My brother was watching my house for me for two days over thanksgiving vacation. I return home only to find my 10'' female reticulated ray dead. Did a 250 gallon water change on the tank. Tank is 400 gallon with 100 gallon sump. tested the water agian this morning with bad results. ammonia near between 1 and 2ppm, nitrite 0ppm nitrate around 40ppm. Is my tank starting a cycle or should I do more water changes untill levels have dropped to safe readings? i have a dart pump @3600gph media:filter- carbon- filter - bioball and then returned. Im also running an ehiem proffesional cannister and fx-5 on the tank. thanks for you advise.
water chemistry???
- Thread starter seangtat2kc
- Start date
Howdy,
Water changes save lives! Yes, your tank is cycling, but you need to prioritize survivors. Bring those levels down!
Assuming your brother didn't touch the tank, chances are you had a power outage and the biomedia were stagnant for hours. Or the ray died of other causes and decomposition fueled the spike in ammonia. Only continued measurements will tell.
Good luck,
HarleyK
Water changes save lives! Yes, your tank is cycling, but you need to prioritize survivors. Bring those levels down!
Assuming your brother didn't touch the tank, chances are you had a power outage and the biomedia were stagnant for hours. Or the ray died of other causes and decomposition fueled the spike in ammonia. Only continued measurements will tell.
Good luck,
HarleyK
It's always weird how things happen whenever someone else is watching your tank! It's gotten to the point that I don't let anyone near my fish if I'm out of town. Even when I'm gone for a week or two I just use autofeeders.
It's a mystery what people do while you're gone!
It's a mystery what people do while you're gone!