Ammonia Spikes In Both Tanks

[Nexorcist]

I moved my 29Gal tank across the room and had to remove about 40% water and decided to clean my canister filter while im at it. I used tank water as usual but had some problem with one of the shut off valves leaking. It took me about 3 hours to fix the problem and i tried my best to keep the filter full of water.
Now last 3 days im having weird ammonia and nitrite spiked and today ammonia reached 0.50. They flactuate daily. Since i work all days i hardly have time to keep an eye on it and been trying to keep it under control with AmQuel ammonia, nitrite and nitrate remover, but spiked getting stronger and stronger daily, I also been adding some more bacteria to tank incase my cleaning killed some of bacteria.
Also curious if AmQuel will kill bacteria in my filter ? Same thing is happening in my 10Gal tank.
What else can i do to prevent deaths ?
HELP !!!

 

[Marve99]

Fairly new to this myself but from what I have read, ammonia remover will as the label say remove ammonia, which has the effet of starving the bacteria. Short term effect is to reduce harmful levels of ammonia, however the long term effect is a mini cycle as your bacteria colony may have been depleted and needs to build up again.

Best advice I can offer is to stop using the ammonia/nitrite remover and perform this task yourself by regular water changes. Test your water and vary the quantity of water you change to keep ammonia and nitrite below 0.25ppm

If the bacteria you are adding is in the form of a bottle, then don't expect great results from this, popular opinion seems to be that these bottles contain dead bacteria which won't help you out too much.

Good luck

 

[saz326]

Great advice! For a beginner you are learning well!

As stated above - the treatment is likely doing more harm than good. A healthy filter will not need to be suplimented with an ammonia/nitrite removing product.

Ammonia is indeed the food source of the majority of the filter bacteria - closely followed by nitrites. The bacteria do need to feed in order to survive - they also need oxygen suppilied by the throughput of water. Make sure the filter is now working fully (good water output).

You will need to monitor the levels of ammonia and nitrite in the tank while the filter re-establishes itself. If possible - move the most sensitive fish into your spare tank so that should the ammonia/nitrite suddenly spike they are safe (you will need to do 50% water changes in the spare tank).

dont feed the fish in the affected tank today. And feed them sparingly tomorow and for the next few days. They will still be producing ammonia to feed the filter - but you dont want them to produce too much ammonia for the filter to consume.

Good luck. All will be fin - just keep an eye on the ammonia etc.

 

[Nexorcist]

Thank you guys. I'll keep an eye on it as close as i can. I did manage to do a 25% water change late at night after work and will do one again.
Thanks again.