Old Tank Syndrome

[azn_fishy55]

My tank is goiong haywire.The ammonia has shot up to 2.5, I did a water change earlier and I am going to test my water again tomorrow and maybe bring it to the LFS to see if my test kit is wrong.Any suggestions wat is causing this???

 

[Zagz]

Did you add anything or have any deaths recently? How old is the tank if you think it might be old tank syndrome. Good idea to take the water to the lfs to recheck it.

 

[azn_fishy55]

Well I recently look out this huge flat rock and replaced it with a compact sword, that might have took out alot of bacteria on the rock.And added some ghost shirmp and MTS.I found alot of the shrimps dead when I came back from vacation and took out their rotting bodies.The MTS never really came out of their shells.I was thinking on tearing it down since my mom wants me to move the tank anyways.

 

[Zagz]

The shrimp are most likely the cause of the ammonia spike IMO. Keep doing water changes and it should be fine.

 

[azn_fishy55]

I guess I'll just move all the dwarf puffers and plants to my 30 gallon and move my guppies and endler's to the 2 1/2 gallon. Then I will make the 15 into a palaudarium,and put the betta in the water area. But for now I will just do water changes every other day till the water parameters are bacl to normal.Thanks!

 

[Simpte]

I would say when you redecorated the tank, you stirred up some substrate. That will release ammonia/ammonium into the water. Just do another small waterchange and it should balance itself out. Be wary of greenwater.

 

[azn_fishy55]

I did a 3 gallon water change today and I'll bring a water sample to the LFS tomorrow.

 

[wobbles]

I had this happen to me recently. It was a relatively new settup and I was trying sand as a substrate fir the first time. Very cloudy. So I didnt notice that the 9 bristle nose cats I had in there had reduced to 1. The first alarm bells were raised when my 4 red turquoise discus were floating.

Not cool