David C

I'm not sure what caused it, but my ammonia spiked to .5ppm and I have no nitrite readings at all. The tank cycled a couple of weeks ago so my only guess is my crusade against snails (killing a dozen or so every morning) I'm not sure if what the fish don't eat is spiking the ammonia. Nonetheless I got scared so I detoxed with prime and ran to the LFS and bought safestart and treated. That was three days ago. Still no nitrite readings and ammonia is staying strong at .5ppm. I removed the albino cories and put them in my 10gal because I heard they are the most fragile, I used safestart on that tank and got nitrite readings overnight (purchased from the same LFS).

So my question is, should I retreat with safestart on the 55gal or should I just keeping detoxing with prime and using stability while doing 50% water changes daily. I thought maybe I got a bad bottle of safestart, not sure... I s'pose that's why I'm asking the pros

ammonia .5ppm
nitrite .0ppm
nitrate 10ppm (holding steady)
temp 78*

Chief_waterchanger

Did you stir the substrate that day or day before the testing?

You should consider the idea that you may be overfeeding the tank, possibly. A lot of people do overfeed their fish/tanks.

joy613

Have you tested your water from your tap? Believe it or not some cities do have ammonia in their water. When I get an ammonia spike I start changing water and adding a bunch of fast growing floating plants. I do 50% WC once a day for several days until it gets under control

Awsome22

I agree with Chief about the over feeding... or maybe you have an over socked tank? How old is your filter?

David C

I have two filters a month old totaling 700gph. I feed the fish while watching them to make sure they eat it all and i remove anything they dont eat. My tap water is ammonia 0ppm, nitrite 0ppm, nitrate 5ppm. I have 6 mollys and 2 cories in a 55g, so not overstocked. I appreciate any ideas, but I'm quickly getting confused. I'm going to the LFS today anyway (my filter and heater went out on the 10g after being stored for a month, go figure) so I might try to pick up the fast growing plants and see if they help. I wasnt sure if I should try the safestart again since ill be at the LFS anywayz... but i didnt want to waste the money if it wouldnt help.

i hate days like this, when nothing seems like its working

Awsome22

Dont be ridiculous... You're working =P the only last thing i can think of (im fairly new to this) is that do you have any live plants that have died/dying? i think that can cause ammonia? but im not sure

pepetj

David C: You're doing good. What's your pH? if it's below 7.0, and stays below 7.0, this shouldn't be a major concern (your ammonia readings might be reflecting ammonium). If your pH is above 7.0, disregard this info, you have toxic ammonia.

This might be a question out of target, but I'll ask anyway:
Have you rinsed/cleaned your filter media?
Both extremes could explain a reading of 0.5ppm -which by the way I wouldn't call a spike, but a red light: a real ammonia spike would killed every fish in your tank, which means you are taking good care of them.
a) if no maintenance has been provided, even though your tank is less than 1 month old, you might indeed have clogged filters that have a bunch of bacteria that is not doing its work or is dying, due to poor dissolved O2;
b) if you over-cleaned/rinsed or replaced all filter media, you ran out of enough bacteria to handle the bio-load.

Dead snails would create a problem in a small tank -5gal 10gal 15gal, but your tank size -55gal seems to rule this out, unless we're talking of massive snail death (with visible rotten remains all around)

Keep partial water changes and hopefully this will be done in a few days. It took me almost two weeks of partial every-other-day water changes to keep nitrites in check in a temporarely overstocked tank that entered a mini-cycle. Even though nitrites are finally steady at zero, I keep doing the partial water changes, for the sake of the fish (and my peace of mind)

Pepe
Santo Domingo

David C

I havent cleaned the filter media, ph is around 7.6 steady... and the snails are around 10-15 dead a day, maybe an issue. the tanks are planted, but I've checked all the plants for decay and found none, they seem to be doing good. Thanks for the help, i'll keep an eye on it with water changes for the next few days and see if theres any improvement.

One last idea, i started using API root tabs a few days ago and I noticed they contain urea as an active ingredient, urea comes from urine so maybe it has ammonia and they're leaching into the water its an idea, maybe someone else has had the same results, not sure and I'm simply grabbing at straws here, lol

Shawnie

I think it is the snails ...whats killing the snails?

I wouldnt spend any more money on chemicals and just stick with the old fashion water changes of at least 50% a day to finish it off...what test kit are you using? goodluck I hope it cycles fast for you!!

jdhef

In the human body, your sweat (perspiration for you ladies) contains urea, As urea breaks down, it converts to ammonia amoung other things. That is why many people when exercising experience an ammonia smell. So I suppose the urea could be causing your ammonia.

Chief_waterchanger

Actually,

After hearing about the root tabs that is 99.999% surely what it is, in my opinion. You have successfully diagnosed your tank issue with minimal help from us, good job.

An extra waterchange the day or two after using the tabs wouldn't hurt, but you should be okay.

David C

I'm the one killing the snails, with my finger every morning and cleaning the eggs outta the tank. I use the API master test kit with liquid reagents.

Thanks for the info about the urea jdhef, i knew it was something along those lines, im no chemist I'll just stick to the daily maintenance and ride this out, hopefully it clears up soon. I'm thinking about using the flourish excel by seachem instead of the root tabs, maybe it'll prevent this from happening again (assuming this is the problem)

Thanks again for the help and encouragement, my fishies appreciate it

Lucy

We don't perspire, we glisten.


Back on topic, that's good information for anyone using the root tabs to know.

Shawnie

Butterfly

The root tabs shouldn't be causing a problem if they are buried where they won't leech into the water column. Do you have anything that might be digging them up?
I know your being careful how much you feed and making sure it's being eaten but what goes in does come out and the more you feed the more comes out. So overfeeding can cause a problem in this way. A fishes stomach is the size of one eye, this may kind of help guide you in feeding
water changes are the very best way to control ammonia- Keep up the good job.
Carol

David C

I think the problem with the root tabs is I put them in at the proper depth and everything, but then when I vaccummed the tank the day before the ammonia spike, i hit one of the tabs and had a plume of the dissolving root tab shoot up the vaccuum tube. I think thats how it got into the water. The ammonia is dropping slowly now with the water changes, but im still curious why I didnt get a resulting nitrite spike after the ammonia spike... but I'm pretty new to all of this so I'm just going with the flow and heeding everyones advice...