Help! Multitude of problems!

[Memphishy]

Problem #1 are the cylinder shaped rocks necessary? Because I'm out. I can pick some up tomorrow if they are.

Problem #2 My aquarium is pretty heavily populated (in my opinion) & the ammonia levels were high so in place of the cylinder shaped rocks I put in ammonia control rocks (excuse my crude terminology.)

Problem #3 if I do NEED to put the cylinder rocks in, there's no more room inside the filter since I have the sponge, ammonia rocks, & carbon.

Problem #4 final problem. Water is leaking from the bottom of the filter. Quite badly, something like 2-5 gallons per day. Would it be safe to seal it with acrylic clear coat? Or should I look at buying a new one? How long it safe to have the fish in my 39 gallon with no filter? They have lots of bubbles.

Stats: 39 gallon. All chemical levels except ammonia are under control. Because of the leak they are getting new water every day or two. Large bubble wand across back, large air stone in the middle, 2 small fake plants, 2 small fake reefs, one large half coliseum (air stone), gravel needs to be cleaned (doing this tomorrow) water color is cloudy after inserting new ammonia rocks but is clearing up.

Filter: Flumal 50. New sponge, new anti ammonia rocks, new carbon.
Functioning properly except the leak.

Fish: yellow molly, black molly, red wag platy, rainbow barb, 4 neon tetras, 5 assorted glofish danios, large pleco, peppered cory cat.

 

[trkchezz]

Problem #1 are the cylinder shaped rocks necessary? Because I'm out. I can pick some up tomorrow if they are.

Problem #2 My aquarium is pretty heavily populated (in my opinion) & the ammonia levels were high so in place of the cylinder shaped rocks I put in ammonia control rocks (excuse my crude terminology.)

Problem #3 if I do NEED to put the cylinder rocks in, there's no more room inside the filter since I have the sponge, ammonia rocks, & carbon.

Problem #4 final problem. Water is leaking from the bottom of the filter. Quite badly, something like 2-5 gallons per day. Would it be safe to seal it with acrylic clear coat? Or should I look at buying a new one? How long it safe to have the fish in my 39 gallon with no filter? They have lots of bubbles.

Stats: 39 gallon. All chemical levels except ammonia are under control. Because of the leak they are getting new water every day or two. Large bubble wand across back, large air stone in the middle, 2 small fake plants, 2 small fake reefs, one large half coliseum (air stone), gravel needs to be cleaned (doing this tomorrow) water color is cloudy after inserting new ammonia rocks but is clearing up.

Filter: Flumal 50. New sponge, new anti ammonia rocks, new carbon.
Functioning properly except the leak.

Fish: yellow molly, black molly, red wag platy, rainbow barb, 4 neon tetras, 5 assorted glofish danios, large pleco, peppered cory cat.

#1-I always use them for the BB, but i dont replace that often every 5-6 months, just rinse in tank water

#2-is your tanked cycled? when I see a spike i use ammonia control mixed with carbon.

#3-no you HAVE to just more places for your BB to live

#4-you could try fixing, if you do use 100% silicone. Should be fine a couple of days with out a filter, you should let your fish fast before you start , Dont feed them for 2 days before you plan on doing your fix. Remove your filter and dry, apply the silicone and let a fan run on it over night, make sure you apply a thin layer so it dries faster. check in the morning to see if its hard(might take 2-3 days) fill with water and see if it leaks.

Make sure to keep all of your filter media in tank water.

I have never sealed a filter before but this has worked for me on tanks.

Good luck

 

[Rivercats]

Wow! You should have left the cylinders as you call them which is your biological filtration media (what the beneficial bacteria grows on) in. Your tank is going to have to do a little recycling now and you need to start checking your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates daily and do a WC whenever your ammonia or nitrite gets above .25ppm. You don't need the ammo chips IMO or the carbon really but you do need to put the bio media back in, don't rinse that sponge out in anything other than tank water because it is holding all the beneficial bacteria that you filter still has in it.

You need to get a new filter but be sure when you do to transfer all your old media into the new filter.

Your probably having ammonia problems as your overstocked. Just removing/rehoming the pleco especially if it's large will help tremendously and will probably solve your ammonia issue.

 

[Memphishy]

Didn't think of silicone.. I thought maybe acrylic would be a faster fix since it dries pretty rapidly. Could I set the cylinder rocks IN the tank somewhere temporarily? I don't change them often either. These have probably been in for about the length of time you suggested. I know I have BB living in the gravel & on the fake plants. I'm just not sure how much is too much or too little. Thank you for your help.

 

[trkchezz]

I have only used silicone, so i dont know what would work or what wouldnt. Silicone is nice because it can move and give a little.

What are your water parameters?

 

[Memphishy]

@Rivercats my ammonia is usually good, the spike was very sudden. I am unable to rehome at the moment. I should have called him medium instead of large. He's probably 5-6 inches.

 

[Memphishy]

I'm going to check my parameters again since I changed all the stuff. The old ones probably wouldn't be too accurate right now.

 

[Rivercats]

Didn't think of silicone.. I thought maybe acrylic would be a faster fix since it dries pretty rapidly. Could I set the cylinder rocks IN the tank somewhere temporarily? I don't change them often either. These have probably been in for about the length of time you suggested. I know I have BB living in the gravel & on the fake plants. I'm just not sure how much is too much or too little. Thank you for your help.

There is very little beneficial bacteria on decorations and substrate as your nitrogen cycle bacteria grow and thrive in high oxygen environments, aka, your filter. If you sit the bio media in the tank the bacteria will still slowly die and reduce in numbers greatly because they aren't getting a continued flow of oxygen through them. Also if they have dried out already the BB is dead which is why the BB on that sponge is so important now.

 

[Rivercats]

@Rivercats my ammonia is usually good, the spike was very sudden. I am unable to rehome at the moment. I should have called him medium instead of large. He's probably 5-6 inches.

If ammonia is normally 0 have you checked your ph? A fall in ph to under 6.5 will slow BB and a ph of 6 or under will literally stop biological activity and BB will begin to die off. This can be one cause of an ammonia spike.

Another reason is if you use tap water it could suddenly have an ammonia reading. It's worth checking.

There are a lot of reasons ammonia can spike.

 

[Memphishy]

Waiting on Nitrite & Nitrate tubes to develop now. The BB is not dried out they were set in aquarium water while I posted this. Should I remove the ammonia removal rocks & put them back? Should I also put the old sponge back?

 

[Memphishy]

PH is 6.6
Ammonia is between 1.0 & 2.0 ppm
Nitrite is 0 ppm
Nitrate is between 80 & 160 ppm, probably closer to 160, the color is more red than pink.

 

[Memphishy]

The ammonia control stuff has worked very well! Because it was off the chart earlier! & the old sponge still smells awful :/ that's how bad the ammonia was, you could smell it..

 

[flitabout]

Wow you are definitely above the stock for that size tank That's like the stock for a 55g plus. I would say call a local smaller LFS and you can usually find one of them to take the pleco. Plecos even small ones have a heavy bio-load they are kinda like a goldfish and need 2-3g of water for every inch of full grown fish yes they need this even when they are smaller.
If you can't get the crushed coral, You can try this I have never done so I don't know if it works. Be careful with this one. How to Raise the PH in a Freshwater Aquarium Using Baking Soda - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com

 

[flitabout]

Your ammo is still off the charts because you have fish in there. Keep doing water changes until you get it down that is high enough to do serious damage to your fish's gills. You need to get it down to .25 or lower as fast as you can.

 

[Mordachai]

Maybe someone can clarify this for both of us: but as far as I understand things - the ceramic cylinders are porous, and designed to have lots of surface area for bacteria to grow on, and normally would never be changed (use them until they disintegrate, essentially). Can anyone confirm that: is there ever a time to change out one's ceramic filters?

My experience is primarily with Whisper HOB filters, and for those, there is a sponge-like media for the BB, which one normally never replaces (and if you do need to for some reason, you would replace only one at a time, allowing 10days or more for the new one to accumulate / grow BB before changing the second, so that there is always a strong BB culture living in your filter).

 

[Rivercats]

Put the bio media (cylinders) back in but if the sponge is that nasty then don't use it. I'd remove the carbon for now and put the bio media back in.

Now both your ammonia and nitrates are dangerously high and your need to do a good 70% WC, wait a couple hours, do another 50% WC. Wait a couple hours and take your readings. Do as many WC's over a couple days waiting a couple hours between each WC until your ammonia is .25ppm or lower and nitrates are down to 20ppm or lower.

With your stock level you should rehome some fish but if you won't then you need to start doing 2 50% WC's weekly for the health of your fish and to keep toxin levels low as possible in your tank.

 

[flitabout]

Yes but all of it back in asap keep that bb alive just make sure you shake out the dirty filter in dirty tank water from the water changes.

 

[Rivercats]

Maybe someone can clarify this for both of us: but as far as I understand things - the ceramic cylinders are porous, and designed to have lots of surface area for bacteria to grow on, and normally would never be changed (use them until they disintegrate, essentially). Can anyone confirm that: is there ever a time to change out one's ceramic filters? .

This statement is spot on. I never change out bio media (ceramic tubes).

 

[Memphishy]

I just removed the ammo chips, put the old bio media back in. Should I remove the new carbon & put the ammo chips back in? I'm confused & frantic right now you guys! Just tell me what exactly should be in my filter for the time being. I suspect the new sponge stays, as well as the old bio media.. I have to choose between carbon & ammo chips though. There's no room for both.

 

[Memphishy]

I can live with putting the old sponge back in too if need be. It smells but if it's better for them I'll do it.