Water Problems

[MartinBoy]

I have had my used 135 gallon tank set up for about a month and a half. When I brought it home I made the mistake of not cleaning the gravel before setting up tank at home probably because the tank looked so clean when I broke it down. Anyway I removed all the gravel because I don't like it and I realized it was real dirty and my PH was low, and plan on going with sand. Since I removed the gravel the Ammonia has gone sky high! Everything was fine before removing gravel. The question is do I keep doing water changes every day or do I need to let the tank cycle again?? I'm guessing I must have removed good Bio along with the bad when I removed all the gravel??? Any HELP would be much appriciated.

 

[MartinBoy]

helppppppp

 

[shellies215]

The gravel had most of your good bacteria in it. Get some prime and try to ride it out with water changes.

 

[shellies215]

And don't clean/mess with your filters until you get new substrate and all your params are good, you don't want to wash out the bacteria you have left in there

 

[MartinBoy]

And don't clean/mess with your filters until you get new substrate and all your params are good, you don't want to wash out the bacteria you have left in there

Ya I did about a 40% WC a few days ago and it helped for a few days maybe. I'll do another WC tomorrow and get prime and some substrate and well see what happens. I'm going put some of the fish in my 55g for now as well.

 

[Ancient_Fish_Master]

you can use seachem stability to get things back into swing.

 

[EastBay]

Maybe take some of the substrate from your 55 and put it in the 135? It should help a little bit at least, and this point, any help is good. At least get some bacteria built up.
Hope everything turns out OK.

 

[MartinBoy]

The gravel had most of your good bacteria in it. Get some prime and try to ride it out with water changes.

I found I already have some prime! It says I can use up to 5 times in emergency to detoxify nitrite. What do you recommend? I also need a good test kit the strips suck! Any recommendations?

 

[shellies215]

I would do a 50 gal water change with 2-3 capfuls of prime every other day, and only feed a couple times a week for the next few weeks. It would be a good idea to get a good test kit too, strips are not accurate.

 

[silasharris]

To maintain the aquarium water clean, clean and healthy can be a most difficult task. If you are not very experienced problems with water, the problem can be very confusing, and sometimes can not be seen. Some fish are very sensitive to the slightest change in water conditions can be fatal.