sumarty2
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
hi,
this is my first post...I am pretty new to things bad happening to aquariums..even tho I have had my 75 gal tank now for about 13 years.
at present it is occupied by about 7 silver tetras or are they called black tetras?? in addition the water sprite is growing like crazy with a couple of amazon sword plants doing pretty well. I had 10 fish until a couple of weeks ago when I lost a few in the span of about 2 weeks. then I checked the pH and it was 6!! (to my surprise). the water out of my faucet is about 7.2. Ammonia and nitrate were neg. I started doing partial water changes daily (previously I had done them every other week and a full filter change about every 1 1/2 months...(this being the original marine land canister filter). with these daily water changes I sucked out from the gravel all the debris...in fact I was thinking by day 5 the gravel never looked cleaner. but my pH was still 6. the second day I removed my driftwood which was no longer needed by a pleco that was shipped off to greener pastures when he out grew my tank (after being with me for 15 years!)anyway on day 3 I changed my filter which was about 1 month from the last time I cleaned it. the weird thing about that was there was no "gunk" stuck in the carbon cartridge mesh thing which usually is full of "gunk". I began to think my filter was not doing what it is supposed to do. so I added a "HOT" magnum which hangs on tank...had that in a previous life. On day 5 of water changes I tested the ammonia and it was creeping up. that got me thinking that oops I messed up the biological filter by sucking all the bacteria out of the gravel.
in deed.....over the next few days the ammonia took off and I began adding ammolock and added ammonia removing media to the HOT filter. I have been adding ammolock everyother day as stated on the bottle. Plus I added "cycle" beneficial bacteria to my tank 3 days ago. Still my ammonia is reading 8 (the highest). I cut back my feeding of my fish which seem oblivious to my stress. in 3 more days I will be at one week since the ammonia has been spiking. I have order a new eheim filter in the hopes that will save me. any comments would be appreciated!
this is my first post...I am pretty new to things bad happening to aquariums..even tho I have had my 75 gal tank now for about 13 years.
at present it is occupied by about 7 silver tetras or are they called black tetras?? in addition the water sprite is growing like crazy with a couple of amazon sword plants doing pretty well. I had 10 fish until a couple of weeks ago when I lost a few in the span of about 2 weeks. then I checked the pH and it was 6!! (to my surprise). the water out of my faucet is about 7.2. Ammonia and nitrate were neg. I started doing partial water changes daily (previously I had done them every other week and a full filter change about every 1 1/2 months...(this being the original marine land canister filter). with these daily water changes I sucked out from the gravel all the debris...in fact I was thinking by day 5 the gravel never looked cleaner. but my pH was still 6. the second day I removed my driftwood which was no longer needed by a pleco that was shipped off to greener pastures when he out grew my tank (after being with me for 15 years!)anyway on day 3 I changed my filter which was about 1 month from the last time I cleaned it. the weird thing about that was there was no "gunk" stuck in the carbon cartridge mesh thing which usually is full of "gunk". I began to think my filter was not doing what it is supposed to do. so I added a "HOT" magnum which hangs on tank...had that in a previous life. On day 5 of water changes I tested the ammonia and it was creeping up. that got me thinking that oops I messed up the biological filter by sucking all the bacteria out of the gravel.
in deed.....over the next few days the ammonia took off and I began adding ammolock and added ammonia removing media to the HOT filter. I have been adding ammolock everyother day as stated on the bottle. Plus I added "cycle" beneficial bacteria to my tank 3 days ago. Still my ammonia is reading 8 (the highest). I cut back my feeding of my fish which seem oblivious to my stress. in 3 more days I will be at one week since the ammonia has been spiking. I have order a new eheim filter in the hopes that will save me. any comments would be appreciated!