Ph Crash And Ammonia Spike

[CKutz]

i have a 10 gal, and a 30 gal tank. both tanks are now going through ph crashes and ammonia spikes

the 10 gal i keep with me at school. about a month ago i brought it home for the summer. during this i tried to keep the bacteria alive by keeping the filter media in a bucket of tank water. a day or two later i brought home some snails from this pond i was at, a big pond snail, and a few smaller ramshorn snails. this maybe the cause of the problem, cause i knew this was kinda risky to do..but i'm not sure because of how my other tank is. i kept the snails in my 10 gal. so i moved home, a few days later i added some snails from a pond, and now the ammonia is always building up slowly, 0 nitrite and the ph is is like 6.0.
i thought at first i was going into a mini cycle because of losing some bacteria..but it's been a month, it shouldn't be like this anymore. i typically do weekly waterchanges, and there's been no changes at all..always ammonia, and ph of 6.0

my 30 gal.
it has been running for a few months now and has had 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 10 nitrate ph 7-7.4 for quite a while. then one day i was rearranging things and my filter got screwed up and started making this awful noise. so i used two 10 gal filters with the mature media added in for almost a week till i could get a new impeller for the filter. during this time, 1 rummynose died..and another dissappeared, i still can not find any sign of it in the tank, ammonia started to build up, and ph started dropping. prior to the filter breaking i had put one of the snails from the pond into the 30 gal to see if my loaches would eat it...it was in there for a few days, i think they sorta ate it..but i took it out and got rid of it.
so now the 30 gal is going through the same my 10 gal is..6ish ph, ammonia increasing, 0 nitrate.

what the heck is going on here. it seems like if i did introduce a chemical to the tank..i should have done enough waterchanges that it wouldn't be there anymore (the snails are still in though..want to get rid of them, but don't want to just throw them in water somewhere cause of spreading them, and don't have the heart to just throw them outside to die). one time i tested the ph of my tap water after letting it set for a day (cause at first it's like 8 or higher..but i guess that's the stuff in the water or something that evaporates eventually) and the ph was 7.2 or 7.4.

any ideas???

 

[ArteEtLabore]

Have you tested for KH? A very low kh (buffering capacity) could be the cause of a ph crash although with your tanks been stable at 7+ for some time this is unlikely unless your water company has added new chemicals which again is very unlikely. The most obvious cause of both the PH crash and ammonia spike is the changing of filter media and keeping the filter media in a bucket for some time - beneficial bacteria on filter media will start to die off after a few hours. This was bound to kick off a mini-cycle or indeed a full fish-in-cycle and this would explain the ammonia spikes, the cycle explains the PH drop also, PH and its buffering capacity become un-stable during cycling or in freshly established aquariums and can often drop to dangerous levels, purchase a reliable test kit, the API kit is very good as is the labourette and test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and PH at least once a day, if PH drops below 5.5 then the cycle will stall, if you are getting readings of excess ammonia or ammonia not been reduced by nitrites then this could be the cause - this PH fluctuation will settle down once the tank is established, you will need to start doing daily water changes so this should stop the PH dropping so much - weekly water changes is not enough, if you have traces of ammonia then you need to do large changes daily until the cycle is complete.

Whilst it was a very bad idea to get snails from a unknown pond and add them to your aquariums they are not the reason for your ammonia spikes, they could however be the reason for the death of one of your rummys but there is a very real possibility of it been caused by ammonia poisoning, you haven't actually stated the test results for ammonia - How much is typically in your tank?

Course of action, first of all remove the snails, crush them and throw them in the bin and you would be wise never to add wild caught animals to your tank again unless quarantined first. Buy a reliable regent test kit and test all water parametres at least once a day, do large daily water changes until the ammonia is gone and the tank is cycled, make sure your tank is well aerated and don't add any more fish.

 

[drobbyb]

It is also possible that when your pH crashed, it got below the point where your bacteria continues to process ammonia. This is usually the case with people who have soft water. As the nitrogen cycles progresses to nitrates, these are acidic in nature, resulting in a lower pH.

I would do frequent waterchanges until the pH is back to normal, and there are no traces of ammonia.

 

[CKutz]

the ammonia gets up to 1 ppm after a few days.
i've done around 50% wc to try and bring the ph back up..and it works at first.

i thought about the kh issue, but my 30 gal has a bunch of seashells in it. they aren't crushed up and in the filter..but i thought just that they were there it might help the kh a little bit.

my fish actually are acting pretty normal now..when this first started they were very inactive, but now it's almost like normal. not that that's good..but i don't think i'll be losing any.
i'm sure i lost the rummmynose due to the fluctuations the tank was going through..it's just weird how i can't even find one of them, the first that died got picked at by my other fish (loaches, kribs, gourami), do you think they could have ate a whole fish? i checked around the tank, it didn't jump.

will test the water, and do a big waterchange later tonight (have to go to work).

thanks for the help guys

 

[waterdrop]

"the ammonia gets up to 1 ppm after a few days.
i've done around 50% wc to try and bring the ph back up..and it works at first."

This catches my attention. whenever you see an ammonia number like 1.0ppm, you need to start with something like a 50-70% water change (with conditioning and rough temperature matching) followed by a retest an hour later and another similar water change if you are not extremely close to zero. Once ammonia or nitrite(NO2) gets above 0.25ppm then that problem "trumps" all other problems and should be considered an emergency with large water changes being done, as the others have said.

Of course its good to know all the stats on your tap water to help understand everything that's going on. Perhaps the tap stats might be different between where you are in school versus the water at home where you are now? But most importantly, the reasons why are less important than understanding the importance of immediate and significant water changes for the fish I think.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[CKutz]

i know i haven't been handling the situation right guys, just want you to know that, so youd on't think i'm a still a complete noob fish keeper ha. i know any amount of ammonia and all that requires waterchanges till it's ok again...my life has just been really crazy lately..and it's been really difficult to keep up with this stuff. once i get my mindset back to normal i'll be on top of things again (so don't worry about my poor fishies too much).

i just wanted to try and figure out what the root of my problem was. whether i have gone into a cycle of sorts..or if there might be something else causing the problems.

any major objections to adding "ph 7.0 stabalizer" or ph up? because it doesn't seem like there should be any reason that my 30 gal tank shouldn't have mature bacteria..when the filter was broke i used the broken filters media in the two back up filters..granted the amount of water flow was different, it should have stayed alive right? and i would think some of the stuff on my 10 gal media would have survived the transition.
so that makes me think, maybe the ammonia has been able to build up enough that it reduces the ph, and then the bacteria stalls, or goes dormant (or does it die off? cause then i'm screwed) so it isn't processing the ammonia, and it's just an endles cycle of bad stuff...so if i cheat a bit and add the ph 7.0 stabalizer..my bacteria might get back to work??

the ph chemicals were given to me when i got the tank, i don't use them..but i thought they might be useful sometime so i hung on to them.
i would go the tough route with the waterchanges, but i have to go away for a week with my family..(perfect timing for my tanks to be going through this huh..)..i'm just going to do like 80% wc on both tanks before i leave and hope for the best. the fish don't seem to be getting worse or anything, seem pretty normal so i think they'll make it...i know it's detrimental to their long term health..but what are my other options?

i said i'd post stats. but stuff came up..and i worked 11 hrs today, and it's 1 am...i'll test stats tomorrow and do waterchanges..but i can pretty much guarantee it's around 1 ppm ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, and ph of 6 (cause that's as low as the card goes, it's verryyy faint yellow..might actually be less than 6)


thanks for your responses and input. i appreciate it. i'm sorry for being a bad hobbyist right now..just going through a really tough time.

 

[CKutz]

bump

 

[waterdrop]

We can certainly appreciate its a tough time (seem to remember you perhaps in school up there, Widener?) for all the college students transitioning their tanks from school to home for the summer... don't get down on yourself!

Seems almost universally frowned on to put any of those pH adjusters into your tank here on the TFF forums and I'm not sure it would help your situation anyway so I'd probaby recommend avoiding that. Sounds to me like a good plan to get in the big gravelcleanwaterchanges prior to your trip, that's always a good idea.

Your overall situation does not sound so bad to me. Maybe I'm not analyzing it correctly, but it seems like you're just worrying more than necessary. Perhaps some of the other members would come in and read over this and help, I could be missing some line of questioning...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[CKutz]

well it doesn't seem to be too big of a deal..i was just expecting it to clear itselff up when i got my filter going again, and thought the media in my 10 gal would still have bacteria and be working fine.
good news with the 30 gal;

test results:
30:
ammonia: 1 (but might be a little less, good sign)
nitrite: 0.25
nitrate: 10 (maybe like 15, but it's there again!)
ph: 6.4 - 6.8..idk if i'm somewhat colorblind..but that whole range is just about impossible to differentiate for me...and 6.4 looks like 6.8..but not 6.6? haha whatever..at least it's not yellow anymore.

10:
ammonia: ~1.5
nitrite: 0
nitrate: 5
ph: 6 (yellow)

i'm moving my 10 downstairs so i can hook the lights up to a timer with the 30. going to take almost all the water out..and hopefully as many snails as i can...i really like those ramshorn ones though
i'll be doing a really big wc on both tanks.

 

[CKutz]

tested the ph. i don't know what the heck it is though...the high range ph test was pink, the regular was very blue...going to wait to see what it is tomorrow if i get the chance to test it. we pushed back our departure till tomorrow morning.

question..is this ph swing bad for my fish? i mean they seem to survive it fine..even the rummynose didn't seem to mind wc before i lost them.
but it's so weird..from the tap it's like above 8..but by tomorrow it would be down to around 7..so my fish just went from 6, to above 8, and tomorrow will be around 7..hopefully


oh yea..i have krib fry
i would be pretty excited..but it's not exactly good timing, and i'm bummed i'm not going to get to watch them for the first week..but honestly i'm not quite ready to deal with them..figured my kribs were up to something..and i was right. will have to see how their doing by next friday.

 

[waterdrop]

A lot of us know that tough feeling of leaving the tank for vacation, feel for ya. If I saw anything clearly to mention I would but you seem to be doing what you can. -wd-

 

[CKutz]

thanks waterdrop

 

[CKutz]

got home last night at midnight.
tested water today.
30 gal:
ph 6.5
ammonia: 1.5
nitrite:0
nitrate: 0

10gal:
ph: 6
ammonia: 2
nitrite:.25
nitrate: 5

i can't believe after all this time i'm going back into a cycle..this blows.

i just rememberd..i have this piece of what i think is live rock (it came with the tank which was used)..well it's not alive anymore i don't think..but it's very like.."holey" (sorry feeling dumb at the moment). when it was in the tank the ph was really high, i took it out figuring it was live rock and the cause, and it went down to 7 and stayed there for months. should i break some of this rock off and add it to both my tanks filters?
i think the reason this is taking so long is cause my ph is pretty low and the bacteria isn't very active, could this help raise it?

 

[CKutz]

wow friend just called me and asked me to go to the beach,
who can turn down a free beach trip!
be back sunday so much shouldn't change. there's a few surviving fry..but if they don't make it..i have to say it's ok by me..with what's going on with the tanks i'm not ready for them now anyways.

i added the live rock to the filter on both tanks though..i'm kinda desperate to get through this as quickly as possible so hopefully that will help.

 

[waterdrop]

Sounds like that was an ok thing to do. You'll get things stabilized or restarted after you get back!