Ammonia Trace

Ren&Stumpy · Nov 10, 2008

Just tested my water this morning after water change yesterday and i have a trace of ammonia, Nitrite is 0 and my nitrate is giving me a reading that is way off 20-40ppm after a 40% water change!

Tested the tap water from the exact tap i use and it was a nitrate reading of 10ppm which is normal.
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The thing thats worrying me is the ammonia reading my tank has never seen an ammonia reading since it completed its fishless cycle.

My water change routine is this,

syphon out water straight to garden, place sponges from internal filter into a tub of tank water thats been saved and turn flow of canister filter way down.
Gravel Vac/arrange decor sometimes to stop territorial stuff
Attach hose to tap and place in the empty internal filter and fill with correct dose of Dechlor required for the volume of water going into the tank.
Turn tap on and let it fill topping up with warm water from a seperate bottle to balance out the temp.

Now i am wondering did my water temp drop too far this time around as i got called to help sort our dogs out who were fighting over a chew. The tank usually runs at 27c but it dropped to 24c would this drop effec the bacteria in the canister filter that was still running but usually it drops to 25c without any problems what so ever.

minxfishy · Nov 10, 2008

The drop in temp wouldnt have caused a die back of bacteria. Maybe removing some of the decor around could have released some gunk into the water to cause a temporary blip, the Abacs should catch up fairly quickly with the added ammonia this would have caused. In the meantime do a couple of extra water changes and just keep an eye on the ammonia level.

Have you added any more fish recently? If so, then it would be the bacteria catching up with the added waste load of those fish.

Ren&Stumpy · Nov 10, 2008

THanks for the reply.

I did a real heavy vacum and did distrub alot of the gravel really deep down aswell also moved as i said the decor around completely.

I have just done a 12 hr test as i have got home from work and the Ammonia is sitting at roughly the same level less than 0.25ppm but more than 0 (use API test kit) no Nitrite is showing up at all.

My tank would do 4ppm of ammonia in less than 10hrs when it ended its cycle but i'm guessing the Abacs numbers equal out to the bio-load of the fish stocking when you switch from fishless cycle to a stocked tank.

Bignose · Nov 10, 2008

How long has the tank been set up? How old is the test kit?

OldMan47 · Nov 12, 2008

The very heavy gravel vac may have exposed more organics into the water than your filter was able to process. If it is still high after a day or two I would worry but you may find the ammonia goes away fairly quickly. Deep cleaning can sometimes stir up more than the filter can handle.

Syphoniera · Nov 13, 2008

One thing not yet mentioned in this thread, and that I hadn't heard until relatively recently, is that apparently too-thorough gravel cleaning can remove beneficial bacteria which populates the entire tank and which can make enough difference to cause ammonia spikes.
It's been pointed out that there's more surface area, on which beneficial bacteria will reside, in the gravel of the average tank than in the average filter.
So this could also have been a factor in your problem, with, as explained by OldMan47 above, organics released - at the same time as beneficial bacteria may have been reduced.
Whoever first said life was complicated probably meant that within fishtanks.
There's a whole little ecological balance invisibly struggling inside every one - isn't it cool?

petertr · Nov 13, 2008

Syphoniera said:
One thing not yet mentioned in this thread, and that I hadn't heard until relatively recently, is that apparently too-thorough gravel cleaning can remove beneficial bacteria which populates the entire tank and which can make enough difference to cause ammonia spikes.
It's been pointed out that there's more surface area, on which beneficial bacteria will reside, in the gravel of the average tank than in the average filter.
So this could also have been a factor in your problem, with, as explained by OldMan47 above, organics released - at the same time as beneficial bacteria may have been reduced.
Whoever first said life was complicated probably meant that within fishtanks.
There's a whole little ecological balance invisibly struggling inside every one - isn't it cool?

I think the general concensus on here is that as long as you have a suitable filter, the bacteria in that will far outweight any in the gravel.

Its more likely that its just a case of "rubbish" being released into the tank from the gravel during the deep clean. Couple of water changes should handle that.