Need some help with my tank

[Nikkosan]

I have a 50 gallon heavily planted tank that's been established for about 6 months now. Recently I ran into some issues when we had a power outage over night. In the morning all of my rummy nose tetras were dead and my nitrites had spiked up to 8.0ppm. I was able to get the nitrites back down to .25ppm. However for the last week my ammonia has stayed at a constant 1.0ppm and my nitrites at .25ppm. I do partial water changes every other day and dose with stress coat but the levels just won't go down. All the fish however have been acting completely normal and they are eating when I feed them. I cut back on feeding until I can resolve the issue and vacuum out any food that isn't eaten.
Tank parameters:
50 gallon fresh water
Heavily planted with CO2
2 juvenile Angelfish
10 kuhli loaches

Ammonia: 1.0ppm
Nitrite: .25ppm
Nitrate: 5-10ppm
pH: 7.5

I'm not sure what to do! It's been a week and the ammonia and nitrite have been stuck at those levels!

 

[Andy Sager]

I have a 50 gallon heavily planted tank that's been established for about 6 months now. Recently I ran into some issues when we had a power outage over night. In the morning all of my rummy nose tetras were dead and my nitrites had spiked up to 8.0ppm. I was able to get the nitrites back down to .25ppm. However for the last week my ammonia has stayed at a constant 1.0ppm and my nitrites at .25ppm. I do partial water changes every other day and dose with stress coat but the levels just won't go down. All the fish however have been acting completely normal and they are eating when I feed them. I cut back on feeding until I can resolve the issue and vacuum out any food that isn't eaten.
Tank parameters:
50 gallon fresh water
Heavily planted with CO2
2 juvenile Angelfish
10 kuhli loaches

Ammonia: 1.0ppm
Nitrite: .25ppm
Nitrate: 5-10ppm
pH: 7.5

I'm not sure what to do! It's been a week and the ammonia and nitrite have been stuck at those levels!

For starters, I'd have your test results checked by another source to confirm your test reagents have not gone bad. We can't really move forward until we know these are true numbers. I'd also have your source water checked aby an outside source as well to make sure that doing water changes, how most chemical issues are resolved, will actually help dilute the issues.

 

[Nikkosan]

I've had my source water checked no issues there so I've been using it on all my tanks and have never had and issue and as for the testing kit, it's fairly new and I've been getting normal readings on all of my other tanks ��

 

[Andy Sager]

I've had my source water checked no issues there so I've been using it on all my tanks and have never had and issue and as for the testing kit, it's fairly new and I've been getting normal readings on all of my other tanks ��

New does not necessarily make it accurate as the reagents can be effected by temps or mishandling during shipping to the wholesaler, the pet shop or other retailer but if you are taking tests of multiple tanks and getting different results, That's a good sign. Check your source water again as things can change.

Assuming nothing changed with the source water, are you using any kind of fertilizers for your plants? What is the substrate in this tank? Have you taken tests of the water just above the the substrate to compare to the water at the top of the aquarium?

 

[Nikkosan]

New does not necessarily make it accurate as the reagents can be effected by temps or mishandling during shipping to the wholesaler, the pet shop or other retailer but if you are taking tests of multiple tanks and getting different results, That's a good sign. Check your source water again as things can change.

Assuming nothing changed with the source water, are you using any kind of fertilizers for your plants? What is the substrate in this tank? Have you taken tests of the water just above the the substrate to compare to the water at the top of the aquarium?

Substrate is fluval stratum and I also have sand as for fertilizer I use seachem flourish haven't thought to test near the substrate so I'll try that now (tested by the substrate and readings stayed the same)

 

[Andy Sager]

Substrate is fluval stratum and I also have sand as for fertilizer I use seachem flourish haven't thought to test near the substrate so I'll try that now (tested by the substrate and readings stayed the same)

From what I've found, Flourish will show as ammonia on test kits like the API kits but what it is reading is ammonium( NH4 ) not ammonia ( NH3 ). API's test does not differentiate between the 2. As for the nitrite, this is from Seachem: "There isn't any nitrite in Flourish Nitrogen, but it isn't impossible that one of the components could lead to a false positive in a nitrite test kit. " (You can confirm this if you discontinue adding the flourish, your readings should go down to 0 for ammonia and nitrite within a couple of weeks as the plants use up whatever is left in the water. )
So if you take all that into consideration and add that your fish are showing no ill effects from these readings, I'd say not to worry. I would go back to your regular feeding amounts. Starving the fish will not help your issues and only hurt your fish.

If you find there is a drop in the Ph from your source water to the tank water, your substrate is known to do that for up to a year.

Hope this helps.

 

[Nikkosan]

I had no idea flourish could do that I've never had an issue like that before �� I suppose I'm just concerned about the initial nitrite spike of 8.0ppm the night my filtration wasn't working. Everything in the tank was fine until then and now I'm getting these weird readings.

 

[Andy Sager]

I had no idea flourish could do that I've never had an issue like that before �� I suppose I'm just concerned about the initial nitrite spike of 8.0ppm the night my filtration wasn't working. Everything in the tank was fine until then and now I'm getting these weird readings.

I'm guessing the combination of lack of oxygen added to the C02 did a number on your biological filter so nitrification was more harshly affected than if there was no C02. Couple that with the plants releasing C02 at night so when the electric went out and the tank was dark, there was even more C02 present in the tank. Did you take an ammonia reading the morning after the power outage? If there was high nitrites, there should have been ammonia. Plants using ammonia( ammonium actually) do not usually produce nitrites through respiration so it had to come from what was left of your biological filter bed.

If power outages are common for you, you might want to look into battery operated air pumps that automatically kick on when the electric goes off. I had one from Penn Plax(?) that plugged into the wall and only came on when the electric went out.

 

[Nikkosan]

Very slight ammonia the morning after but the nitrites were through the roof. The next day I was able to get it down to .25ppm nitrite and no ammonia through a water change. However the day after that the ammonia jumped to 1.0ppm and the nitrite stayed at .25ppm and now it's been like that for the last week. Luckily power outages aren't common and this was only due to a large storm in my area ��

 

[Nikkosan]

But unfortunately all 12 of my rummy nose tetras died due to the high nitrites I'm guessing. All other fish survived and are acting normal. I have made sure there are no dead fish hiding anywhere and no decaying plant matter either so I don't know why I can't get rid of this high ammonia reading

 

[Andy Sager]

But unfortunately all 12 of my rummy nose tetras died due to the high nitrites I'm guessing. All other fish survived and are acting normal. I have made sure there are no dead fish hiding anywhere and no decaying plant matter either so I don't know why I can't get rid of this high ammonia reading

You are assuming you lost the rummynose to high nitrites. What if they died from C02 poisoning and their initial decaying process caused a spike in ammonia and THAT was what caused the higher nitrite reading? Did the fish die with their mouths and gills flared?

 

[Nikkosan]

I didn't notice much wrong with their bodies. Though this could be the case as the surviving fish were gasping at the surface. All of my hardware is running fine now and I have an air stone to provide extra oxygen due to the CO2 I just can't figure out how to shake this ammonia reading

 

[Andy Sager]

I didn't notice much wrong with their bodies. Though this could be the case as the surviving fish were gasping at the surface. All of my hardware is running fine now and I have an air stone to provide extra oxygen due to the CO2 I just can't figure out how to shake this ammonia reading

Stop adding Flourish and test every 2-3 days for up to 2 weeks to see if you are getting a reduction in ammonia. If you are, there is your answer.

 

[Nikkosan]

The last time I actually used my flourish was about a week and a half ago so I thought it would be out of the system by now ��

 

[Andy Sager]

The last time I actually used my flourish was about a week and a half ago so I thought it would be out of the system by now ��

All depends on how many plants you have that use it. You could have been overdosing it for how many plants you have.

 

[Nikkosan]

The tank is pretty heavily planted. A lot of red Stem plants, Anubias, red root floaters, Amazon swords ECT.

 

[Andy Sager]

The tank is pretty heavily planted. A lot of red Stem plants, Anubias, red root floaters, Amazon swords ECT.

Unfortunately, the power failure really changes what is " normal" and what is happening now. As long as the fish are not showing signs of distress, it's not something to be concerned about. Just monitor and continue doing routine water changes.