nwsharksfan
Aquarium Advice Activist
At the risk of having someone call fish services on me, I have a confession to make. I have a 92 gallon tank with a tiger Oscar and a Chocolate Cichlid in it (I know this is pushing the stocking limits already). Anyway, I moved the tank into the garage so we could install hardwood floors. Out of sight, out of mind. I haven't been keeping up on maintenance all that well. I noticed about 4 days ago that my Oscar was starting to float around vertically. I didn't test the water but did a 40% water change. During the water change I stired up the black sand substrate quite a bit and there was no lack of brown cloud. Today I tested the ammonia level and it was 4 ppm. This is the first time this tank has registered any ammonia since it was first cycled 7 years ago. The nitrate level was 40 ppm. I cleaned out both canister filters and did another 40% water change today. It should also be noted that due to an electrical issue the filters have been off for about a day and a half. Well, now the electrical issue is fixed and the filters are cleaned and working. Aside from continuing water changes every couple days, is there anything else I can do to bring this tank back in line? Should I use something like ammolock... or would this prevent the re-establishment of the bio filter? I don't use carbon because I am convinced this leads to HIHD for Oscars. I put a little aquarium salt in there just because.