Hot Weather And Ammonia Spike.

[Shaddex]

Has anyone every had a small .25-.5 ammonia spike due to the recent hot weather ?
Fully cycled tank for 12 months+, .25-.5 ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, 50ppm nitrate.

Tank went from 23 to 27 in a day !

 

[techen]

Heat does not effect ammonia in anyway.
 
It's more than likely overfeeding/dead fish/ moving substrate/ etc.

 

[Shaddex]

Prob just one of those things.

Heavy water changes here we come ! lol

 

[techen]

Don't go nuts on the water changes though! Just a small one till you get it back down to zero.

 

[Shaddex]

Going to "Re-scape" while Im at it

Been looking for an excuse

 

[Shaddex]

well the plot thickens...
 
Got my tank temps down to about 25c and tested morning and evening for ammonia.
All back to 0ppm.
Today, Very hot day, tanks went back up to 27c and tested tonight and ammonia is now 0.5ppm
 
Are we sure that heat has nothing to do with ammonia spiking ??
 
Any who, another 50% water change and a rescape to remove all the BN Poo   
See what happens in the morning..

 

[coolie]

A big temperature swing will push Ammonium in the tank to the more dangerous Ammonia (NH3). It could be that the test chemicals you are using are
designed to test only for the more toxic NH3, which could explain it. PH swings have a similar effect. But really your water change regime and well cycled
tank should be keeping both at zero. That's the bottom line.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

While heat does push the NH3 content up for any given pH level, it is a much smaller factor than pH.
 
For example at a pH of 7.6 and a temp of 76F (24.4C) 1 ppm of total ammonia is .017 ppm NH3. Raise the temp by 8o to 84F (28.9C) and the NH3 rises to .029. Both are under both the .03 and .05 danger range used by many. If you work with lower numbers such as .25 or .5 ppm of total ammonia, the temp rise it takes to get the NH3 ammonia levels dangerous would not be an issue as the heat would have killed them long before thatd the total ammonia levels would be even higher.
 
A change in temp. or pH does not change the total ammonia present, it merely changes the balance between NN3 and NH4 of what is already there.
 
There is something else the heat must be doing to make those readings appear. Perhaps warmer water breaks down organics faster or maybe it makes the fish more active so they produce more ammonia. But here is the conundrum. If the first time you had  ammonia showing, if it was real, the end result should have been more bacteria. Those more bacteria should not have died off between the 1st and 2nd episodes. Therefore, if the second episode is also real, it had to be that much bigger than the first since you should have developed enough bacteria to handle a spike of the same magnitude from the first time.
 
Nothing about the temperatures involved would have any effect on the bacteria. They don't care in terms of the temps you are reporting.
 
Lastly, you would think at .5 ppm there is a chance some or even one of the fish might show signs of being irritated? Maybe eating less, swimming less some flashing or staying at the surface? That would give you some confirmation one way or the other I would hope.

 

[Shaddex]

No change in fish behavior at all.
2 tanks with a total of about 350 ltr water.
Running 3 Canister filters.  Aqua 2450, Aqua 1000 and Aqua 750.  Plus have a 350lph box filter also.
Filtration Overkill !
 
Ill keep up with the water changes morning and night until I can get it under control.

 

[snazy]

Has anyone every had a small .25-.5 ammonia spike due to the recent hot weather ?
Fully cycled tank for 12 months+, .25-.5 ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, 50ppm nitrate.

Tank went from 23 to 27 in a day !       
 

   
Only saw this topic now. This happened to me just a couple of weeks ago when the weather got very hot for the first time and suddenlty 4 out of my 5 tanks had variable low ammonia reading. The fish didn't seem to notice the problem and neither my shrimp nor ottos seemed stressed so it crossed my mind the test was faulty, but then my tap water and one of the tanks showed 0 ammonia with the same test. I am almost certain it got something to do with the high temperatures and lower oxygen content, possibly filter and substrate bacteria suddenly struggling to survive causing a mini spike maybe.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

The ammonia oxidizing bacteria have no problem in the high 80sF (over 30C). The nitrite ones are optimal a bit cooler, but should not be in bad shape higher either. So my fist question is still, if the ammonia readings were real, where are the nitrite readings?
 
So if we can assume that the rise in temp did not inhibit the bacteria, would there not need to be another explanation from where the readings came?
 
If one wants to suggest that in warmer water oxygen levels can be lower and this may have inhibited the bacteria, two questions immediately arise. What about the fish, shouldn't low oxygen also affect them? Then, back to nitrite, low oxygen would affect nitrite as well as ammonia bacs. So, again, where is the nitrite? And then why shouldn't one's normal setup keep the water oxygenated at a temp a few degrees higher?
 
I have been trying to find research on the effect of temperature on ammonia tests with no luck so far.
 
Here is an anecdotal piece of evidence. A while back I had a heater stick on. It raised the tank temp to about 105F. It killed the discus and rummy nose, but all the L450 plecos survived. Now I can understand this from a purely temp point of view because these fish can handle pretty warm water. Ammonia and nitrite is another story. So here was a tank where the temps got much hotter than those in this thread. Hot enough to kill fish used to warmish waters. Why didn't ammonia rise to the point of harming the plecos? these fish spawned many times since then too.

 

[Shaddex]

its a strange one.
after 75% water change and removing all plants, wood etc, I gave my sand a good vac.

tested again this morning and my ammonia is .5ppm, nitrite 0, nitrate is about 10ppm above my tap water.
tap water is 0,0,20 so no issues there.

going to 50 water change tonight and strip down my filters for a clean.

oh, temp this morning is 24 again.

 

[snazy]

So my fist question is still, if the ammonia readings were real, where are the nitrite readings?
 

 
In my case there was no readable nitrite.  Honestly, I've got no idea what the story was in my case. I thought about faulty tests but the test consistently didn't show ammonia in the tap water which is the normal reading.
 

Perhaps warmer water breaks down organics faster or maybe it makes the fish more active so they produce more ammonia.
 

 
That's a possibility.

 

[coolie]

 
or maybe it makes the fish more active so they produce more ammonia.

 
 
But can fish put out more ammonia without eating more food???

 

[snazy]

 

 
or maybe it makes the fish more active so they produce more ammonia.

 
 
But can fish put out more ammonia without eating more food???
 

 
Who knows what else they are eating. There could be stuff in the tank itself maybe. I would also presume they'd produce more ammonia via the gills when more active, not just extra poop.