mature tank is very odd and is reason for concern...
The API Nitrate tests are very touchy and require excessive shaking. Retesting and ensuring ample shaking is a very simple first step. Also, Ammonia readings of 1~2 ppm are harming your fish, so doing large water changes to keep that reading as low as possible (I suggest less than 0.5 ppm) is very wise.
When an established filter fails, it is not uncommon to see a 'mini cycle', although I would not consider what you are experiencing a 'mini cycle'. If you are truly getting o nitrate build up then you have experienced a complete bacterial crash and are thus 'uncycled'. This seems highly unlikely, but it is what your testing results are suggesting.
So very carefully retest and get back with us.
The API Nitrate tests are very touchy and require excessive shaking. Retesting and ensuring ample shaking is a very simple first step. Also, Ammonia readings of 1~2 ppm are harming your fish, so doing large water changes to keep that reading as low as possible (I suggest less than 0.5 ppm) is very wise.
When an established filter fails, it is not uncommon to see a 'mini cycle', although I would not consider what you are experiencing a 'mini cycle'. If you are truly getting o nitrate build up then you have experienced a complete bacterial crash and are thus 'uncycled'. This seems highly unlikely, but it is what your testing results are suggesting.
So very carefully retest and get back with us.
Thanks for all the help guys, that's the reason I posted in the first place, the results don 't seem to make sense. Would the use of Prime affect or mask the test results for ammonia ? I'll retest a couple of tanks tonight and post back the results.