Help

[vao71]

Tanks been cycled for months all of a sudden the ammonia shoots up like a rocket, like the test is so green it looks black. My stingrays dying so I'm really pissed off. Only thing I can think of is when Hurricane Sandy hit my power went out for only like 12 hours so I put the filter cartridges in a bucket of tank water in an effort to save the bacteria. Besides removing a dead stingray from my tank in a few hours how do I fix this mess. I've done so many water changes I'm about to just do like a 95% water change.

 

[DavidAl]

Perhaps your municipality added an enhanced level of chloramines to ensure the drinking water is disinfected. That often happens after major storms. Test your tap water...

David

 

[vao71]

Well I'm not home but basically what you're saying is that if they had added extra chloramines, I've been pretty much putting poison into my tank?

 

[DavidAl]

If they've added more than the regular amount of chloramine, you may have to up the amount of dechlorinator you use to neutralize the ammonia and allow the beneficial bacteria to remove it. By the way, too high of an ammonia level will kill the BB, as will the additional chlorine.

What is your pH? A pH lower than 7.0 will be your best friend in this situation. There could be other things going on here as we'll. This is just one possibility.

David

 

[Zimmanski]

Just out of curiosity, what stingray can go into a 55 gallon tank?

Prime says you can up the dose to 5x the normal amount if needed to combat chloramines ammonia nitrite or nitrate. Like above, try a higher dose. Sorry to hear you lost a ray already, I'm sure it was an expensive loss

 

[vao71]

I had a baby "teacup" (reticulated) stingray. She was going into a 125 next week but I guess not...

 

[vao71]

I asked my mom to test the tap water both before and after chlorine remover and both results were yellow

 

[vao71]

Also my ph was lower due to the high ammonia lebels