Crayfish Tanks Too Much Ammonia

I've had two crayfish tanks for almost a year now. I currently have a year old vanilla lobster in one tank and one 3 month old electric blue crayfish in the other.

Specifically the electric blue crayfish, the tank was fine until about 4 weeks ago, I cleaned the tank a bit too well when I cleaned out the substrate, had an ammonia spike, fixed it with SeaChem Stability, then had to move the tank back home, and now the ammonia is very slowly coming back. I change the water every week, and the water slowly fills with ammonia until I do about a 50-60% water change. Then it goes back to about .25ppm. I've been treating with Prime and Stability every day and now the ammonia is at about 1.5ppm. My issue is, I'm leaving in a month for a 2 and a half week trip and a pet sitter who is not familiar with fish is going to be feeding them and the tank needs to be fixed by then. I feel like I have two choices here:

1- keep doing what I'm doing and hope it fixes itself.

2- completely start the tank over, re-cycle the tank and hope the tank is ready by the end of June when I leave.

What should I do? Do I have other options?

For context, the other tank is totally fine, water parameters are all normal, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, etc.

Any help is appreciated!!

 

Just keep the ammonia under 1ppm and keep using prime. Whatever happened to the cycle should fix itself shortly

 

It had been going on for 4 weeks like this, it has gotten better, I used to have to do water changes twice a week, but it has been like this constantly.

 

Maybe you now have ammonia in the tap? Can you test that?

 

I tested it, the only things that aren't ideal with the tap water are a pH of 8 and a small bit of chlorine, which I take care of with Prime.

 

Well this is confusing, I don't suppose you scrubbed your filter media recently did you? Added anything to the tank that could impact the bacteria colony?

 

That's what I'm wondering. I haven't done anything to the filter lately, other than I washed one of the Cartridges out. There are 3 in the filter and the cartridges really need to be changed, but I didn't think it was a good idea to mess with the filter too much until I get the ammonia fixed. I washed the cartridge out maybe 2 weeks ago to see if it would affect anything and it continued the exact same process with the exact same timeline. I think the colony was definitely affected when I originally cleaned the tank too well, I think that was the reason it spiked in the first place and this whole time I've just been trying to build it back up. I've gone through almost an entire bottle of Stability but for whatever reason it just isn't fixing itself. That's why I said I wonder if I need to completely start over.

The crayfish is fine, she has absolutely no changes in behavior, she even molted when ammonia levels were at about 1ppm. She is still eating normally so I'm not really all that worried about her so long as I'm the one taking care of her, I just want everything to be fixed for when I'm not taking care of her. She typically eats twice as much as I've been giving her, as I've been trying not to over feed her for the past month while the ammonia levels are doing whatever it is they are doing.

The nitrite and nitrate levels are staying at zero so it makes me think the nitrogen cycle is not working at all. I'm no expert, however. Just kinda thinking out loud.

 

Hmmm, temperature and PH?

 

Temperature stays at 68-70, ph in the other tank is about 6.6-6.8, but the tank with the ammonia is about 6.2-6.4 because of the ammonia

 

Is it possible for you to raise the temperature at all? Bacteria grows faster with heat so that could help

 

Yeah I can do that. Both the tanks have heaters.

But in regards to starting over, would there be a better chance of success if I just wash the whole thing out and cycle it? Maybe with new filters too?

 

Honestly I have no idea if that will help, mattgirl Momgoose56 what would you suggest?

 

I have a tank that has been sitting empty and running with nothing in it for a couple months, I've kinda been keeping it as a backup and my sister has been using it as a night light. Should I break that out and see if it's usable?

 

I have a tank that has been sitting empty and running with nothing in it for a couple months, I've kinda been keeping it as a backup and my sister has been using it as a night light. Should I break that out and see if it's usable?

Sure, but usable for what exactly? Also, mattgirl agrees with me that this:

Just keep the ammonia under 1ppm and keep using prime. Whatever happened to the cycle should fix itself shortly

is the best course of action

 

In regards to the tank, I haven't tested the water or anything in months so I don't know much about the status of it. I don't particularly want to put anything living in it until I check it out.

In regards to it being fixed shortly, I have been keeping the ammonia under 1ppm and using prime/stability for a month and nothing has changed. It is still filling with ammonia every week, the only thing that makes the ammonia go down is changing the water. I have gone through an entire medium sized bottle of prime and Stability.

 

Ok, I think I have one more idea. Get a sponge filter set up in anything it can be submerged in, bowl, bucket, spare tank, etc.
Get a bottle of Tetra Safe Start+, and some bottled ammonia. The latter should be available at any hardware store, just make sure it has no surfucants (soaps), basically if it bubbles of foams up when you shake it you can't use it. You can also get Dr. Tims one and only ammonia chloride.
Anyway, I would cycle that sponge filter in a spare tank like that, then move it into the cray tank

 

Interesting, I am going to try that today. How long does it need to cycle for? And then how long do I keep it in the tank? Is this just to establish a brand new colony and then to just put it in the tank?

Thank you all, by the way. I really appreciate your help.

 

Interesting, I am going to try that today. How long does it need to cycle for? And then how long do I keep it in the tank? Is this just to establish a brand new colony and then to just put it in the tank?

Basically what I'm having you do is a fishless cycle on an extra filter so you can put it in the tank that's having issues soon. Depending on how well mixed the TSS+ is, it will probably take around 2 weeks to cycle. Just dose the bacteria, then not too long after dose the ammonia.
Either way this is a win-win, because you'll either have a new filter that can take care of the cray tank, or you just have an extra filter if the cray tanks sorts out while cycling the sponge.

 

Ohhh interesting. I have a bucket, I'm gonna do that. I didn't even think about doing that to change the filters. I wonder if that's something that I can just do every time. Thank you so much.