# Everything totally out of whac and won't come under control



## Cougar281 (Dec 10, 2012)

Last week, I discovered that the Ammonia level in my tank had taken a sudden spike WAY high - I immediately did a ~20% water change, dosed the tank with AmmoLock, gave it some extra Stress Coat and removed the fluval zero-carb and ClearMax in favor of two packs of the Fluval ammonia remover. I think the root cause was over feeding, to be honest. Since that first change, I have done multiple water changes, having changed out quite a bit more than 75g. I also found that the Nitrite level is also high - according to the API test kit, it appears to be between 2 & 5ppm. Ammonia seems to be between 4 & 8ppm... Nitrate seems to be between 0 & 5ppm, which from what I gather, is good (API says it should be below 40ppm). After water changes, the levels would drop a little, but then right away shoot back up. So far, NOTHING has brought this under control. this morning, the tank was extremely cloudy - I assumed it was related to the 'Seachem' pH 7.0 buffer, as that has had a tendency to cloud my water since I started using it, but this was cloudier than I've ever seen it.

There is also now, as of this morning, a 'film' on the surface of the water, and the surface circulation seems to have diminished.

Something to note, my hoses from the tank to the filter and from the filter to the UV filter had a whitish 'growth' in it - not impeding flow, but I don't know exactly what it was, and the line from the UV filter to the heater had growth as well, but nothing like the growth before the UV filter. I wouldn't say the lines are in pitch black (I have home made PVC intake and return lines painted black, and the clear hose is only under the stand), but there is no direct light on them. I replaced the hoses this evening - the lines to and from the filter had an 'odor' that I can't really place, while the line from the UV filter really didn't have a discernible odor.

I'm really at a loss here - I only have five fish - a corey catfish, two tetras of some type (Not exactly sure what kind but they are shaped more like a rasbora than a neon tetra) and two zebra danios. I had mollies and neon tetras, but the neons died within a day or two and to be honest, I think the mollies killed them as before they even got in the tank, the mollies were beating up the tetras, one of which died before even getting near the tank, and when I brought a water sample in to Petsmart after the mollies died within a few days of getting them, they couldn't figure out why they died, saying my water was probably better than theirs (I had the same problem in my 10g - The danios, tetras and catfish were fine, but mollies didn't even last two weeks). The fish that are in the tank now, except for the catfish, I've had for probably three or more years - my previous catfish died probably two years ago - All these fish were in my 10g and moved to the 75g. 

From the test results, it seems like either my biological filter never got set up (despite adding 'good bacteria' when I set up the 75g), or it died off.

In the probably 7 years I've had an aquarium set up, I've never had things get so jacked up, and at this point, I'm at a total loss...

In the years I've had an aquarium, my biggest instance of fish loss was several years ago when something changed with our tap water - I had been doing water changes with just stress coat (or something similar that took care of chlorine and such) but no pH adjustment - then something changed and sent the pH of the tap water from a sane level to something higher than the high range pH test could read - about half my fish died by the time I figured out what happened and got the pH down in the tank - other than that (and the mollies for some unexplained reason), I've only had the occasional death here or there that can likely be expected.

Does anyone have any thoughts as to what is causing the levels to stay up and/or increase despite all the water changes and treatments?


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## MriGuy85 (Aug 29, 2013)

First thought is that your 75g isn't cycled. Mainly I'm thinking this because you say you transferred the fish after adding bacteria in a bottle. This does not cycle a tank. Second reason is because A cycled tank will not register any ammonia or nitrites. I think it is safe to assume that it is not cycled, given the info. 

Advice: 

use Prime instead of ammolock. Prime makes ammonia safe (for 24hrs I believe) but usable to bacteria..if I'm not mistaken, ammolock makes it unusable because it's locked up.

Cycle your tank. If you still have the 10 running and it is cycled and you're sure of this, put the fish back into the 10 and fishless cycle your 75. If it is not cycled, or you are unsure: you have to go with a fish in cycle and be prepared for it to take a very long time. You will need to read up on fish in cycling...it involves a lot of frequent water changes to keep ammonia and nitrite at safe levels (nothing over 1ppm)...nitrates are safe up to 40ppm but your water changes will keep that from happening for now.

Stop using ph balancing chemicals. Most fish will adapt to your water's natural ph. 

Do not add any more fish until you're positive your tank is fully cycled.

Get your feeding under control. It's good that you admit you're over feeding, but you gotta stop. I feed my 55g every other day and even that could be considered overkill. Some will say that fish can go at least 3 days without a feeding. When you do, only feed small amounts at a time, no more than can be consumed in 1-2 minutes. If there is stuff sitting on the bottom, you're over feeding still.
Good luck 

Also, from what I understand: a uv sterilizer is useless on a freshwater tank, if not most aquarium setups. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what I've heard. Why are you using one?


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## Cougar281 (Dec 10, 2012)

As for the aquarium not being cycled, that's basically what I'm thinking. When I set up the 75g, I used 'SmartStart Complete' that two LFS swore by.

The way Ammolock's label is worded, you'd think that the biological filter could still processes it, but if it locks it up so it can't be processed, that would make sense as to why it keeps registering higher.

Unfortunately, the 10 has been apart since I got the 75 set up.

Another thing to note, the water movement at the surface is pretty much nil at the end of the tank opposite the return - Originally, I had decent rotation from end to end. Now the return only seems to be moving about half the tank, but the water flow out the return doesn't SEEM weaker...

I definitely am not adding fish until this is under control  and I've cut way back on the feeding.

I don't disagree with not using chemicals and using the waters pH, however, the problem with that is my tap water has a pH somewhere between glass cleaner and liquid plumber. It's so high the high range pH tester can't give a reading. With the 10g, I only used the buffer to bring the tap water down to a sane level, and it generally ended up staying between 6 and 7 - I think usually about 6.3 or so. I've been using it for the same purpose in the 75. Everyone at several LFS said 'that's way too low'... If I had well water, it may be different, but I have city water. Interestingly, I dropped in 15g of water treated only with StressCoat (although arguably that wasn't even needed as the filter it came from is really good at removing things like chlorine and other garbage) and it still didn't seem to affect the pH at all - it's somewhere around 6.4 now as it was last night.

As for the UV sterilizer, I was looking mainly to control algae as I always had algae problems in the 10g. Before I set up the 75g, I read around and basically the opinions went both ways. Some said it could/did help, while other said it didn't. I figured worst case scenario is it doesn't do much/anything and best case it helps. It's definitely doing something though - the growth in the lines before it was very different than what was in the line after it.

My mother (she has a 40g saltwater that's been rock solid for years) sent me a few links from Reef Central, one of which was about vodka dosing, but one poster suggested 1/8tsp sugar per 25 g to drop NO/3. claimed it cut it in half in 24hr. Ever heard of that? 

She also swears by NitraStrate - I have two bags of it that I haven't used. I was thinking of putting it in my canister as I don't want it 'floating around' the tank - I don't have any extra baskets - She wasn't sure about replacing the BioMax with it as the BioMax should give a more complete bio environment. Thoughts on that? I may have to make a PVC container to hold the Nitrastrate in-line.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

How long has the tank been setup? How long have fish been in it?

From the sounds of it and the very low readings of nitrates, and the admission of overfeeding makes me think the tank has not gone through the cycle completely yet. Are you reading nitrites?

Why all the ammo-products? Chemicals and chemical filtration is a waste of money and IMO should only be used in an extreme emergency or maybe high ammonia in your tap or something like that. Purigen is the only thing I would ever consider. For high ammonia levels a water change is the best cure and although your 20% water changed helped, it did very little to lower the ammonia. So even if the ammonia was 1ppm, you would only drop it to .8ppm. It just isn't enough to make a difference. In situations where "things are out of whac" you should be changing no LESS than 50%. This guarantees that you have made a significant impact. Wait about 20min and measure it again. If it is still above 1ppm, do another 50% the next day until it is at 1ppm or below. I say 1ppm because if your tank is cycling, this is an acceptable level to keep it at. Otherwise, anything above 0ppm is not good.


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## Cougar281 (Dec 10, 2012)

Here are pics of the lines.

To/From the filter:


From the UV to the heater:


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## Cougar281 (Dec 10, 2012)

jrman83 said:


> How long has the tank been setup? How long have fish been in it?
> 
> From the sounds of it and the very low readings of nitrates, and the admission of overfeeding makes me think the tank has not gone through the cycle completely yet. Are you reading nitrites?
> 
> Why all the ammo-products? Chemicals and chemical filtration is a waste of money and IMO should only be used in an extreme emergency or maybe high ammonia in your tap or something like that. Purigen is the only thing I would ever consider. For high ammonia levels a water change is the best cure and although your 20% water changed helped, it did very little to lower the ammonia. So even if the ammonia was 1ppm, you would only drop it to .8ppm. It just isn't enough to make a difference. In situations where "things are out of whac" you should be changing no LESS than 50%. This guarantees that you have made a significant impact. Wait about 20min and measure it again. If it is still above 1ppm, do another 50% the next day until it is at 1ppm or below. I say 1ppm because if your tank is cycling, this is an acceptable level to keep it at. Otherwise, anything above 0ppm is not good.


The tank has been up for probably three or four months and has had fish the whole time after using the 'SmartStart'. Nitrites were also high - hard to say for sure, but somewhere between 1 & 5ppm.

Edit: Something I just read when reading up on cycling is that teh 'Ammonia' can actually be ionized ammonium (NH4) or un-ionized ammonia (NH3) depending on pH. Over 7 creates NH3 which is toxic to the fish, while under 7 creates NH4, which is not toxic. Since my pH is something around 6.4 or so, it seems likely that what's in the tank is NH4, which might explain why my fish are still alive.

Also, I've been looking around - I read in another thread about K1 - would that be something that would work in the 305 in place of the BioMax? SUPPOSEDLY the K1 is better than static ceramic media like BioMax in that because it moves around with the water flow, it will yield hardier bacteria and allow the old dead bacteria to get knocked off, allowing for space for new, 'strong' bacteria. Is there anything to that?


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## evanb (Jul 10, 2013)

Ammonium is still toxic, but not as toxic as ammonia.


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