Ammonia Spike

[DrRob]

Current theory, after finding a slug/snail trail leading into the tank, is that a local slug fell into the tank and died.

I did stir the substrate up, but it's gravel and not too thick, so not too worried about gas pockets. It's vac'd every week and to be honest wasn't too bad at the weekend.

Nitrite now risen slightly with ammonia between 0 and 0.1. Nitrates are now at 20. Another water change this morning and I'm hoping that we're soon to be clear as the filter seems to be picking it up nicely.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

That's really strange. I have heard that snails can release a lot of ammonia when they die, so this could possibly answer for the spike. I recently had a strange nitrite spike that came out of the blue, but after some water changes it cleared up. Weird thing was, the tank has been established for 6+ months via fishless cycle.....weird.

Sorry to hear about the loss of your fish. it breaks my heart everytime I lose one.

 

[DrRob]

Thanks, it's always nice to know that there's people out there that react like I do. Mainly I'm glad I managed to get the tank back to normal quickly. I've been steady ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 10 for a few days now. It's horrible when you don't know what you've done wrong. This tank has been set up for about 11 months and up until then had been steady as a rock on it's parameters.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Thanks, it's always nice to know that there's people out there that react like I do. Mainly I'm glad I managed to get the tank back to normal quickly. I've been steady ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 10 for a few days now. It's horrible when you don't know what you've done wrong. This tank has been set up for about 11 months and up until then had been steady as a rock on it's parameters.

I still never figured out what caused my spike, but doing daily 75% water changes on 40g was a pain lol

 

[DrRob]

I can imagine, but well worth it.

 

[nanoMama86]

I have had my fair share of weird ammo and nitrite spikes as well. I have got in the habit of adding a few drops of Prime in all tanks everyday to protect my fish from the odd spike. Filters are weird, flow rates vary. I have a coupla platys that insist on birthing directly in front of the filter intake, and blamo, instant death, few hours later, ammo spike. So I break the filters open, clean platy baby goop out, and change 75% of my water.