Sudden ammonia spike in established tank?

[12 Volt Man]

old tank syndrome a gradual pH drop caused by the accumlation of wastes (nitrogenous wastes like ammonia are acidic).

however, you are never going to get it in a tank that has regular water changes performed.

its generally only seen in tanks with people that never change their water..that allows for the acidic buildup.

it can happen in super crowded tanks though. when I was in university I used to get busy periods (exam time etc) and didn't change water on my then heavily stocked 90, and I would see the pH drop to 6 or below..fish get cloudy eye quickly, show fungus etc.

when a water change was performed and the pH came up, symptoms disappeared very quickly (overnight)

 

[DaveB]

I just tested and ammonia was 0. Weird. I haven't done a WC since the original two in the same day the other day. (Haven't fed them since either.)

Glad to have started an interesting discussion though. I'll feed them tonight if I'm back from a wedding in time and see how thing are afterwards and tomorrow AM and keep updating here.

 

[tcarswell]

I have a feeling that the ammonia spike and the gasping symptoms may not necessarily be related, as I have seen first hand with my own fish in the past begin to gasp quite heavily immediately after the addtion of melafix to treat a wound. back when I worked at the LFS, I had a few customers say the same thing, so I stopped recommending it..for a while though, I was on the bandwagaon

in fact, if I am not mistaken it used to say right on the bottle to increase aeration -not sure if it still does.

apparently, the melaleucea extract can 'consume' oxygen in the water coloumn (ie reacts with the dissolved O2)

the thing is, that obviously .5 ammonia is not good, but usually the level has to be higher than that with most fish to have them all up at the top gasping..somewhere more like 4-5 mg/L rather than 0.5..

Ammonia toxicity gets higher as the PH gets higher if he has an 8.3 PH his ammonia would be more toxic. To the OP get some prime or something to detoxify the ammonia for the mean time and feed less. Also gravel vac and move everything and look for a leftover shrimp etc etc.

 

[12 Volt Man]

Ammonia toxicity gets higher as the PH gets higher if he has an 8.3 PH his ammonia would be more toxic

very true

 

[swede]

word

 

[MonsterMinis]

Glad to hear your tanks back on track.. I'de still give the evil eye to the filter.. air sucking could be a minute leak in the lines. and lack of flow = blockage.


I hate filter constipation.

 

[DaveB]

Damn it. I fed them today and four hours later they're gasping again. What the hell... it's like I don't have any living bacteria in the filters anymore.

 

[swede]

sad to think, but maybe you dont somehow. do you have smaller tanks you could use for a bit?

 

[swede]

i was thinking, ..... is it possible that the food you have is rotten and old, and is already containing ammonia in it? I don't even know if that is possible. but it seems odd that it only spikes when you feed. you would think if the bio is that off, even the fecal waste would spike the tank. Its a shame they don't have relatively inexpensive/easy to use bio test kits

 

[DaveB]

Actually I thought of that. It is certainly possible that the market shrimp I fed was bad. It had a bit of freezer burn. But it wasn't so bad that I couldn't eat it though. I made jambalaya with it last night and it was fine. Last night I only fed a total of two large shrimps anyway. Then again, it wasn't as bad afterwards either. They all seem fine today and I have not changed the water.

I guess I'll try a pellet-only feeding and see what effect that has.