Hospital tank loaded with ammonia? What did I do wrong?

[coolchinchilla]

My question is not so much on how to treat my fish, but rather why my hospital tank has a ton of ammonia.

I have a fancy goldfish who has an ulcer on her side. I decided to set up a 10-gal hospital tank for her. I have two HOB filters on the main tank running just for this occasion.

Setting up the hospital tank:
1. Put 5 gallons of tank water and 5 gallons treated tap water in the tank.
2. Put in two largish decorations (not seeded with bacteria). No substrate.
3. Put mature filter on the tank and let it run for half a day empty.
4. Added airpump with air stone.
5. Put wounded Goldfish in tank
6. Added Marycin-two antibiotics according to directions.

I have an ammonia alerter on the tank and it was showing ammonia. I put the goldfish back in the main tank and tested the hospital tank water.
Ammonia = 2 8O
Nitrite = 0 - .5
Nitrate = 20
pH = 8.2+
KH = 75 ppm
GH = 300+ ppm (I have liquid rock for water and it is softened.)

This is a new cycle on the tank! I think the ammonia was there before I added the antibiotics and before I put the fish in. Poor goldfish. Glad I got her out of that tank after a few hours. Too bad she had to be in that tank for so long. I hope she isn't too badly burned by the ammonia. I'm treating her in the main tank with melafix. It's not the antibiotic but it won't be so harsh on the other tank member.

Question: I thought the mature filter would cycle the tank almost instantly? Why did I get a huge ammonia reading? What happened to my mature filter? The antibiotic instructions said that it wouldn't harm the good bacteria in the tank. Is that true? Did I miss something? How can I do better the next time? What can I do to get my present hospital tank cycled?

Thanks in advance.

 

[The Cich Guy]

The reason some mature filters might lose it's cycling ability due to clogging, calcium build up or just if it's really old. If you do get a new filter or plan on sticking with the old one, let the hospital tank run for about an hour or so after you clean the filter. Usually if you clean the filter it wont fully renew the cycling abilities of the filter but it will surely take less time for the water to purify. Also, if your not already use a name brand carbon filter rock, and make sure to rinse it before you place it in your tank. My advice to you is to put the fish into a large pale or bucket with 3 ore more air stones to circulate the water and give the fish oxygen. The put the medication you use on the fish into the water of the pale. Pour the medication where the airstones are so they can mix faster. add the directed amount of medication for every litre as directed. Once the medication is mixed well into the water, put the fish in for about 2 hours, continuously checking on it every 10 minutes or so. after that put the fish back into the main tank and rinse out the pale and set aside. This process should be continued everyday, twice a day until the fish has healed. I know it's a grueling process but it will help you goldfish. Good luck and don't be lazy when rinsing out that bucket to keep the water quality at it's best. Hope your goldfish gets better.

 

[The Cich Guy]

Nitrite = 0 - .5

Get those nitrites to 0!

 

[severum mama]

IME the reason you are cycling in your QT is because of the Maracyn-2. I used it to rid a 55 gallon tank of cyanobacteria (bacterial algae) once and the same thing happened to me, as it is an antibiotic. It's killed your bio filter. I only went through a small mini-cycle, and a few pwc's brought everything back to normal. In your case, you have a much smaller volume of water that you are working with than I did, with a fish that produces a relatively high amount of waste compared to my moderately stocked 55 gallon. Thus you'd have a bigger problem than I did. That's what I think anyway. I'm pretty sure the Maracyn package says it won't harm the biofilter, but it definitely does.

I'm not really sure what to tell you at this point. Don't use carbon in the tank. It won't help with your cycle and it will remove the meds. It would seem that using a bucket to move the fish back and forth from the medicated water would only stress it more, plus you're sure to have ammonia issues in a bucket with no filter at all that is smaller than your QT. Maybe PM Devilishturtles- she knows so much more about disease treatment than I do. Good luck with your goldie.

 

[TomK2]

I agree with severum-

antibiotics killed off or severely diminished your filters bacterial activity. For next time, a fish that requires antibiotics should be put in the hospital tank and treated with the antibiotics first, using water changes to keep ammonia down (which then ups your med use, but what can you do). AFter the course of antibiotics, a few water changes to dilute them out, then add the filter to keep the fish isolated while the ulcer heals? You can still rinse out the maracyn treated filter, put it on the main tank, and put it back on the hospital tank in a week or two. This way it might recover enough to be effective after the meds are stopped and the fish is still healing? Or you can re-seed the hosp tank filter from the main tank after the meds are done.


The only sick fish I nursed back to health revived in about a week, and I never got to putting the colonized filter media in the tank after the antibiotic. Boy, does that maracyn foam up the tank or what? I did the water changes right before the day's dose of antibiotic, so that the antibiotic was all in there after dosing.

Now, as to your suspicion that the ammonia was in the tank before you added the goldfish. The only way that would happen is if your tap water has chloramines in it (possible) or ammonia in it (much less likely). The test for this is simple, test your tap water with your ammonia test. Chloramines will turn the test color.

 

[Menagerie]

I don't bother trying to cycle QT tanks and go with an air stone and plenty of PWCs. I hope your goldfish pulls through

 

[coolchinchilla]

Thanks everyone for your insights.

Get those nitrites to 0!

Yeah... I took Tam out of the tank and she's been in the main since. The main tank has nitrites of zero so she's safe now.

IME the reason you are cycling in your QT is because of the Maracyn-2.

Must be the antibiotic like you say. Puzzling to me when the pkg says it won't harm the bio filter. <sigh>

For next time, a fish that requires antibiotics should be put in the hospital tank and treated with the antibiotics first, using water changes to keep ammonia down (which then ups your med use, but what can you do).

Good plan.

I hope your goldfish pulls through

Hope my fish gets better too. She still has a nasty wound on her side. I looked on www.koivet.com for advice so now I'm using various things on her wound including denture hold powder to act like a bandaid. I feel just terrible catching Tam and putting all this stuff on her. Very stressed out little goldfish.