Stats Please Help

[glyndawn]

so it defo the filter

 

[The Taffy Apple]

Again, i believe your problem is that your media inside your filter does not contain enough beneficial bacteria..
leaving the tank to 'cycle for 4 weeks' isn't good enough to create a healthy, disease free tank (believe me, i've been there and got the T-Shirt)...!

He said this was setup for 9 months and ammonia was always there. The tank just won't go through full cycle with stocking like that and filter like that. To me it is inadequate filtering, regardless. Especially considering that the advertised 800l/h is always less when filter media is in.

@glyndawn: Just a question. Do you shake bottle 2 on the nitrate test?

I'm afraid i would have to disagree here... 9 months of Ammonia at 0.25 tells me that filter is no-where near cycled..

And out of interest, glyndawn, i see you have frogs in your tank.. could that be a cause for concern?

Terry.

 

[snazy]

I would put the fluval U4 in it, if I were you. And also move some of the sponges of the established filter to the fluval to speed up the cycling of the second filter. Do a massive water change prior to reduce the ammonia to 0, siphon the gravel as there is probably a lot of accumulated waste causing additional ammonia.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Is the tank still giving test results of anything above zero for ammonia or nitrite now?
What dechlorinator do you use?
When cleaning any filter media, are you using anything but mature tank water and do you perhaps heavily squeeze/rinse all media at one maintenance session (rather than doing say ~50%)?


If you are getting ammonia or nitrite readings this morning, I would personally...

• Syphon some tank water into a quarantine tank or as large a "fish safe" bucket (i.e. no exposure to nasty chemicals)
• Net all the fish into the tank/bucket, put a towel/cover over the top to sedate the fish into thinking it is suddenly night time
• Turn off all heaters, powerheads, filters and leave the tank for ~20 minutes
• Pull out all ornaments/rocks/large plants from the tank (put plant in fish bucket perhaps to prevent it drying out)
• Syphon out all the tank water, ideally using a gravel cleaner to dig into the sand/gravel and hoover out as much debris as possible
• Refill with fresh dechlorinated water of a lower temperature than 78F, I suggest 72F/22C (without knowing what "3 rassurb" is meant to be)
• Reset your heater to 72F, keeping an eye on the temp over the coming days to ensure the heater thermostat is calibrated to 72F (my Rena heaters often heat higher than the thermostat knob setting eg. 23C when I want 20C)
• Acclimitise your fish to this new water using the "drip" method (~4 drops per second, let the volume of water added at least double what you put in there originally with the fish, emptying out some water during the process if neccessary) over the course of 30-60 minutes
• Replace the ornaments/rocks/plants to your liking
• Top up the tank again with fresh water of similar temp to allow for what was lost during the acclimitisation
• Net the fish back into the tank

Get yourself some Seachem Prime ordered, far more ecomnomical than many other dechlorinators and up your regular water changes to 50% per week, even if that means doing two ~50l changes to make things more manageable (and should keep the water quality more stable).


If you have another filter spare, by all means add it, you should probably be aiming for 1000-1200lph of actual water turnover in a 180l tank. Not all filters give good real world values, for instance my two AllPondSolutions 2000EF (rated 2000lph by them) filters give 1000-1200lph turnover in my tanks with no modular spraybars attached, I'm still wondering if my 48x12x15 (140l) gets enough water turnover by one of these! If the media fits, put half your mature media from your existing filter into the new one and fill the voids in each filter with uncycled media, given 4-6 weeks both filters should have a good sized colony.

 

[snazy]

i checked the states again yesterday and got so did another 50ltr water change
ammonia 0.25
nitrite 0
nitrate 5.0

Can you please confirm you do shake bottle 2 on the nitrate test?

Again, i believe your problem is that your media inside your filter does not contain enough beneficial bacteria..
leaving the tank to 'cycle for 4 weeks' isn't good enough to create a healthy, disease free tank (believe me, i've been there and got the T-Shirt)...!

It may never contain enough beneficial bacteria if it is not good enough to handle the load. Unless the problem is only recent, 9 months of ammonia source in that tank should have cycled it, although on the back of sick fish.
Nitrates may be 5 if his tap water has 5 nitrates and he is after doing massive water changes.


Edit: I meant 5 for nitrates

 

[Prime Ordeal]

He's getting nitrate because he's using Bacterlife (and possibly from the source water).

Also if his source water has any chloramine there's always going to be an ammonia reading until the filter gets a chance to process it.

 

[glyndawn]

its me again

ive just checked the stats again without doing anything from this morning

ammonia 0.25
nitrite 0ppm
nitrate 10ppm

this is strange

 

[Prime Ordeal]

Have you been using the same test kit since you set up the tank?

 

[glyndawn]

same type but this one is a new one just brought it

 

[Prime Ordeal]

I know API ammonia tests can be dificult to read. Is it possible you're misreading it? You need to hold the vial on the white bit of the card next to the colour chart for ammonia and read it in daylight or under a good daylight indoor light. You should get another person to judge it too in case you have any colour sight problems. Also it's not unknown for API to give false readings at low levels like you have. Perhaps you've had zero ammonia all along and you tank is cycled?

The nitrate readings are as expected because you're adding Bacterlife.

 

[glyndawn]

yes defo 0.25 but like i say i allways get that reading from day 1

 

[snazy]

If you look at the ammonia test from above, if there is ammonia, it should have green tinge.

 

[glyndawn]

yes defo slight green

 

[snazy]

Then I would say there is ammonia in it. Is it the same with the tap water?

 

[Dieses Madchen]

I haven't seen anyone ask this,but it may be important. When you do filter maintenance, how to you clean your filter and media? How often do you change your media?