My aro just died on me. Any ideas why?

[Bderick67]

Depending on when you test your water it may show no ammonia. Figure this could be happening every 48 hours. Hypothetically speaking.

Feed the ray, 10 hours later ammonia spike, 2 hours later nitrite spike, then after a couple more hours the params are normal. The only way you are going to see if this is happening would be multiple daily testing of your tanks water for ammonia and nitrate.

Like I said, ray owners may be able to shed a little more light on the subject. IDK if this really happens, though I did experience something similar when I had RBPs.

 

[6 bar]

Depending on when you test your water it may show no ammonia. Figure this could be happening every 48 hours. Hypothetically speaking.

Feed the ray, 10 hours later ammonia spike, 2 hours later nitrite spike, then after a couple more hours the params are normal. The only way you are going to see if this is happening would be multiple daily testing of your tanks water for ammonia and nitrate.

Like I said, ray owners may be able to shed a little more light on the subject. IDK if this really happens, though I did experience something similar when I had RBPs.

I'm going to give it a shot after I do a water change. I just had a water test done and my ammonia levels are .25 which is supposedly safe.

Everything else tested the same except for now instead of nitrates at 20ppm, it's gone up to 40ppm. So, I'm going to do a wc tomorrow.

 

[henward]

amonia should be zero in my opinion, its the worse of all toxins. amonia should never even establish itself my principles is that as they sh8t out waste - it should be digested constantly. no delay in time, this could be a proble.

Your filer the aqua clear - is this a external canister or a hang on filter?

lets put it this way, can you get a handfull of shrimp or pellets or both, feed it and not get an amonia spike?
i can....i dont believe in regulating feeding you see, my own thing that is.

if you have amonia, it doesnt mean you wont have nitrate.
the waste is still being converted jst not fast enough.

if you have amonia, you wil most likely have nitrite as some stage.
you will always always have nitrate no matter what.

i think filtration and seasoning your bio media or having enough of it is key here.
you can buy little vials of bacteria to forcefully intro them into the system

works well, i use it when i set up new tanks,
now befor ei set up a new tank, i just take the bio medi and put it in the sump of my other ones.

 

[6 bar]

Yeah, I usually do the same thing when I set up tanks. I take old bio media and put it into my filters in new tanks and I also try to put in the gravel and water from established tanks as well. I've found this to really help me to jump start tanks.

Anyhow, I'm going to try to do what Brian suggested and test my ammonia levels throughout the day.

Btw, my 2 aqua clears are HOB filters which I believe is close to 2xs the filtration necessary for a 120g.

 

[Bderick67]

It's not the feeding that causes the ammonia spike. It's the big dump the fish take later on. The larger the colony of bacteria the quicker the ammonia can be consumed.