Initial Ammonia cycle

haricots · Feb 28, 2011

Thanks for the help. The water has been changed (80% of it anyway). The fish are already looking happier. I'll test tomorrow. So, do you think my tank took 5 or so weeks to start the cycle? Up until this weekend I have never seen a trace of ammonia or nitrites. Nitrates have always been between 20-40, but I've been doing weekly water changes to take care of it.

I will contact the store I bought the fish from and see if they will take some of them back for some credit. If you have any advice on cool, interesting, smallish fish for a 60G please let me know.

IThinkTherefore · Feb 28, 2011

Awesome

My guess is that your tank cycled from the tetras and the bacteria from your established tank. Then, when you added 10 big messy fish (compared to 5 small tetras), the ammonia overwhelmed the bacteria and you saw the result there. Once the big fish are taken back, things should calm down

And you have a ton of options for fish! First of all, I recommend four more bronze cories so that your singleton isn't lonely. Second, you'll want to avoid anything extremely nippy for your angel's long fins.

Schooling tetras are great! Neons, congos, rummynose, etc.

Loaches are awesome too! Like dwarfs, yoyos, and kuhlis.

Small plecos like bristlenoses (not common) would be great!

Just search around. You're not limited by much with such a large tank! Just remember, add fish really slowly and check numbers with aqadvisor

haricots · Mar 1, 2011

I tested the water before work today - Ammonia 8+, Nitrites 0. How the hell could the ammonia be 8+ less than 12hrs after an 80% water change? What's going on here?

nanu156 · Mar 1, 2011

Well you spiked the stock pretty good.

Think about it like a garden, you had enough "veggies" in your garden to feed three... Then you had 20 people living at the house and everyone starved..... It takes a bit to build the "garden" back up.

Ok do a 40-50% change daily, continue to monitor the ammonia. (sure nothing is dead in there?)

Take the filter pad/cottony stuff/sponge whatever is in there to collect the goop out of the 20g put it right in your 60g and swish it till no more brown goop comes out. Do this right after a water change. (dechlor wait 10-15 minutes for stuff to settle) hopefully there is enough goop to brown out the water in the 60g pretty good. The new filter will suck this up pretty fast. So just wait out the brown much it will die down momentarily.

Also go to feeding every other day, one time per day until you get the ammonia balanced.

Newish fish keepers tend to want to feed their fish like they are dogs... Except they are fish, feeding every other day is fine for almost all tropical fish (some exceptions here but you don't own any)

The ghost knifes need to go back to the store (they get HUMONGOUS and will eventually start eating their neighbors). The pictus cats need to be in a group of 5+. That bichir will escape if the tank lid isn't completely closed off.

Also I don't ever advise a change of more then 50% at one time, you can do 50% in the morning and 50% at night if you like, but I would never recommend 100% at one

haricots · Mar 1, 2011

I haven't lost any fish so that can't be the cause.

The cause must be due to my newbishness and impatience. The tank took WAY longer to begin the cycling process that I anticipated. Then I overloaded it with too many fish too quickly. And I probably have been over feeding. I'm thankful no fish have died but I wonder about what sort of damage I may have caused them longterm.

Dylandrewsdad · Mar 1, 2011

So your Ammonia was 0 after the change and then 12 hours later it was 8? What test are you using? Are you following the directions to the "T"? Is it possible there is a dead fish hiding in the tank? I don't hink even that would cause the ammonia to spike like that in 12 hours.

haricots · Mar 1, 2011

I didn't test it after the water change last night because I assumed it wouldn't be all that accurate. I'm 100% sure there isn't a dead fish in there. I'm going home at lunch to test my tap water and do another 50% change - I wonder if that is the cause. I'm using the API test kit (the liquid one) and follow it exactly.

Dylandrewsdad · Mar 1, 2011

In theory if you only changed 50% of your water the ammonia would be 50% less. I would listen to Nanu (Never thought I would say that, LOL) and do 50% in the morning and 50% at night. Test it before and after the change. Do you shake the bottles? You can also look at the date code on the both ammonia bottles and see if it is out of date.

lauraf · Mar 1, 2011

Hey, are you using Prime as your dechlor? If so, it will temporarily bind the ammonia, making it less harmful to your fish (*WIN*), but the total ammonia will still show up when you test the water. There is a test for free ammonia only, but it's really expensive . . . . .
Keep going with daily water changes until you see nitrites showing.

haricots · Mar 1, 2011

I went home at lunch and tested again. Ammonia was 8+, Nitrite was 0.25. I performed a 50% water change - Ammonia dropped to about 4, Nitrites 0, Nitrates 0.5. I tested the PH for the hell of it - it is sitting at 7.6. I expect the ammonia levels will be up around 8 again when I get home but will see.

Now, I do have a 4 or 5 live plants in there. I don't know a thing about aquatic plants. Could they be the source of ammonia if they aren't healthy? I can see new growth happening around the bottoms but the leaves are looking a little spotty now. They also came planted in what looks like rock wool. Should I have removed the rock wool and planted them directly?

Thanks everyone.

haricots · Mar 1, 2011

lauraf said:

I'm using an API product - I think it's called Stress Coat.

lauraf · Mar 1, 2011

Unless the plants are rotting, they won't be a significant source of ammonia. Having said that, you should trim damaged leaves anyway - they won't repair themselves - and if the plants have some roots formed, you can take them out of the wool and plant directly into the substrate.
Are they truly aquatic plants? If not, they will rot eventually . . . .

nanu156 · Mar 1, 2011

What are they planted in again? is it a porous rock or wood??

SOMETIMES the porous rocks have dead rotting stuff in them... Sometimes we put it there (think too much food)

Chill on feeding your fish for a few days. It will help I promise, if they die it won't be from starvation it will be from the ammonia.

CommonSence · Mar 2, 2011

Plants generally speaking are not a source of ammonia as that comes from fish wastes. It sounds like your bacteria are not fully stabilized enough for the bio load in your tank. Water changes, Dechlorinating the water and not overfeeding will help you re-establish your tanks cycle. Try not to make drastic changes no 75% water changes and dumping in more fish and taking out plants .. just monitor and steady water changes till you see the tank stabalize. For 99% of life my spouse is the fish expert but I dont think i am far off base here.

nanu156 · Mar 2, 2011

CommonSence (to be known as CS from here on out lol)

Right on +1 just keep changing the water.

Also re-home/return the knife fish ASAP they max out at 20" in the wild and a foot in the home tank (bigger if properly cared for) they are electric and predators. They are not acceptable for your tank.

haricots · Mar 6, 2011

Ok, 8 days later and I'm still doing 1 to 2 50% water changes a day. I added some ammo chips a couple days ago to try and control this a little more, as well added a bottle of Tetra Safe Start. Nothing is helping. I still have reading of 4-8ppm of ammonia daily. I've gone through a bottle of Ammolock and I'm pretty sure this is the only thing keeping my fish alive. None of them are showing any physical signs of ammonia poisoning other than not moving around as much until I change the water. This is so frustrating and driving me crazy ....

IThinkTherefore · Mar 6, 2011

Oh man :/

How long until you can take the extras back?

There's simply too much fish to keep the tank running this way.

OrangeCones · Mar 6, 2011

haricots said:

I would recommend that you buy a product made by Seachem: Ammonia Alert Disk. They last a year or more and only cost $6 (US..should be about the same for Canada $).

You can then know if the 'free ammonia' is being converted to the non-toxic (bound) type. The test kit you use will tell you the 'total ammonia' which includes the 'free' (toxic) form and the bound form. The disk ONLY shows if the 'free' (toxic) form is present.

If the chips you are using and the dechlorinator binds ammonia, you will not know that with the API ammonia test kit.

haricots · Mar 6, 2011

Thanks for the tip. I'll pick up that or if not available some other testing kit for free ammonia to get a truer result.

So, having said that I've been scouring other forums and found an interesting post that states frequent water changes combined with a dechlorinator can release ammonia in to the water. Also, water treated with Ammolock or similar products produces ammonium which can take weeks for the bacteria to break down.
What do you think? Bottom line is I need to test for free ammonia.

haricots · Mar 6, 2011

BTW, I've been showing nitrates the whole way along. My tank appeared to be cycled for a few weeks until this enormous ammonia spike appeared. So as of now my tank reads:

Ammonia - 4
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - 5 (low because of the daily water changes)

Can nitrate production happen without the necessary bacteria breaking down ammonia and nitrites?

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