serious ammonia problem.

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JeremyXXXX

Gambusia
MFK Member
Jul 13, 2010
652
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16
Long Island
I know I'm gonna get flamed for this but I really don't care...

I have a 125 gallon tank with a silver arowana and marble motoro ray. They have been in this tank for months now no problem but I've been battling cloudy water issues for a couple weeks now and have run out of ideas. I have a Fluval FX5 and 405 on the tank and I have cleaned both of them within the last month and replaced the FX5 hoses a couple weeks ago as well. The ammonia is reading extremely high at 4.0 with a pH in the 6.8-7.0 range. The ray and aro both are not showing any visible signs of stress they are both still active, no cloudy eyes, the rays underside is not showing any irritation and they are both still eating.

Obviously I know this is an emergency situation so I welcome any feedback. I am doing 20 gallon water changes every 3 days because I prefer most water changes at lower amounts as opposed to large 50% water changes but what do you guys think about that? I just dosed the tank with ammonia lock and the Nutrafin biological supplement. I have a bare bottom tank so what I was hearing from people is that I should add sand to have more room for bacteria to grow... opinions on that?

I have the FX5 output on the left side of the tank, 750GPH powerhead on the right side and 405 output in the middle of the tank but am having build up on the waters surface in the middle of the tank and the glass lid in the middle has a lot of build up on it.



I don't want to get rid of my arowana and ray but if this continues I will be forced to sell them because I do not want to lose them. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated and please....go easy on me. I am trying my best to handle the situation I am a novice in this hobby (around 2 years now) but I know there is still a lot I can learn from this.
 
how did you clean your canisters? both at the same time? did you rinse them with tank water or tap water?
be honest please. there's no point if you did make this mistake.
what it sounds like to me is that your bacteria colony has crashed for some reason. a reasonable explanation would be cleaning both canisters at the same time with tap water, wiping out your bacteria colony.

with a reading of 6.8-7 ph, it doesn't sound like your tank had a ph crash to kill your BB off.

has there been any lack of maintenance?
did you find any uneaten food in the canisters/hoses?
 
Your tank seems to have adequate filtration and water circulation. Your water changing schedule is not the greatest. You are changing a little less than 20% of the water every three days. Larger water changes would be more beneficial. The ammonia in the tank has to be coming from somewhere. How much and how often are you feeding your fish? What type of food are you feeding? Are you overfeeding or feeding your filter rather than your fish?
 
I have found canister filters to be unreliable at best when it comes to rays or other large fish. There may just not be enough bio in the filters to handle the tank.

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Since you've already been changing water, a 90% water change should be fine. I've done water changes on W/C rays down to where their eyes are only just below the surface, seriously, large water changes are your friend not an enemy to be avoided. I can't even remember the last time I did less than a 50% water change on any of my tanks, most likely it was 10 years ago.

Sand shmand. If you didn't screw the filter up cleaning it, most likely you need another filter. Get another filter if your filters can't keep up.

And when you say "buildup".. What, exactly does that mean?
 
I do agree that you need to do larger water changes given that the tank is only 125g. Good luck.
 
Those filters should be good enough for 2 fishes imo.. Readings in your tap? 20% every 3 days is good on a cykled tank, but in this case, you should step it up to 50%. Is the test kit new btw? 4,0 was really high..
 
I also agree dead bio filter had that happen on one of mine a few months ago moved the secound filter from one tank to that one temporarily for a few days everything was back to fine in a few days.
 
Killed ur BB off probably, AND the ray is not stressing bc when u do ur little w/c ur putting prime in the and ammo lock, which detoxifies the ammonia
 
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