Cloudy Water With High Ammonia

[Cocomojo]

Be my first post here and am very new to the hobby. I am in process of cycling my tank.. sadly every place I looked online and pet stores all told me how to cycle with fish. Wish I could do it over, but too late =/

I have 3 Tiger Barbs in the tank, each just under a full inch. Tank has been running for 3 weeks today. Everything seemed to be going normal, ammonia went high, and went low as nitrites went up. Then two days ago my water went cloudy and my ammonia went sky high.

I now have the API fresh water master test kit ordered. (I've been going to my local store to get water tested)

I thought I've been good with the water changes. I did a 20% yesterday and another 20% today to try to keep the ammonia levels down. Any advice be more than readily accepted

 

[fatheadminnow]

When you do water changes, do you use a gravel vac to suck up all the poo?

It is most likely a bacterial bloom.

This is when Heterotrophic bacteria (not the ones we want) grow in our tank to 'feed' off of decay matter and other stuff.

In your case, it sounds like that you don't use a gravel vac, and since these Heterotrophic bacteria colonize extremely fast, you can see them in the water as they make your water look cloudy. Also, unlike our trusty Autotrophic bacteria that live in our filters, Heterotrophic bacteria are bigger and grow too fast, therefore they live in the water column. They cannot attach themselves to objects.

Also, left over poo in your tank is going yo start to release Ammonia, which is probably why you have an Ammonia spike right now.

-FHM

 

[Cocomojo]

I've been cleaning the gravel with the cleanings, altho I don't know how well the tube was at sucking stuff up. I picked up a larger tube today so hopefully that was able to do the trick better. The old one was probably only an inch wide and took me 10 minutes to get 4 gallons, new one has 2 inch mouth and seemed alot faster and more efficient.

 

[fatheadminnow]

I've been cleaning the gravel with the cleanings, altho I don't know how well the tube was at sucking stuff up. I picked up a larger tube today so hopefully that was able to do the trick better. The old one was probably only an inch wide and took me 10 minutes to get 4 gallons, new one has 2 inch mouth and seemed alot faster and more efficient.

Okay, try to get everything sucked up, i.e. poo.

Also, did you touch your filer media at all, like clean it or anything like that?

-FHM

 

[waterdrop]

If you have ammonia and/or nitrite(NO2) in the tank (even though you don't have your liquid test kit yet.. strips probably.. its likely you do indeed have excess ammonia/nitrite) then your water changes are too "wimpy."

Until you receive and use the liquid-based kit, you are flying blind, so I'd be performing 50% daily water changes with conditioning and rough temperature-matching.

You are in a fish-in cycling situation, so our documents on that will apply and may help you understand it more.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Cocomojo]

Did a 5 gallon water change this morning. (not sure if I mentioned it, but I have a 30 gallon tank) Water cleared up a lil bit.. obviously.. but it did stay fairly clear the entire day, where before it would be cloudy within the hour. After work ran sample over to the shop and Ammonia levels were through the roof, Nitrite were fairly high. Pet store tested my tap water for me as well, no ammonia in that.

Just did a 10 gallon water change, took out my drift wood and my god there was just a mass of algae on the side I can't see when it's in the tank, so scrubbed the living daylights out of it.

One question is, when you put water in, do you put the dechlorinator in the water BEFORE putting it in the tank? That's what I have been doing.

Also, if could make a lil list of what you guys use when doing water changes/cleaning, all I have is a 10"x 2" Cleany tube, 5 gallon bucket, scrubby brush, digital thermostat, water dechlorinator and a plate (for when I put water back in)

Thankyou much for the help

 

[drobbyb]

I just add it to the tank when filling.

 

[Cocomojo]

also one thing I noticed, where my water filter pours back into the aquarium, their used to be a good ammount of bubbles that would come about. But there doesn't seem to be half as many as their used to be. Even after a 35% water change

 

[waterdrop]

Not sure if this is what you're asking, but bubble are not important, if its the filter outlet you are talking about, its surface movement that's important for gas exchange, not bubbles. If used, bubbles are just aesthetic.

If its the tiny bubbles from fresh tap water, that is caused by gases being at higher pressures in the pipe system and they go away and again, are unimportant.

With "ammonia levels through the roof" and test kit having not arrived yet, the most urgent thing for you will be to make your water changes large, like 50 to 70%, as all that's important is that the ammonia is killing the fish. The two most important aspects of water changes (at this stage of your aquarium life) are to use conditioner and to roughly temperature match.

Because your bacterial colonies are delicate and water authorities sometimes over-chlorinate, I recommend that you dose conditioner at 1.5x whatever they tell you and do it for the full tank water volume if you are adding water directly or for the bucket volume if adding prior. It doesn't matter which way you do it, just that you do it at all. Dechlorinator/Dechloraminator is more or less instantaneous as it stirs through the water. Temperature matching can be done with just rough judgements using your hand. Its important with these large percentage changes but months from now during normal maintenance if you were doing say a 10% change, it wouldn't be important.

With a 30g, using buckets will probably be fine but if you're frustrated by it you can check into a device type typified by a product called the "Python" (you can google it.) This is a system to eliminate buckets during water changes.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[rewlyn]

also one thing I noticed, where my water filter pours back into the aquarium, their used to be a good ammount of bubbles that would come about. But there doesn't seem to be half as many as their used to be. Even after a 35% water change

when was the last time you cleaned your filter? did you clean it in the fish tank water, a bucket of dechlorinated water or staight from the tap?

here isthe link to the "python":

http/www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~act...dor~~tab~2.html

 

[Cocomojo]

I've been adding more conditioner than what is recomended to the water before putting it in the tank, dont' know if that would have a negative effect? Says to had 5ml per 10 gallon and I think I've been more like 15ml per 10 gallon.

With the python, you just add the conditioner after you put it back in the water? I'm assuming the conditioner runs it's course before I would be powering the filter back on.

O and I haven't touched the filter other than turning it off to not destroy the pumps when doing water changes, as it's only 3 weeks and some days old.


and to rewlyn, that is one pissed off lookin lil kid.. lol

 

[fatheadminnow]

I've been adding more conditioner than what is recomended to the water before putting it in the tank, dont' know if that would have a negative effect? Says to had 5ml per 10 gallon and I think I've been more like 15ml per 10 gallon.

With the python, you just add the conditioner after you put it back in the water? I'm assuming the conditioner runs it's course before I would be powering the filter back on.

O and I haven't touched the filter other than turning it off to not destroy the pumps when doing water changes, as it's only 3 weeks and some days old.


and to rewlyn, that is one pissed off lookin lil kid.. lol

at rewlyn sig pic!

No, there will be no negative affects on the tank what so ever by adding more water conditioner.

If you fill the tank up with the new water, then you want to add enough dechlor to treat the entire tank.

If you fill up a bucket of new water before adding it to the tank, you can just then add the recommended amount of water dechlor tot he bucket of new water before adding the new water to the tank.

Also, the filter is not going to take out any of the water dechlor from the water.

-FHM

 

[Cocomojo]

I was just more worried about the dechlorinator not doing it's job before turning the filter back on.

After my 10 gallong water change yesterday evening, water has not reclouded over night and my ammonia is down (went from blue to very light green, new test kit should be in tomorrow)
Will see where I stand after work

 

[waterdrop]

cocomojo wrote:

With the python, you just add the conditioner after you put it back in the water? I'm assuming the conditioner runs it's course before I would be powering the filter back on.

What RDD and I both do is toss in half the amount of Prime (or whatever conditioner you use) needed at the beginning (either right before or right after water starts flowing back in to the tank) and then toss in the other half near or at the end of the fill.

In my case I rarely turn my filter off during a water change (mine are usually 50% or so) so theres a lovely waterfall of streams from the spraybar stirring everything up all during the water change, makes for good mixing. My fish all seem to love this event (of course its just me imagining they do, lol) and enjoy nipping at my hand as I clean the glass and go about all my tasks inside the tank.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Cocomojo]

So I got my test kit today Just did test before doing a 25% water change

Ammonia was at 4.0
Nitrite .50
PH 7.5

Will test again in couple hours