Ammonia Spike

[DrRob]

I don't suppose anyone ever expects to post in here, and I certainly didn't until this evening.

This morning all was well.

At the weekend, all was well. Routine testing, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 15.

10% routine water change at the weekend, rainwater from the butt that I've been using for a while now. All is working well, nothings really changed.

Tonight I noticed a tetra swimming oddly, went over to look in on the tank and all looked ok. Then my male flame agassizi dropped to the floor (part of a pair just looking like they're set to breed).

Tested the tank, ammonia 1.2mg/l, nitrite 0.

By now the apisto is looking in a bad way, 90% water change, everyone else perks up and the apisto dies.

Now somethings gone horribly wrong. My problem is I can't work out what. I must have done something wrong.

I'm now trying to work out if my filter bacteria have packed in and I'm on a fish in cycle with a full tank suddenly or whether I've missed something.

Any ideas or advice from the wisdom we have here would be appreciated. I hate losing fish, particularly ones as beautiful as that male flame.

 

[ian]

do you have any rotting leaves in the drain pipe, leading to the water butt?

 

[DrRob]

Not really on that side, but anything's possible.

 

[ian]

sorry, should have asked if you'd tested the water from the butt?

 

[DrRob]

yup

 

[ian]

and?? nothing??

 

[DrRob]

nothing, crystal clear and 0's across the board, slightly acidic, which isn't really surprising for rainwater, can't remember the exact pH.

 

[ian]

nothing dead?? and you haven't got any non aquatic plants that are rotting root upwards have you?

 

[DrRob]

nope, nothing dead. The Apisto was the biggest thing in the tank apart from the biggest of the cory's, all accounted for) so I'd be impressed about an ammnonia spike from anything else. I cleared out a little bit of dead leaf stuff on Sunday and did a gravel vac. Plants are otherwise doing well.

Apart from the one dead Apisto and a still fairly poorly looking cardinal everyone's now swimming around happily.

If nothing else it's pushed through my idea about buying an RO system. We were waiting for the cupboard it's going in to be built but I'm going to get it running now.

and no, nothing non-aquatic.

 

[DrRob]

Oh, and thanks for the help.

If nothing else it's nice to be able to say no to lots of things because it means I haven't missed anything obvious.

I'm pretty much into the idea that it's something in the last water change. Otherwise I'm onto things like power cuts during the day while I was at work killing the filter. I suspect that testing in the morning will give me an idea of the new ammonia levels and what's happening overnight. I'm hoping it's not too high.

 

[DrRob]

OK, levels haven't changed since last night's post water change levels. Cardinal still looks pretty ropey to be honest but all else looks fine. I'm still at a loss to explain the spike.

To complicate matters there are eggs in the apisto's cave. I suspect they're done for, or, if laid after yesterday evening, were never fertilised. Female is guarding them. I have no idea if they were laid during yesterday as I was at work.

Now I'm trying to work out if the pair breeding could have set off a spike, although I can't fathom how. All other livestock accounted for, so they didn't kill anything. Takes me back to the "conditions can't have been all that bad for the last few days" scenario and leaves me confused again. I wonder if I'll ever work this out.

 

[the_lock_man]

Power cuts during the day, but that were back on again when you got home, wouldn't be sufficient to have killed the bacteria - you'd need a solid cut of over 24 hours before you'd see any significant die-back. In any case, there are so many domestic appliances around the home that have clocks which flash, or otherwise indicate there's been a power cut - microwave ovens, that kinda thing - I'm sure you'd know if you'd had a power cut.

My guess would also be something amiss with the water change. Since you've tested the butt water for ammonia, that's out, but perhaps there's some other contaminant got into the water, that has killed the bacteria.

 

[DrRob]

Keeping a close eye on it at the moment. Nitrite still 0 and ammonia sitting at 0.1. Nitrates are down to 10, which is lower than my tap water levels. Need to get some more seachem prime now, as I've used the last of the last batch up in the process of all this.

Power cuts are interesting here. Things switch off, but with the solar panels on the roof running we rarely loose clocks now. If it's a dull day the pumps and lights go out though on the tank, but I agree, it's not really long enough, and we've had some bright days, so even with the power out the tank wouldn't stop.

Fortunately I'm not planning on going anywhere for any overnights for a couple of weeks so can do daily small water changes to keep the system stable. I just hope it didn't take too much of a hit and comes back faster than a full fresh cycle would.

 

[DrRob]

Well, this evening, ammonia is dropping. Nitrite still 0, nitrate up slightly.

So the good news at the end is that the filter isn't dead.

One day I'll decide what crawled into my tank and died in there.

 

[Juggler75]

did you stir substate up much? Could have had stuff rotting in there, or pockets of gas that you released?