HELP! Something is wrong with my tank!

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On Prime Versus Stess Coat- It sounds like Stress Coat helps with the ammonia. I don't know for sure, but that blurb states it "Nuetralizes Chloramines and detoxifies heavy metals"- And that's what we want.

On aloe vera- I have no idea if it actually helps the slime coat, etc. If you use it and have healthy fish, by all means use it. If you use it and continue to have bacterial bloom issues, consider switching to Prime or a similiar product.

On "creating ammonia in your tank"... Not quite. The water company adds something to your water to kills germs and make it safe to drink. That something is either chlorine or chloramine. When you add stress coat or prime or other "dechlorinator", that eliminates the chlorine and chlormine. When you eliminate the chlorine, you get a small amount of chlorine gas- This is poisonous, but it's a small amount and disappates rapidly.

When you eliminate the chloramine, you get a small amount of chlorine gas AND a small amount of ammonia- Chloramine contains Nitrogen, when the nitrogen is released from the chloramine it bonds with hydrogen and produces NH3 and NH4- Which is ammonia. So, If you have Chloramine in your tap water, you already have the ammonia. The alternative is to keep the chloramine, which is just as bad or worse for your fish.

On using Prime and Stress Coat- Not needed. Use one or the other. It sounds like they do similiar things.

On test strips- I also recommend using a liquid test kit instead. I use the Aquarium Pharmcutials (AP) Freshwater Master Test Kit for those kinds of tests.

On the root problem of it all- If you have ammonia in your tank, I would ignore the bacteria bloom for now. Ammonia kills fishs, generally speaking bacteria blooms do not. If, after you get the ammonia back to zero, you still have a bacteria bloom, then we can look for causes of that.

Zeolite is a option for helping combat high ammonia levels until your biological filter gets back up and running. You don't NEED it, but it may help. It would be a temporary mearsure if, as I think, your biological filter currently has problems. I like to outline lots of options that help, that way you can choose the ones easiest for you, or all of them. Maybe you have a box of Ammo-Carb in your fish supplies. Maybe you have no place to add it in your filter, and instead need to use more PWC's and Prime.

You may have a false positive on the ammonia from the test strips- If so, I may be barking up the wrong tree. I've been wrong before, I'll be wrong again, and there is a chance I'm wrong now. But this is what I would do if I had a fish death, a bacteria bloom, and high ammonia levels.

1. Check for something dead in the tank. A fish, a snail, a plant, uneaten food... something.

2. Think real hard about if I may have accidently killed my bio filter. Algaecide and cleaning the filter are both possible items, but not certain. You don't have to have killed everything on the filter, just cleaning some of the "slime" might have reduced its effectiveness.

3. Large PWC, use Prime or similiar product. I would also add Zeolite to the filter.

4. Test daily for ammonia. If *any* is detected, PWC.

5. Look for causes of the Bacteria Bloom. The bacteria is eating something, and chances are that something isn't something we want in the tank. Am I overfeeding? Did I add some chemical that I don't know for sure what does? (That excludes Prime and Zeolite- But for me, includes Aloe Vera. I'm not saying it's bad, or good, just that I am unfamiliar with it).

If the bacteria bloom isn't gone within a few days, then they still have food. That means they are eating something I am adding often, or there is a large food source- Again, hidden dead fish, or maybe a fertilizer stick or tab I put in the substrate, or chemicals I recently added, or maybe my fish food has gone off or gotten contaimenated with something.

I hope I am answering your questions, and not making you more confused. If there is anything I can clear up, please don't hesitate to ask.
 
coldmachineUK said:
Stress Coat should be fine: I've never heard of a dechlor product creating ammonia, I'm not sure I understand the logic in that and I'm fairly sure a company wouldn't be able to sell a product successfully if it had such a negative side effect.
I personally use Tetra Aquasafe, some people use Prime, others use a variety of other products. They generally do the same thing.

Ok, I've confused two people on this, so I'll try again.

The dechlorinator doesn't create ammonia. You already have it in your water. Sort of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloramine

Chloramine is NH2Cl. Your dechlorinator breaks this up and the Cl (The chlorine) turns into gas and disappates harmlessly. You are still left with the N and H (Nitrogen and Hydrogen). The N combines with H and produces NH3 and NH4... Ammonia.

From Seachem's website at http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/Prime_faq.html

Q:I tested my tap water after using Prime and came up with an ammonia reading. Is this because of chloramine? Could you explain how this works in removing chloramine?
A: Prime works by removing chlorine from the water and then binds with ammonia until it can be consumed by your biological filtration (chloramine minus chlorine = ammonia). The bond is not reversible and ammonia is still available for your bacteria to consume. Prime will not halt your cycling process.
I am going to assume that you were using a liquid based reagent test kit (Nessler based, silica). Any type of reducing agent or ammonia binder (dechlorinators, etc) will give you a false positive. You can avoid this by using our Multitest Ammonia kit (not affected by reducing agents) or you can wait to test, Prime dissipates from your system within 24 hours.
 
MarkP said:
On Prime Versus Stess Coat- It sounds like Stress Coat helps with the ammonia. I don't know for sure, but that blurb states it "Nuetralizes Chloramines and detoxifies heavy metals"- And that's what we want.
stress coat does not remove ammonia, where did you get that

PRIME will remove ammonia... or atleast detoxify it
 
sudz said:
What pump/filter do you have for your tank? (if you mentioned it, I'm sorry, i must have missed it!)

The tank has a built in wet/dry filter. The filter media I'm using is: untreated filter pads to remove debris, ammonia pads to remove ammonia, phosphate pads to reduce phosphate, and carbon. Then it drips through the bio balls, and is pumped into the tank.

I'm not missing any fish since my last head-count... but the neons can be hard to keep track of! There are a lot of hiding places for a dead neon to hide though. The tank is heavely planted, but all of the plants are going great, growing like crazy!

So this is what I think I'm going to do. Continue using the stress coat. Go buy a good test kit and test all levels daily (maybe twice daily to satisfy my curiosity). And if the levels are not 0, add Zeolite to the filter to help remove the ammonia and do pwc's until the ammonia levels are zero.

I may be over feeding them. but they gobble it up pretty quick. However, until I bought the feeding ring last week, a lot of the food went into the filter. I rinsed the top filter pads every other day to clean out the food, but maybe that wasn't enough.

Thanks again everyone!

Edit:
OK, so I just checked my parameters with a *real* test kit (rather than the cheap test strips).
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 20 ppm
pH: 6.6

Based on the booklet that came with the kit, my Angels and tetras like the pH at 6.5, but everyone else probably likes it a 7. What should I do?

The booklet also says that the Nitrate should be 40 ppm or less. So I should be good here.

I bought some Zeolite, but it doesn't look like I need to use it. I'll keep checking my levels daily, though.

I did a 50% pwc yesterday afternoon. The water looks much clearer, but it usually took a day or two to really cloud up. I'll let you guys know how it goes. Thanks again everyone for all of your help!!!

Julie
 
Jdogg is right. Julie, I think you are doing alot of things right. I doubt there is a dead fish. I also doubt you are using chemicals improperly.

Siphoning the gravel bed in a planted aquarium is what I have done since day one, almost 3 years ago. I have successfully grown and proagated swords, madagascar lace, and anubias with this method.
My recommendation is to continue doing this as the gravel bed is also where excess food is swirled around by the currents in the aquarium to what we call "dead spots", which are beneath rocks, wood, and in front of the aforementioned when the filter inatke is in back of them. These spots can lead to deposits of food and such that can eventually contribute to these blooms.

Using carbon in the filter is kinda tricky, as it keep the water clean but sadly absorbs the liquid doses of fertilizer one adds. I add it sometimes to clean the water, but most times I just rinse the filter pads off and return them to the filter without replacing the carbon.

Stress coat is fine; I have used it for months and it does it job fine. Yet, I do prefer Jungle's Start right product to clean the tap water. ALso, try adding some salt to the tank- it help the fish replensih eletrolytes. To some plant people, using salt is evil in an aquarium for plants. Yet, I have used it non-stop for years and it always helps the fish, with seemingly no adverse effetcs on my plants.

Having nitrates in an aquarium is not necessarily bad, as they are the end product of the cycle. They just need to be kept in check at low levels.

Finally, I hate long posts and I am sorry this is one. But, I felt it was necessary to add some input to this discussion as there seems to be some alot of fog and not enough clarity in this issue. I think Julie is on the right track. The real promising thing is that she has not mentioned any other fish getting diseased, so it seems her water is not bad with ammonia and such. I think it just may be a dead spot or too much feeding. Or it could be phosphate levels or having the tank next to a window which lets the sun in on the tank. There's lots of possibilities, but I think the pwcs will cure it eventually.

Good luck and keep up with the pwcs- they are the best hope for clearing the tank!
 
JDogg said:
MarkP said:
On Prime Versus Stess Coat- It sounds like Stress Coat helps with the ammonia. I don't know for sure, but that blurb states it "Nuetralizes Chloramines and detoxifies heavy metals"- And that's what we want.
stress coat does not remove ammonia, where did you get that

PRIME will remove ammonia... or atleast detoxify it

Exactly what I said- I'll assume I got a little long-winded and you skimmed the last few posts? In summary, I got it from JulieB, who got it from the bottle of Stress Zyme. If incorrect, it's another reason not to use Stress-Zyme. Misleading advertising and this Aloe Vera stuff.

JulieB- Since your retest shows no ammonia, we can go ahead and abandon all the cycle stuff. Do you still have cloudy water?

On the subject of Ph- I would ignore it. You fish will be happier with a steady, unchanging Ph then with a bouncing one induced by chemicals. Many of the Ph balancing chemicals include Phosporic Acid, which gives you more phosphates in your tank. I would say these are not the types of chemical changes you want to make to your tank when you are already trying to correct a long running bacteria bloom.
 
Yes, the water is still a bit cloudy... but better than yesterday. But lately it will look great right after cleaning it, then get progressively cloudier each day. I'll just keep up the pwc's and let time do what it needs to do.
 
Did I understand you correctly, and you had purchased a small amount of Prime? If so, you might try a PWC or two in a row with Prime instead of Stress Zyme. I'm not saying Stress Zyme is causing it, but this simple test will tell us.
 
MarkP said:
Did I understand you correctly, and you had purchased a small amount of Prime? If so, you might try a PWC or two in a row with Prime instead of Stress Zyme. I'm not saying Stress Zyme is causing it, but this simple test will tell us.

Stress Zyme is different to Stress Coat I believe. The Zyme product is another of these 'cycling' products (whether it works is a whole other issue! :p)

I think julie is doing everything correct at the minute. It's interesting to see the liquid test showing 0 amm, 0 nitrIte. Either your strips weren't working well, or the tank completed it's mini-cycle (I personally think the latter, but it could be your readings before were just a touch off the real figures owing to the test strip).

Bacterial blooms are totally different to algae blooms: the position of the tank is irrelevant.

It may be unpleasant to look at for a while, but a bacteria bloom won't last too long (a couple of months I've seen in one case) and doesn't cause any harm to your fish or plants, nor does it contribute to higher ammonia or nitrite levels.
Whilst excess nutrients in your tank can cause a bacteria bloom it is more likely that replacement of filter media and overcleaning is responsible. Excess nutrients generally lead to green water/algae blooms rather than white cloudy water/bacteria blooms.
 
No, I didn't purchase Prime. I decided to go with the Stress Coat (not Stress Zyme, they ARE different) and purchases some Zeolite to put in the filter. I haven't added the Zeolite, though. I didn't think it was necessary after the 0 ammonia and nitrite reading. I think that I just mis-read the test strips (they're so dang hard to read!).

This morning the tank looks the same as it did last night, no cloudier. Maybe it's at the end of the bloom. It has been just over a month now...
 
SORRY TO HIJACK, I'M HAVING SIMILAR PROBLEMS. ARE YOU SAYING DEAD SPOTS CAN CAUSE A BLOOM? I'[VE BEEN HAVING A BLOOM FOR MONTHS ALSO ADN I HAVE A 55 GAL WITH A SUPPORT ACROSS THE TOP MIDDLE OF THE TANK. THERE IS NO CIRCULATION. SHOULD I ADD A POWER HEAD AND BUBBLE STONE TO THE CENTER AND IT WILL HELP?
 
cappieBridget said:
SORRY TO HIJACK, I'M HAVING SIMILAR PROBLEMS. ARE YOU SAYING DEAD SPOTS CAN CAUSE A BLOOM? I'[VE BEEN HAVING A BLOOM FOR MONTHS ALSO ADN I HAVE A 55 GAL WITH A SUPPORT ACROSS THE TOP MIDDLE OF THE TANK. THERE IS NO CIRCULATION. SHOULD I ADD A POWER HEAD AND BUBBLE STONE TO THE CENTER AND IT WILL HELP?

Yes i would add air in the middle with a ( air stone ) and a powerhead would not hurt the circulation.... I have a powerhead on each side of my 55 tank and 2 airstone.. There isn't a dead spot in my tank...

This is for julieB do you turn your system off during feeding time so the food does not get sucked into you filter system?
 
palerider said:
This is for julieB do you turn your system off during feeding time so the food does not get sucked into you filter system?

No, I keep the pump running. I usually cup the food in my fist and stick my whole hand in the water, then release the food in the current so it gets to the fish and not instantly sucked into the filter. I just bought a feeding ring (a little plastic floaty ring) and I positioned it over the pump head so that I don't have to stick my hand in the water, but the food stays in place on the surface before floating down into the current.

So far the tank is looking better (not perfect, but better than when I first posted). :) :)
 
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