Woah!

[TylerFerretLord]

I was doing my routine water tests two days ago as usual with a waterchange, and my ammonia was was at nearly 5ppm! No Nitrite, fortunately.

I did a 50% water change yesterday and ran a pouch of zeolite, which brought the ammonia down to about 2-3ppm, still too high! This morning it read at .5-1ppm, and no nitrite.

My dwarf gourami died.

I'm guessing my biological filter crashed, but why?

I added all of the media from my cycling 15 gallon just an hour ago, hoping to help the biological filter out. The tank was dropping ammonia in 48 hours and nitrite even quicker. I hope to have to just go through a mini-cycle and not a big one.

Temp: 78F, drops 1F at night
Stocking: 3 platies, 2 swordtails, 1 bristlenose plec, 1 fry of either platy or swordtail origin
Ammonia: .5-1ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 10ppm

I can't believe how resiliant livebearers and plecos are. They don't even seem to notice.

 

[WILDER]

Did the fish die due to the ammonia problem or before.
Ammonia readings can be over feeding, decaying food and debris.
lack of maintance.

 

[TylerFerretLord]

The fish was fine before the ammonia. I was really happy too, as I've been trying to get a healthy dwarf for a while.

I feed once a day, and gravel vac when I do water changes, 20% weekly.

 

[WILDER]

How many gallons is the tank that the fish are in?

 

[TylerFerretLord]

29, US

 

[WILDER]

Tanks not overstocked them.
Whats the present reading for ammonia now.
Test your tap water for ammonia.