Tank crash help!!!!

[KyloRen]

I've had my tank setup for about 2 years now and lost two Bosemani's, about 4 days ago i went to check my ammonia and it read 2ppm. So I did 2 water changes of about 50% within the span of two days I got it down to about .25ppm. Now my nitrites are at .50/1ppm and my nitrate is at 5ppm. I dosed the tank with prime to help detoxify the ammonia and nitrite. Should I continue to do water changes everyday? I heard too many water changes could be bad. Would adding Dr.tims one and only help?

 

[Laeris]

Leaving ammonia and nitrites at higher levels is worse than water changes Go ahead and add Dr.'s, after dechlorinator, every water change if you have it handy until things smooth out.

 

[libertybelle]

is this about the same tank as the other thread you started about stocking levels in your 55? If so I would definitely not add anything new until this settles out then reevaluate after it's been stable for a while! You probably know that already but...

 

[KyloRen]

is this about the same tank as the other thread you started about stocking levels in your 55? If so I would definitely not add anything new until this settles out then reevaluate after it's been stable for a while! You probably know that already but...

Yeah I held back on adding stuff and got rid of the eel that was in there

 

[KyloRen]

Would cleaning the filter intake with tap water be enough to wipe out my entire bacteria colony?

 

[libertybelle]

bacteria are on your entire tank/substrate/media etc. You wiped out whatever percentage was on your filter intake. Could be a lot it you had a preflight sponge, I guess.

 

[libertybelle]

since with the eel you were likely overstocked perhaps it wiped out just enough bacteria to cause a little spike and kill off a weaker fish. Which could then cause a larger spike?

Unless you had a prefilter sponge i would guess that's not the answer though

 

[KyloRen]

Yeah strange I did another test my ammonia is still .25 but the nitrite just dropped to 0 and nitrate went to 10-20ppm broken test kit?

 

[libertybelle]

whenever I use prime i get a very slight false positive reading for about 24 hours but I always assumed that was from the breakdown of chloramine. Could be that prime just does that on its own.

If you're just seeing a slight green tinge, could be that.