Oh Dear..

[justjon]

Hey all - little while since I last posted.

A few days ago, one of my Gourami suddenly started floating strangely, then the next day unfortunately the little guy died (found him dead when I got home).

I took him out and thought it may be due to natural causes, as there were no signs of any white spots or any illness around him.

However, thismorning when I woke up, my Plec (that i've had for quite a while) was also dead at the bottom of the tank

This time, however - I noticed a light, white patch on the top of his head.

I've just done a level check (home on lunch break) - and here are my levels:

PH: 7.6
AMNOMIA: 0.25 (little above)
Nitrate: 40 (this is usual, and has been the case since tank setup, even with live plants - I think it's due to tap water).
Nitrite: 0

So the only thing a little above average really, is the amnomia - so I will do a water change on Saturday morning (which I usually do, though I admitidely missed last weekend as I was away).

Can anyone reccomend anything that I can do more? Or have any suggestions?

My tank's stock level is fine, now i'm left with:

1x Dwarf blue gourami
1x Amano Shrimp
2x Baloon Molly's

Any help will be much appreciated,

Thank you.

Jonathan

 

[Miss Wiggle]

the ammonia needs fixing before saturday, even 0.25ppm of ammonia can be deadly and i strongly suspect this is what killed your fish, it will kill the others if it's not fixed asap.

do a 50% water change immediately, wait 1 hr and test the water again, if you still get a reading for ammonia do another 50% change and keep going until it's at 0. then do the same tomorrow and every day after that until it holds itself steady at 0.

to work out why you've suddenly got an ammonia reading we need some more info

has anything changed in the tank recently? did you clean the filter out or change any filter media? added any medications or any new fish? have you had a powercut or anything else which could have disrupted the filter's running?

 

[justjon]

Hi - thank you for the reply

No worries, I will do a water change as soon as I get in from work tonight. such ashame it killed my other fish

Nothing at all has changed - which is why it's a bit strange... I don't over-feed or anything. Can anything else cause a rise in ammnonia?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

well what causes a rise in ammonia is usually one of two things

1 - something gets into the tank and nukes the bacteria in the filter
2 - something produces extra ammonia which the bacteria can't process, this can either be adding too many new fish at once or something like lots of waste in the gravel not been cleaned out

it's possible that the filter is not up to handling the full bi load of the fish, it coped fine when they were small but as they've got older and started producing more waste it's just got past the cut of point where there isn't room for anymore bacteria to grow and as such you start to see ammonia creeping up. Do you test regularly to prove/disprve that there was ammonia steadily rising over the last few weeks or did you just test when you saw the problem.

whats the make/model of the filter and what size is the tank?

 

[justjon]

Hi there, thanks for another reply

I literally got in about 20mins ago and first thing when in the door did a 50% water change. So fingers crossed.

When should I do a levels check, tommorow?

Nothing changed at all, which is why i'm a bit confused, and the tank is sealed properly. I got the two gouramis about 6 weeks back, but even so - my tank was then well stocked, no where near over.

- Oh, and the filtration system is one that is built into the back corner of the tank (Jewel Rekord 70)

 

[Miss Wiggle]

test the water 1 hr after the water change and post the stats up here

well the juwel filters are pretty pants but you're nowhere near overstocked so i wouldn't expect the filter to be struggling with that load.

while it would be nice and neat if we could get a reason for the ammonia spike sometimes these things happen with no discernible cause, the action is still the same, keep doing as many water changes as poss until the ammonia goes away.

 

[justjon]

Hmph - the 50% water change doesn't seem to have changed the results that much, a little lighter colour and that's it!

I will do another water change tommorow lunch time - do I do a 50% one again? Shocked that it's still there, going to take a fair few to reduce it.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah i don't really know why it is but a 50% change does not mean you'll halve the ammonia in the tank.

you may need to do multiple changes each day to get it down.

have you tested the tap water just incase you've got an ammonia reading coming in from there or anything like that