AlyeskaGirl

Hi,

My tank was completley fine until yesterday when I was havin issues of my small corys gettin sucked onto the intake tube and stuck! Lost 2 of them the last two days Anyway, I shortend the intake tubes on both my HOB filters so they wouldnt be so close to the bottom. Well, I tried to pull the tubes off without havin to unplug the filters but for some reason I couldnt so I unplugged them and fixed it that way. But when I plugged them back in or just the smaller aquaclear 70, it's been runnin the longest (about 2 months) anyway, I plug it back in and as the water rises I see its bringin up lots of gunk and dumpin it into the tank! I'm like great, just great. Ok, now I rinsed the sponge off about 3 weeks ago in the bucket of water when I do a water change, i dont rinse if off on every water change, just when I notice it looks nasty; brownish/reddish. I put the bio-rocks gently in the tank while I am doin this process so not to kill the bacteria. And then put back together, not changing anything out except the carbon. But lastnight when I pulled the media out, the sponge was BLACK!!! I rinsed it off in a bucket of the tank water, it was gross, the water was charcoal black. Yuck!!! But I tested the water before I did all this filter maint. I've been gettin 0 ammonia 0 nitrite and 0 nitrates for the last 4 days or so. And like lastweek when I tested my water in was 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and 10-15 nitrates. I'm like hmmmmm......didnt mess with the filter or anything. Just been doin weekly w/c's. Until I messed with the filter yesterday to fix the intake tube and dumped the waste/food in and noticed the water got slightly cloudy short while after and got suspicioius, so tested for ammonia, yup. It was about 2.0!!! Now my ? is, is that from the filter media bein so dirty and dumpin excess food and waste back into the tank when I unplugged it and plugged it back in caused ammonia to sky rocket? And is my tank doin a mini-cycle now or can there be 0 nitrates and the tank is still cycled? Did The ammonia just came from the filter bein so dirty? Just want to dot my i's and cross my t's lol thanks

Fish are fine!
Ammonia now is at .25 (doin another w/c tomorrow)
nitrites 0
nitrates 0
temp 78

navyscuba

I believe You created a mini cycle. So that's why is cloudy. It happened to me the last time I added new media to my filter I changed on both cartridges and started a mini cycle so now I only change one at a time. It will clear just keep the wtr changes.

David593

sounds like a mini cycle to me.

cerianthus

Wether gunk is in the filter or in the tank, should it make the difference as far as NH3 spike is concerned?
I dont think so. it may be the thorough cleaning of foam maybe even when cleaned w/ tank water..

Shawnie

sounds like you are running a carbon also? if thats true, they will put all the nasties back into a tank after 2-3 weeks if not changed out ...just rinsing and the stuff going back in the tank is usually what will spike nitrates not so much ammonia ...are you running a carbon in your filter?

AlyeskaGirl

yes I am running a carbon in my aquaclear 110 filter, but changed it out when I got the ammonia spike, it was due for a change. My other aquaclear filter ( I have 2 filters) is the bad guy that dumped the nasties back into the tank, I believe. I had a carbon in there and the filter was really nasty! I threw away that carbon away and inserted another bio-rock instead of another carbon pack. I am gonna stear myself away from using the carbon cause of what happend! I tested the water on the 24th and had 0 ammonia. Today, ammonia around .25-.50 Showin 0 nitrites, 0 nitrates.