Would these levels be fatal for new introductions?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
It could have, though the general belief is that most of your beneficial bacteria resides in your filter, where water flow is greater, than in the gravel. There's certainly some in your gravel, but washing your media in tap water would do a lot more damage, I would think, than over-vacuuming. How long has this problem with ammonia been going on? That will sort of direct you to when the cycle got interrupted. Is there any chance you forgot to add dechlorinator during a water change? This could have killed off some of your bacteria as well. You haven't dosed with any sort of antibacterial for illness, have you? Cutting back on feeding is going to help, also, but unless you have somewhere to put these fish, or a friend that could hold them for a little while, you'll have to complete this mini-cycle with the fish in the tank, which is going to be rough for them. One idea is to either add cycled media from another tank to jump-start the cycle or to add a real beneficial-bacteria-in-a-bottle. I say "real" because not all of them work. My personal favorite is Dr. Tim's One-And-Only, but I have also heard good things about Seachem's Stability (though I haven't used that one). These will add the beneficial bacteria immediately, without your having to grow it in order to begin the cycle.

Edit: Sorry, I missed that you just got the test kit yesterday. Is this the first time the tank has been tested, or did you have an LFS or a friend test it prior to that? If it's the first time, then obviously re-tracing steps to determine where the cycle was interrupted won't work.
 
So one of the tests was wrong! I don't think this would have happened as quickly as this... the first one must have been off, somehow. This isn't uncommon when you're not familiar with the tests... an extra drop or two, or not shaking long enough, can throw off results. Still, when my husband runs nitrates, he always gets zero or really low readings. When I run them, they look a lot more "right" LOL... we have watched each other test, and have no idea why our results are so different. Either way, I go by my results and do waterchanges accordingly.

As for stocking, I think you could a couple more fish to this tank without running into real trouble, as long as the fish you add don't get too large. Let your nitrates be your guide.
 
Awesome! I do the same thing, but I use tables in Word, instead of Excel. It's so easy to track the status this way, and to see if any patterns emerge.
 
I suspect what happened was you dug a lot deeper in your sand than usual and stirred up a lot of matter that was sitting in your sandbed, when all that extra crap got stirred back into the water column it probably poisoned the fish you just lost.

Consider adding some critters that like to burrow in sand to keep it stirred or stir your sand really well yourself on the regular to keep this from happening again
 
MadBob;3548614; said:
I suspect what happened was you dug a lot deeper in your sand than usual and stirred up a lot of matter that was sitting in your sandbed, when all that extra crap got stirred back into the water column it probably poisoned the fish you just lost.

Consider adding some critters that like to burrow in sand to keep it stirred or stir your sand really well yourself on the regular to keep this from happening again
Click to expand...

I used to have a syno cat that made a good job of that. This time I am looking at either a hopolo cat or some large coydras. I may have a re-think on my tank layout to give better circulation around the lower levels.
 
I have play sand in my 125, and my corys and loaches keep it so well-stirred that I never see algae on it. (Algae is everywhere else haha but not on the sand.)
 
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