kelley0604
- #1
HI Everyone,
I have a 10 gallon planted-community tank that is currently stocked with 5 zebra danios, 1 dwarf gourami and 1 platy. The tank had been cycled and was running fine for 3 years with 0 ppm ammonia, 0 ppm nitrites and 5-10 ppm nitrates. A month ago, two zebra danios died and I purchased two more to replace them. I don't have a quarantine tank (lease agreement limits me to no more than 1x 10 gallon aquarium) so they went in with the others after acclimation. The next day, all of my zebra danios were behaving odd despite normal water parameters. Within 6 more hours, all but one of the zebras were dead. I retrieved all of the corpses and tested the water and found I had a small 0.25 ppm ammonia spike (0 ppm nitrites and 5 ppm nitrates). I assumed that it was due to the dead fish. I did a 50% water change, dosed with prime and resolved to check it the next day. 24 hours later I was surprised to find that the ammonia had crept up to 0.5 ppm. The gourami, remaining danio and platy were all behaving normally so I just resolved to keep up with water changes and prime and assumed it was a minI cycle that would resolve itself shortly.
A month has passed and my water parameters have yet to return to normal. I've hunted through the gravel assuming that a corpse got left behind but found nothing. I've rinsed the filter out with used tank water, concerned that something had become lodged in there but found nothing. At one point my nitrates bottomed out to zero and I became concerned that I somehow killed off my biological filter so I got some filter media from a friend with a cycled aquarium hoping to re-seed the bacteria. It didn't help but my nitrates are no longer at 0 ppm. Currently my water parameters are:
Ammonia: 2 ppm (presumably ammonium with the regular prime dosing)
nitrite: 0 ppm
nitrate: 1-2 ppm
pH: 6.8
Note that two weeks in to this mess I purchased 4 new zebra danios to assuage the stress of the one who survived whatever disease came through. Not an ideal time to add new fish I know, but he was stressing out the gourami and platy by nipping them constantly so I wanted to give him a proper group again to calm him. All of the fish now seem healthy (no red gills, no gasping at the surface, all are active).
I contacted seachem a week in to this to double check that prime does not starve the nitrifying bacteria and they assured me that isn't the case. I'm at a loss at this point and wondering if anyone has experienced something similar. Should I just wait this out with continued prime dosing and water changes?
Thank you so much for your help!
I have a 10 gallon planted-community tank that is currently stocked with 5 zebra danios, 1 dwarf gourami and 1 platy. The tank had been cycled and was running fine for 3 years with 0 ppm ammonia, 0 ppm nitrites and 5-10 ppm nitrates. A month ago, two zebra danios died and I purchased two more to replace them. I don't have a quarantine tank (lease agreement limits me to no more than 1x 10 gallon aquarium) so they went in with the others after acclimation. The next day, all of my zebra danios were behaving odd despite normal water parameters. Within 6 more hours, all but one of the zebras were dead. I retrieved all of the corpses and tested the water and found I had a small 0.25 ppm ammonia spike (0 ppm nitrites and 5 ppm nitrates). I assumed that it was due to the dead fish. I did a 50% water change, dosed with prime and resolved to check it the next day. 24 hours later I was surprised to find that the ammonia had crept up to 0.5 ppm. The gourami, remaining danio and platy were all behaving normally so I just resolved to keep up with water changes and prime and assumed it was a minI cycle that would resolve itself shortly.
A month has passed and my water parameters have yet to return to normal. I've hunted through the gravel assuming that a corpse got left behind but found nothing. I've rinsed the filter out with used tank water, concerned that something had become lodged in there but found nothing. At one point my nitrates bottomed out to zero and I became concerned that I somehow killed off my biological filter so I got some filter media from a friend with a cycled aquarium hoping to re-seed the bacteria. It didn't help but my nitrates are no longer at 0 ppm. Currently my water parameters are:
Ammonia: 2 ppm (presumably ammonium with the regular prime dosing)
nitrite: 0 ppm
nitrate: 1-2 ppm
pH: 6.8
Note that two weeks in to this mess I purchased 4 new zebra danios to assuage the stress of the one who survived whatever disease came through. Not an ideal time to add new fish I know, but he was stressing out the gourami and platy by nipping them constantly so I wanted to give him a proper group again to calm him. All of the fish now seem healthy (no red gills, no gasping at the surface, all are active).
I contacted seachem a week in to this to double check that prime does not starve the nitrifying bacteria and they assured me that isn't the case. I'm at a loss at this point and wondering if anyone has experienced something similar. Should I just wait this out with continued prime dosing and water changes?
Thank you so much for your help!