Ammonia spike without nitrate issues

So I had an ammonia spike that I've been trying to lower. Over the course of a few weeks I've done a few water changes, added new charcoal and one of those ammonia bags for fluval canisters, rinsed sponges and added a new polishing pad in the filter. I removed the two plants I had in the tank as well. How soon after cleaning the media can I test the tank and do a slight water change if needed?

 

Oh dear.

All the cleaning and replacing of the media, rinsing sponges is what kills the bio filter and causes ammonia spikes.

 

I’d mention that it’s been over a few weeks maybe a month. I haven’t dealt with ammonia spikes like this and I’ve been dealing with fish tanks for quite some time so I don’t know if I Happened to get lucky. Basically at this point I need to test the water so I just really wanted to know once I test the water if the ammonia is still high what’s another option? I’ve already tried the ammonia bags for the filter

 

Ammonia bags kill your cycle. Ammonia is food for the bio filter.

Cleaning the filter kills the cycle. Don't clean the filter unless the flow is restricted.


Measure your pH and determine the toxic ammonia level based on pH.
http://www.blueridgekoi.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/pH-and-Ammonia.pdf

Use water changes to keep the ammonia below the toxic level.

 

I’d mention that it’s been over a few weeks maybe a month. I haven’t dealt with ammonia spikes like this and I’ve been dealing with fish tanks for quite some time so I don’t know if I Happened to get lucky. Basically at this point I need to test the water so I just really wanted to know once I test the water if the ammonia is still high what’s another option? I’ve already tried the ammonia bags for the filter

I’d suggest you get rid of whatever ammonia bag you are using and do water changes to control the ammonia level.

What are you using to test? Test daily and change enough water to keep the combined level of ammonia and nitrites at or below 0.50 ppm.

What size tank, what and how many fish and what type/brand of filter are you running?

 

I just put in the get rid of ammonia bag because the water changes weren't bringing the level down. Haven't had an issue with any of the nitrates. I have one parrot fish that isn't too big yet and a plecco that's around the same size or slightly smaller than my parrot. Its a 40 gallon tank and working on setting up a 55 gallon. I'm not by any means doing anything I mentioned to the tank all at once. The filter media I've been washing out and slowly changing out because it was over due. I had two small plants in there that I removed one funky leaf from and put them in water outside of the tank in the hopes that'll clear all this up.

 

1. the plants will help with the problem, not make it worse.
2. changing filter media to new ones is unnecessary and waste of your money
3. washing/rinsing filters too much or changing the media altogether will remove the beneficial bacteria which changes ammonia to nitrites and nitrates and kills the cycle
4. What to do now: remove the ammonia bag and keep changing 50% water daily to manage the ammonia. Add Prime or other water conditioner that will detoxify ammonia to save you fish from poisoning. Bottle will have some dosing instructions i believe..
5. You can buy and add bacteria from bottle/capsules to help out the cycling
6. Read out about fish in cycle to help understand what you are going through and don't panic

 

I just put in the get rid of ammonia bag because the water changes weren't bringing the level down.

If you haven’t already, you should test your source water for ammonia. If your source water is free of ammonia, water changes will bring the ammonia level down.

What exactly are your ammonia and nitrite levels?
What are you using to test?
What type/brand filter are you running (I asked this in my post above)?

The filter media I've been washing out and slowly changing out because it was over due.

What do you mean by “over due”? How long has this tank been running?

 

Hi, apologies with the delayed response. Ive been doing water changes, removed the ammonia bag, basically everything I can so. Ammonia levels dropped a little bit but it looks like my fish Wilma might not make it. Her and my plecco have been brawling so it could've maybe been the combo. Tested the tap water and everything looked great. I'm using a fluval 206 canister, testing with the API master test for freshwater, ammonia dropped a little to 1.0 and NO2 is 0 and NO3 is in between 20 and 40.
Wilma update. She was floating upside down and looked like she had passed but she's still trying to do her thing. I had thought she had belly bloat, but I'm having a hard time telling. She has a bit of skin flaking off from time to time as well. I've had her the longest out of all the fish I've had, so this is going to be pretty upsetting if things don't go well. She's going to the top of the tank like she needs air even though I have an air stone running. Am I able to do back to back 25% water changes until everything in the tank returns to normal?
So I was looking and it either looks like dropsy or swim bladder? Attached photos. Also my plecco is starting to try and attach itself to her.

 

You can even do 50% twice a day to keep ammonia max 0.5 and NO3 max 20. Then reduce the wc to once a day and then 2x week and once a week. Until you can hold 0 ammonia and max 20 NO3. If you won't get to that point you need more filtration and/or plants. Not seeing NO2 is fine, just tells you have working bacteria.
I don't know much about your fish but I'd say he at least has ammonia poisoning (he is suffocating as it burns the gills). Add double dose prime after every water change and let's hope he will make it.

 

Ok, so it has been since May 11, and we still have ammonia building up in this tank?!?

And your fish is dying.



I am concerned that you are dumping lots of Prime into the water thinking that it will save your fish.

Prime is ONLY a dechlorinate and does not make ammonia safe for fish.

Adding too much dechlorinator can deplete the oxygen in the water. This can also stall the cycle.
Here is someone's direct experience with the oxygen depletion on Fishlore.
Very odd fishless cycle parameters | Aquarium Nitrogen Cycle Forum | 520496

I have seen this many times unfortunately.

The addition of large amounts of dechlorinator is well established to be harmful to aquatic life and is not allowed in aquaculture and public dechlorination systems for this reason.

Please consider changing your water to highly oxygenated water ASAP and stop adding more dechlorinator than is necessary to remove the chlorine in your water.

 

Hmm interesting. I was using the suggested amount. Going forward if I'm having to clean the tank this much (fingers crossed this never happens again) should I skip one of the doses that day so it doesn't build up like that?

 

You should not be dosing Prime into your tank. It is only used to remove chlorine for new chlorinated water. The better method is to aerate the water for 24 hours. This removes the chlorine and adds the precious oxygen back in. If you use a dechlorinator, only treat the new water with just enough to remove your amount of chlorine.

 

Chloramine doesn't air out like chlorine tho, and only treat new water like suggested. I don't know if there's chlorine and/or chloramine in your water source tho. Also I have never heard an issue with dechlorifiers before but I assume there are risk to any chemicals in high enough amounts
Here you get list of water parameters straight from the water treatment facility website listing amounts of stuff in drinking water

 

You should not be dosing Prime into your tank. It is only used to remove chlorine for new chlorinated water. The better method is to aerate the water for 24 hours. This removes the chlorine and adds the precious oxygen back in. If you use a dechlorinator, only treat the new water with just enough to remove your amount of chlorine.

I was only using stress coat in the first bucket of new water I was putting in the tank. So it was added twice if I was doing 2 tank changes a day. In situations where there's multiple tank changes in a day do you suggest just using the stress coat just the one time?

 

You are doing it right. Adding dechlorinator only to new chlorinated water. Every time. Chlorine kills fish and must be removed.

Seems like you lost the biofilter when you replaced the filter media. Your tank is still recycling.

What is your pH? pH determines the toxic level of ammonia.

 

I didn't replace anything in the filter, only rinsed the sponges in the fish tank water I removed from the tank especially for rinsing everything. I've never done a water change and rinsed/ replaced any of the media at the same time.

PH was really low. It seems like it was coming back up but i have to test again. I know plants are supposed to remove ammonia, but the ph dropped and eventually this issue started. I've clipped off any dead leaves or stems of the plants, so not sure about that either.

 

Once the pH hits 6.0 the cycle stops. If your pH has crashed and your buffers are exhausted your tank will die.

 

Ugh ok. Tested today and the PH is coming up a tiny tiny bit. I think it did hit 6.0 though. My pleco is still doing its thing in there. I'd like to not have anything happen to her, but what can I do from here?

 

Keep doing the fish in cycle method until your cycling is done again. 50% wc once or twice a day as I said before to keep ammonia down (max 0.5ppm) and also keep ph stable.
If you have very low KH value like under 4 you might want to look into buffing it to prevent the ph dropping too low because of ammonia and low buffers.
Baking soda into water change water is probably the easiest trick to achieve this. I don't know the exact amount you should add but keeping KH 4 or over should give you more stability with pH

 

1/4 teaspoon of baking soda into 10 gallons will raise your KH by about 1 degree and will raise your pH too. Get your pH up from 6.0 ASAP or your cycle will remain stalled and kill the fish.

Get your source water tested for KH. Tell us your KH and pH values for both your source water and the tank.