Sudden ammonia rise

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Yes, increasing the hose size will provide less velocity/speed of the water but higher flow rate, which is better.

When I was stating flow rate and biological efficiency, it takes into account that the water goes through media, so if you want 5x flow, a 1500G/H pump will do. The actual flow rate will always be lower. A 2800G/H will give you 9x + recommended flow rate and personally I aim at around that, 9-10X in terms of total pump power but some fish do not like that much flow. Therefore it depends, if they can handle it/prefer it, then go for it, if not keep it less but still sufficient. The size of the hoses has to be relevant to the pump size. Bigger pumps, larger hoses...in order not to restrict the flow rate...
 
  • Like
Reactions: HoundsNTrout
Great. Thanks. The trout do love some velocity of water yes. How MUCH? I don't know, but one hatchery I get eggs from uses huge amounts to always keep them swimming same direction.
The other hatchery has a very good and plentiful water source so they use NO biological filtration, and there flow inside the tanks didn't look nearly as much but of course with fresh constant water supply with good oxygen it probably doesn't matter.

So, I'll use this pump for now and see how it goes after another 2-3 weeks if things improve. It is still only 3X turnover as measured in a somewhat not ideal way but it came out 900+- in 10 bucket trys with timing. lol. The one I used to have in there was sold as and says UP to 600gph. I think I did the bucket deal and it came up 275 or 300 in that range so not even one turnover per hour.

I will replace the 3/4" ( who knows what the ID is ) pvc with a 1 1/4 and then recalculate with the bucket and see if it made a difference. May have to go to a 3" outlet, right now its 2" pvc.

I have plenty of that pipe is why I say 1.25 size. I have a ram pump from stream feeding my small brood pond. I hope so anyway. Looking to keep my own stock rather than drive 2 1/2 hours to get eggs every Spring and Fall. Mail order costs double because of the next day shipping.
Got 20 rainbows and 20 brookies all 2 yrs old in there. I may try to take some eggs and milt this year just to see how they look. But I was wanting to wait 3.
Anyway,
I ideally would like this one barrel method to work so hope so.
I've still been experimenting with sock filters or various screen size to keep stuff from entering barrel. Still have nothing perfected. I hung a 400 micron sock over the barrel outlet and it caught some stuff but I didn't like the outlet flow. Didn't seem to allow the water to fall and push water how I like it. So for now I have sponge filters over all the other pumps ( circulation and sock filter ) and a fine screen over the sump pump that is catching "larger debris. I also ordered 200 micron socks to see if that might work better for the hanging sock .

THanks for all your tips and help to all who responded.
 
OK, here we go again. LOL

Went to check levels this morning and ammonia was 8. So yeah, theres gonna be some ones to die in the next few days, however I see no odd swimming ones. But hanging on the bottom for sure. Right in that current along the bottom.

SO I changed all the water. All of it. Something killed the ammonia bb. I wonder IF I didn't change enough out last time I did a H2O2 treatment. But that should have killed the Nitrite bb.

Heres another thing. When I noticed problems a few weeks ago it was the nitrites building up NOT the ammonia. Now things have reversed. No nitrite levels this morning.

IDK. So I go back to not feeding them for about a week and see what happens. When it hits zero, I'll feed them 1/4 amount of food in the AM and that's it. Then see how long it takes to get to zero.

Once it hits zero I'm gonna do a 5 day salt treatment with no food. Just in case they might have some external problems as well. I DID handle a dozen or so random samples just to look at them.

Hydrogen peroxide treatments are mostly for the gill issues these trout sometimes get.
I do not have bio tank turned on and usually not any bubblers, just the circulation along the bottom and the sock.
Then I pump out almost all the water. Add half a tank of more water. Pump out half of that all the time using the bubbler stone to help get that out of there.

I have doubts I killed the bio filter last time but maybe I didn't empty enough water.

The brookie tank is doing great, same set-up except those guys ( and girls ) are only 2 inches. 300 of them.

Is not feeding them for a week, salt in the water a good option here? When I say salt. I mean what the hatchery recommends which is a 40 pound bag for the 330G tank. They say a week. That is for obvious problems NOT prevention which I do all the time.

Thanks
 
I'd treat the tank as a non-cycled tank right now and not feed the fish until ammonia/nitrite levels are zero-ing several days in a row. They'll survive better if hungry rather than in toxic water. Once the tank is cycled, I'd start feeding sparingly and slowly increasing to normal level. It's hard to tell how long it will take because it just appears that the tank is going through a cycle.

When the ammonia spikes high it is logical not to have nitrites, as obviously the ammonia bacs are not working. Once they start working, the nitrite will rise too, the ammonia will drop...The nitrite spike depends on how many surviving bacs there's is to cope with the spike, plus the water changes..

As far as treatments go, I'd avoid adding anything to the water right now. Also, you should not have to do any prophylactic treatment if that tank has healthy water, which right now it isn't. Healthy water=healthy fish. Salt will not prevent a thing...It is effective against some parasites and there are way safer treatments for them. Salt raises the TDS enormously, by a magnitute of hundreds, stressing the fish when adding the salt. ..Then one stresses the fish after bringing the level down all of a sudden, after treatment. Hydrogen peroxide can kill fish, filter bacteria, etc...not sure why dose that? It can seem harmless a few times, then wipe your tank the one time, even following the same routine....again not a good choice in my opinion.

However, very small amounts of salt, if the fish can handle salt longer term, might be a good idea right now, to prevent nitrite poisoning, and huge water changes for the ammonia spikes, plus Prime.

I don't know what else to say, it just seems the tank is simply not cycled right now. There's some bacs working but they can't seem to cope with the bioload, which I assume is high. And high bioload and uncycled tank leads to high spikes... You just need to keep doing those water changes and wait it out, hopefully with not much losses.
 
Little update. Apparently things are looking up I guess. Ammonia has dropped to nothing and nitrites on the rise. After not feeding them for several days, I decided to do an experiment just half of the normal morning feeding. Re-check the levels and by evening the ammonia was down still to maybe .25 or even I'd say .15 not completely zero. Nitrites went up to 1.0. Had enough Prime in there to cover up to 5ppm. wasn't taking any chances. Did a 75% water change. Next morning ammonia zero and nitrites about .25 so they did come down slowly. With NO more feeding.
So, we'll continue to watch those levels. I'm now going to try feeding every other morning after everything is zero'd out. I definitely killed the bb because I mean the levels were never even touching .10 with 3 big feedings per day.

Also, after putting 1 1/4 pcv pipe and fittings with a 2inch outlet the flow rate or turnover is about 4.5X per hour. Not quite 1500gph actually coming back into tank.

SO, IF I am able to get this thing back to where I was feeding 3X per day a descent amount, I shouldn't think I would need to add another barrel. The brookie tank is still doing great after switching over from a 'tote' of sorts to the 55G barrel method. But there are only 300 of them in there 2 to 3 inches long. The idea is these rainbows gotta go by May 1st out of this tank so I can separate the brookies or at least keep the biggest and find homes for the rest.

Thanks folks. So in a nutshell, the ammonia is a lot lower down to zero unless I feed them. Even when I DO feed them just once in morning though the levels slowly come down. But the nitrites go much higher IF I feed them.

Love the water flow though. The brookies I still have it around 900gph coming out since there tank is only a 225.

I would love to get my 5000G tank out and see what I could do in there this Fall but man, pumps that would pump through a couple or few 55 drums that would displace that much water? I"d probably go with a IBC tote as the bio filter though for sure. Same sort of media as I have now since that's what the college seems to be using, looked more like cardboard to me though. IDK.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Coryloach
I am glad to hear things are moving in the right direction. Hopefully it won't take long for the nitrite spike to get down too. Just be careful with feeding in the meantime and hopefully the nightmare will be over soon.
 
Yeah that nitrite spike DAMN they are bastards. lol. Sorry admin if you want to delete that.
But yeah its still being a pain so I'm doing more water changes daily. I can do complete changes daily. 50-50 with no problems. That won't kill my artesan well, its when you try to do a lot at once. So 50% in morning 50% at evening has kept it to almost zero. If I feed them even every other day just in the morning, there it goes again up to 2.0. However I notice a lowering just in a 8 hour day, So were gettting there again. I am now wondering if that H2O2 did kill that sucker last time. I'm following protocols from a hatchery who I admire. They use a lot of salt and peroxide and also iodine treatments and preventatives. It adds up though, so I'll probably cut back until I see a few fish with obvious "problems' fungal or gill issues.

Thanks guys. Now snow is almost completely melted, time to get that ram pump going again up the hill to the pond. Just in case of another draught like last year. It also helps airation.
 
Just an update of sorts. I was talking with the hatchery where I get most of my eggs and older fish from. He told me to basically ditch the nylon screen material I was using and use snow fencing instead. So I left the 1 foot of lava rocks I had in the bottom of each barrel filter. Took the screen stuff out. Then alternated in layers between the snow fencing and old material. I stuffed them.
It's been 24 hours so nothing really changed yet. He thought the screen material is holding too much tiny food and debris so its rotting. He said it wont' do that with the snow fencing. I think I used 50 ft. in each barrel. He also said once every 6 months to actually hose it down fine mist while I pump it out of the barrel. He said the BB will mostly stay on the snow fencing.

So we wait. I think eventually if this media works good, I'll take out the screen that I DO have sandwiched in between and just use straight snow fencing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Coryloach
Been a while, so thought I'd share the results or update. So, after switching media to the wide snow fencing it started slowly getting better. Its all good now, I can feed normal amounts 3X daily. All pipes were upgraded to 1 1/4" and the filters are getting 5X the capacity of the tanks per hour. Another thing I thought was odd is the hatchery/college where I often buy fish says every month he hoses down his bio filters. Not totally kill them but lightly hose all around everywhere for 10 minutes. It worked for me too. Initial small spike in ammonia and nitrites but not anything to worry about for a day or half day. What was happening ( at least in theory ) was my sump pumps were sucking tiny bits of food and waste into the filter.
I added mesh screen to each pump but not too small as to cut the flow. That really seems to help. I'll post photos later.
Thanks for all the tips.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom