Unplanned 100% WC underway.

[Mrs.h2012]

All thanks to my son. He got ahold of the fish food all while I walked away long enough to pee, and I come back and he dumped half on my container of fish food all on the table I have my tank on, and I saw a scary amount of food just floating in the tank and of course my fish going crazy over all the food. So now I'm doing a 100% WC and have taken all my plants out and am seriously stirring up the gravel in hopes of keeping an serious ammonia spike away. Well... Looks like there's no need to atleast feed my fish for the rest of the day now. Lovely.

 

[Nu-Nu the eel]

Dang sorry to hear that! :/

 

[bud29]

Sorry to hear that. Hopefully the fish didn't eat too much. My swordtail died because my sister dumped a ton of fish food into the tank and he ate it all.

 

[Mrs.h2012]

Well I know there's no way they ate it all, I'm sure they ate a lot more than they should have for sure. As soon as I realized what happened I got the fish out and started the WC. Oh well. It atleast gets the gravel all good and cleaned out I guess :/ I just hope this doesnt affect my cycle to bad, that's what I'm worried about.

 

[Mrs.h2012]

How long should I wait until I test my water, 30 minutes or an hour? This whole ordeal just has me so paranoid Im gonna have a bad ammonia spike :/

 

[Rivercats]

By stirring up the gravel and doing the large water change you will have a mini cycle again. No use testing the water for a few hours, then after that to keep ammonia/nitrites down is to keep doing WC's. Use Prime if you have it. After raising my kids around fish tanks I learned (the hard way too) that all fish food gets put away. The grandbabies aren't getting the chance to do that little number on me. But don't feel bad, alot of people have had this happen. It will fix, just be patient and don't pull your hair out.

 

[Mrs.h2012]

I wasn't close to being cycled anyway, I'm just a couple days past week 3. I was just beginning to get an ammonia spike and have been at 0 Nitrites
And nitrates since the beginning.

 

[bud29]

By stirring up the gravel and doing the large water change you will have a mini cycle again. No use testing the water for a few hours, then after that to keep ammonia/nitrites down is to keep doing WC's. Use Prime if you have it. After raising my kids around fish tanks I learned (the hard way too) that all fish food gets put away. The grandbabies aren't getting the chance to do that little number on me. But don't feel bad, alot of people have had this happen. It will fix, just be patient and don't pull your hair out.

How would a gravel sitr-up and large water change hurt the cycle? The beneficial bacteria colonize on surfaces and only a very small portion of bacteria are in the water.

 

[Rivercats]

When stirring up the gravel alot you put alot of excess detris in the water column, which means you BB has to increase temporarily to cycle the excess bio-load. It's not about losing BB it's about needing more due to the increase of the ammonia.

 

[bud29]

It is not like you are putting more debris into the tank, it was there anyways. Plus, it will settle back down after a half hour or so and be back to where it was before. Sorry if I am coming across as rude, i am just having a hard time believing a substrate stir-up will cause a mini-cycle.

 

[Rivercats]

Not being rude, just stating your opinion. Mini cycles can be caused by many things, adding too many fish in a short period of time, cleaning the filters too well, and yes, a sudden increase in waste (such as stirring up all sorts of waste in the substrate or overfeeding). Key word is, it can cause. In this case a ton of food was accidently added, water was changed but not all the excess food can be gotten out, its just impossible. Then the substrate was greatly disturbed, plus excess food (increased bio-load), can equal a mini cycle. I've done it myself over the years.

 

[bud29]

It makes a little bit more sense now.....Although I don't think that if this happens it surely would cause a mini cycle. I think there would be a chance, but I don't think it is a sure thing.

 

[Mrs.h2012]

About to do my water tests.... Im so nervous :/ I never thought I would be this into the hobby again, last time I was into it but not near this much! Wish me luck!

 

[bud29]

Good luck! Just stay on top of your water changes and you will be fine.

 

[Rivercats]

Hey I just read your posts again and you said you were just starting to get an ammonia spike.... well this actually should help your ammonia spike and your cycle to get moving. I'm sure not the way you wanted it to happen but look at it on the bright side.

 

[Mrs.h2012]

And the results are... Help me out on ammo, I can't decide, I don't think it's dark enough to be .5 but I think it's darker than .25
Ammo: ??
Nitrite and nitrate: 0ppm
pH: 7.8-8.0 (closer to 8)

 

[bud29]

Yeah, I think that is somewhere between .25 and .5.

 

[Mrs.h2012]

As far as my how my fish have been acting, they have slowed down some, but I guess if I were them and just ate a lot I probably would too lol. They all are still swimming around and exploring, just not near as active as normal. They aren't just sitting around and not moving at all... So I guess that's a good thing?

 

[Mrs.h2012]

Thanks for the second opinion! I'm so relieved that it's not higher than this, I was actually expecting closer to 1 if not right at 1, and with having fish having levels like that freak me out!

 

[bud29]

I would say that the slowness is probably due to overeating. Even though you have done a 100% water change today I would recommend doing a 50% water change sometime today yet because you don't want higher than .25 ammonia.