Ok So Basically, There Is Ammonia

So on sunday I got a 5 star general for my 40 gallon breeder tank, The day before I had done a 45 percent water change. I made sure to put some cycled media from another tank in the filter. I tested the water for nitrate and to my surprise it was around 40ppm. I changed half of the water and tested it and it was about 20 ppm, the next day I changed another 50%. Today I got home and tested the water for ammonia, nitrate and nitrite. Nitrite was at 0 ppm, nitrate was below 5 ppm but ammonia was at 0.25 ppm. The previous few days I had forgotten to test for ammonia. There have been no other fish in the tank, just some spare plants I had laying around.

 

Do you have anything dying in your tank (such as worms or snails?), do you think you could be over-feeding?

In the meantime, try boosting the beneficial bacteria load (Seachem stability for example), and you could also add some ammonia detoxification such as Seachem Prime.

Did you take any water from the other tank when you set up your breeder tank? It will take some time for the biological filter to manage the change in water load.

 

There were some dying plants in the tank and some driftwood. I have some seachem prime that I can add. I think there was a little bit of water from the other tank with the media, not a lot though. I have not been feeding him since I got him, yesterday I tried to get him to eat a freeze dried shrimp but he didn't so I took the uneaten food out of the tank.

 

Try boosting the beneficial bacteria load and doing 10% water changes and see if that improves things. I would continue to monitor ammonia every day, and monitor changes in your fish's behaviour.

When you transferred the media from your other tank, was it already established, and did you happen to have that media sitting out for awhile or washed it in tap water? All those things can kill the beneficial bacteria.

Hopefully you just need to add some more bacteria to get the media re-established.

 

nope, I made sure to rinse it off in tank water but it was not tap water, These are the filter media I put in the tank, they are from a canister filter from my 60 gallon.

 

Do you have any mechanical filtration media you could bring over, like a sponge?

 

Yeah, I can do that tomorrow, I added some prime to help for now.

 

Update: So today I got home and tested the ammonia, it was at 0.5 ppm. I changed 50% of the water and then I placed some old filter floss from another tank into the filter.