Water Quality Problems

[Gilli]

My external filter of 2 years suddenly died on me a week ago and I had to rush out and buy a new one. I have 250L tank and purchased an exteranl Fluval 305 filter which is suitable for a 300L tank.

I packed the 2 compartments of ceramics from my old filter into the new one and also put the x 3 new packets in that were supplied . I then cut up my sponges from the old filter and put those in, and of course it has its own new sponges in there too.

So not only did I have that disaster, but I also had a 5 hour power cut 2 days later , and then accidentally knocked a whole large new pot of food into the tank the day after that! - they say bad things happen in threes! I immediately turned off the filter - let it all sink to the bottom and syphoned it all out!

So now im worried. Ive been testing my water daily for a week and have had 0.5 ammonia on a daily basis for which I have been doing a 30% daily water change. I only had one day where my nitrites were 0.25 and I did a 50% water change that day and since it has stayed at 0. What worries me is that my nitrates are between the 0 and 5.0 reading- its hard to tell which! So I dont know where I am or how long it is going to take before im fully cycled again? Can anyone give me any clues please? This water changing is killing me as i have to do it by the bucket load- and at this rate i will be able to enter for the Miss Univerese body building contest!

 

[Davo86]

Hi Gilli, wow sounds like you've had a right week,

Previously when this type of thing happened to me i used Tetra Safe Start and Bactozym to speed up the process, Hopefully you still have a good amount of bacteria in your filters and these products will help to quickly re-establish what has been lost.

I would also cut right back on feeding and if possible add a few quick growing plants like vallis or elodea which should use up some of the toxins

 

[fishyfeet]

Do you know if there are nitrates in your tap water, there is in mine quite a lot, and this worrys me as youve very little, basically you are going to have to do these water changes for a few more days, feed little or not at all, fish will go for a week so a couple of days will do them good. This will cut down on the ammonia being produced and give the filter chance to catch up, what are your normal nitrate reading, maybe we have different kits, on my test strips i have 40 and in the tap water there are 20. If the ammonia is being turned in to nitrites, and the reason youve no nitrite reading is they are being converted into nitrates, then where are the nitrates, i think you may have a long weight (wait) lol as in buckets of water. di

 

[Gilli]

Thank you for your replies guys.

The 0 nitrates is what is worrying me too - its usually around 20 (I use the liquid API test kit) I do have several live plants in already, as I said the tank is mature about 2 years old. Ive just done a tap water test and it looks about the same as my tank test - between 0 and 5.0.

I am at a loss here - I expected there to be a slight spike because of the small loss of bacteria until it caught up, but should it be like this? From these readings does anyone have any idea how long this will take?

Cursing my bad luck here....

 

[Gilli]

Can anyone add anything to this please?

 

[OldMan47]

You may never see any nitrates until the ammonia and nitrites are processing well enough to cut back on the water changes. Until then, probably less than a week from now, you are changing so much water that the nitrates don't have a chance to build up at all. The plants you have would probably help keep levels low even if the ammonia were processing well. Some of my tanks don't have any measurable nitrates unless I add some in for the plants.

 

[Gilli]

Thank you very much for your help - so am I doing the right thing in doing a 25-30% water change every day if my ammonia readings are 0.25 and my nitrites are 0, or should I cut down on the water changes and just do them every other day?

 

[Gilli]

Can anyone advise me please - dont know if im doing right or just holding up the cycling more?

 

[ellena]

Well, you're in a kind of fish in cycle aren't you, and the advice for that is to do water changes to keep ammonia below 0.25ppm as above that starts to harm the fish. Once daily will still leave plenty of waste n the water to feed the filter. You need to put your fishes welfare first and the filter will just have to take as long as it takes-easy for me to say, I know!

 

[Gilli]

Thank you - yes I dont care how many water changes it takes even though its tough! - what matters are my fishes welfare and that they are ok

 

[backtotropical]

Hi,

I'd just like to give you some re-assurance here that you are indeed doing the right thing.

Ammonia can be deadly to fish even in very small concentrations. It depends a lot upon the type of fish (some are more tolerant than others), the temperature of the water and the pH (the toxicity of ammonia becomes greater the warmer and more basic the water gets).

This is the thing you need to focus on. Keep up the water changes to keep the ammonia levels as low as possible. I would only consider reducing the water changes once you aren't finding any ammonia present at all.

Don't worry about changing too much water and it harming your cycle, as its virtually impossible to do. Bignose kindly wrote an article for us some time ago which shows that water changes will actually speed up a cycle, not slow it down. I think there is a link to it in the Beginner's Resource Centre if you want to take a look.

Don't worry about the nitrate either. As has been said already, your water changes will be diluting it. The ammonia is the one to worry about, nitrate is a mere inconvenience to your fish, ammonia may well kill them.

The good news is that the beneficial bacteria in our filters are actually more robust than you might think, especially as you'll have a very mature colony with your tank having been running for 2 years. I would guess that they will probably be back to normal within a few days.

Keep up the water changes and cut out feeding until everything is back to normal.

Good luck and be sure to ask if you bare still unsure.

Regards

BTT

 

[Gilli]

Thank you very much for the re-assurance. My fish mean a lot to me and im so glad that for things i dont know or are unsure of i can always rely on someone on here helping out - thanks again to everyone!

 

[OldMan47]

If you are doing enough water changes to control your ammonia and nitrite levels, all will be well with your tanks. The only reason we even monitor nitrates is to get an idea of whether or not we are doing big enough water changes on a mature tank. On a tank that has suffered a setback, the ammonia and nitrites must guide your response and any nitrate build is likely to be quite small by comparison. Yo9u are doing fine byt controlling your ammonia and nitrites. Let other people worry about the nitrates in this situation. You will do fine if you don't even test nitrates until both nitrites and ammonia are fully controlled.

 

[Gilli]

OK - more bad news! Although I had got to the stage of only having to do a water change every other day as my ammonia was reading 0 one day then 0.25 the next, now I noticed that my plec has a reddish patch on her and my female kribs eyes look a bit puffy.

I have dosed the tank with Esha 2000 which is a broad range anti bacterial med. Will this effect my readings because it makes the tank water look bluey green and im worried it will affect the colour readings of my ammonia and nitrite tests?

I am assuming and hoping that it wont harm the bacteria in the filter - dont think it will as ive used it before with no bad effects but despite reading all the blurb on the leaflet and box it doesnt tell you.

WHEN WILL ALL THIS BAD LUCK END!!