Is this Bacterial Bloom? Ammonia off the charts 2 dead fish so far. HELP

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Jan Cavalieri

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Ok yesterday we were cleaning some other tanks when fairly suddendly my 50 gallon tank turned cloudy. I immediately saw one YoYo loach die, about an hour later, my friend found the second YoYo loach dead and it really smelled - it was alive just an hour before. The water is getting more cloudy. Ammonia reads OVER 7, everything else is zero PH is 6.8. I found some AmGuard to neutralize the ammonia and it may be working but it will likely only last 48 hours - I'm not to keen on water change of a 50 gallon tank (I'm on oxygen - this will be hard for me) and my assistant is at her regular job today.

The snails are behaving funny - they are in a ring around the top edges of the tank. My Dojo's eat a LOT of snails - so I removed them. New ones are back again this morning.

What alerted me besides the massive cloudiness was that the water was HOT. It was set on 80 but this was more like 90. This is a $100 heater/temperature gauge combined - obviously broken. Turned the heat down to 75 and this morning it was FREEZING - so I turned it back up to 80 = I'll check it again later.

The only way to clear an Ammonia spike that I know of is by doing a water change. But the internet info says Bacteria blooms usually increase the nitrites too - and those are zero.

Getting ready to teat my City water incase the river had a bacterial bloom as well - I haven't heard any announcements to boil water or anything but it's been VERY VERY HOT. I'll test the other aquariums quickly too - I feel the need to get that water out of the tank. I know that the Dojos are still alive but the rest are all very large Gourami's - that's why they are in a tank by themselves. Trying to decide if I should move fish to another tank but I have some very tiny fish in the other two tanks that might get eaten by the more aggressive Gourami's. They are 5-8" in size and I have a bunch of new rasbdora in one tank and baby tetra's in the other tank - Also hard to catch what you cant see.

the online manuals say to change no more than 20% of the water and then start removing debris - but this tank was spotless before this happened - except for snail shells because the Dojo's eat so many snails. I have NO FEEDING problem from regular food in this tank so that didn't cause the bloom.

Could just a bizarre ammonia stike cause all this

ADVICE?
 
Your ammonia is at 7. It should not be above .5 during a fish in cycle. You are going to need to do several back to back water changes to get it down. Change water until it is reading 0. Then start water changes again as soon as it is above .5. This means you may be doing multiple water changes daily for a few weeks
 
The tank you are having issues with, did you clean it that day when you saw the cloudy water and ammonia spike?
 
Is it possible that the higher temp killed off some snails, which could cause an ammonia spike? If the ammonia reducer works for 24 hrs, that should be long enough at least until your assistant is back to help you with water changes if you are not physically able. This is a tough situation. If you have spare heaters and some buckets or totes, I would say fill them up, treat the water, pop a heater in there and move fish into temporary housing if you can.
 
IT'S THE CITY WATER!!! It tests over the top

We have two tanks prepared yesderday that test zero - we had added to them Neutral Reducer as well as AM Guard. They show zero nitrates. The cloudy tank (tank C) the water was changed on Tuesday and we used Neutral Reducer and Prime. Either Prime wasn't effective or it's effectiveness wore off after 48 hours - so theoretically we could keep adding AM Guard every 48 hours until I grow proke. .


At any rate - it makes it pointless to change the water now. That was not something I was looking forward to - it takes me about 4 hours and I'm nearly crippled for a few days.

It does, however, make sense to start moving fish around and split these big gourami's in to two tanks. Generally they are peaceful but compared to peaceful fish they are somewhat aggressive if that makes any sense. Except for the Pearls and I have 3 of those that can get a little nasty.
 
Circus I think you are right - although I have to get them all out of that tank (see what I posted about city water) I'm just getting ready t call the city
 
Or I could use Am Guard on the bad tank and then measure both active and inactive ammonia - I haave a test kit for that
 
If you have or can make dividers, you can move your fish over to other tanks. Since it is the city water that is the problem, you might just have to dose with the ammonia reducer until the issue is resolved or you can get ahold of an alternate water source.

Since you are unable to perform water changes yourself, I would just stick with the Am Guard. It is a tough situation. Sorry.

For the future, though, you might look into getting something like a python water changer. Then you don't have to deal with buckets and lifting and dumping.
 
I Talked wit the City Water Department - they indicated this level is more or less normall. I had an electroclegram this week at our medical center and will have an MRI naxt week Doesn't necessarily have anything to do with ammonia. I'll be going to a smaller hospital to have the sonongrom Thanfully due to the heat they hire valels to park our cars for for us
 
As far as using the Python I already have on and haven't been particularly impressed. Our hose has to be70 feet long to reach from the kitchen to the fish room. I wear an O2 hose which constantly gets tangled with the Python. Now our water can reach that far, plus we have the right kink of adaptor but when you are scutioning water out of a tank it takes all you've got in water pressure tp get done and the overspill starts building up quickly unlill the next thin you know water is pouring all over the floor unless you have somebody with a decent lenghth of attention (no 10 yr olds LOL) to notice andurt off the water and then disasppear when it's time to clean upl The you reattachment and reverse the direction of the hose and it works great - UNTIL you reach the ent of the hose. then the two of you spends all their time trying to get the water out of the hose kind of (back aand forth and back an forth until you finallally reach the water's edge and you can slowl pour it out of thouse gold covered papaers. I've found that moving buckts is easier
 
As far as using the Python I already have on and haven't been particularly impressed. Our hose has to be70 feet long to reach from the kitchen to the fish room. I wear an O2 hose which constantly gets tangled with the Python. Now our water can reach that far, plus we have the right kink of adaptor but when you are scutioning water out of a tank it takes all you've got in water pressure tp get done and the overspill starts building up quickly unlill the next thin you know water is pouring all over the floor unless you have somebody with a decent lenghth of attention (no 10 yr olds LOL) to notice andurt off the water and then disasppear when it's time to clean upl The you reattachment and reverse the direction of the hose and it works great - UNTIL you reach the ent of the hose. then the two of you spends all their time trying to get the water out of the hose kind of (back aand forth and back an forth until you finallally reach the water's edge and you can slowl pour it out of thouse gold covered papaers. I've found that moving buckts is easier
That makes sense. I haven't ever used one of the super long ones before. When a friend wasn't feeling well I did her WCs and her Python made it a dream. But both she and I live in small apartments. I think the farthest point in my place from my faucet is about 30 ft.

Have the problems with your tanks gotten any better?
 

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