I need advice quick!! Emergency!

[Robin_42]

I recently had an issue in my tank with ich. So I used salt and heat treatment for a couple of weeks and got rid of it. I have spent this past week lowering temperature back down. The ammonia, nitrite and nitrate stayed good through the whole process. The salt treatment ended last Saturday and I have spent this week lowering temps and doing smaller water changes to get rid of the salt. Everything was fine until this evening when I checked everything out again. This time I had an ammonia reading of 25ppm, 0 nitrites and my nitrates had raised from the usual 10ppm to 20 ppm..I did water changes of about 12 gallon to lower it and when I rechecked the numbers, the ammonia was still at 25ppm and nitrite 0, but now I am getting a 0 reading for nitrates also! What could have happened?? I am so confused. Please help! Have I lost my cycle again? I don't think my fish can survive another cycle. What can I do??

 

[Old Scales]

Easy, easy. Don't panic. lol Many times when we readjust our parameters such as what you're doing after the Ich treatment, you will see this small .10-.25 amount of ammo. Usually after the tank settles down the ammo is consumed as your BB also readjusts. As long as it doesn't get to .50 or more, you should be OK. This small increase for a few days should not hurt your fish. Just test and be sure it does go away after 3-4 days.
The NO3 reading being 0 is IMO from your multiple WC's and should rise within a couple of days. I am assuming you mean your ammo is at .25 and not 25. OS.

 

[henningc]

I agree with the above. Chill and let the tank's ecosystem right itself. Unless you see test counts in a much higher range the best you can do is give it time and keep up small daily water changes. Anytime you radically alter the conditions, all living things will need to adjust.

 

[Robin_42]

Thanks so much for the responses. I wasn't crazy concerned about the ammonia since it was a low reading and I figured the water change would take care of it. I guess I didn't do enough water change (because it remained at 25ppm) It was 12 am and I was pooped. I still don't understand how I can go from a reading of 20ppm nitrates to 0 after doing about a 12 gallon water change. I was just baffled. The tank has been through crisis after crisis for over two months and I was SO hoping things were settling down. I will keep a check on everything. Should I put any Prime or anything in the water or wait and see what the numbers do in the next few days? Thanks so much for responding.

 

[pip walters]

Robin my friend, you scared me with your PMs, lol..... you are saying 25ppm, when you mean 0.25ppm!! No worries there

 

[Robin_42]

Yes sorry, lol. That would be a true disaster! .25ppm