Tank crashed what do I do now?

[Alfiehar]

I am beyond confused and frustrated. I honestly don't know what to do.

So yesterday I had reading of .25 nitrites, 10 nitrates and 0 ammonia. This morning to test again as I do have fish in the tank and another set of 5 cories waiting to be added from the baby grow out tank.

I had 0 nitrites, 5 nitrates and a whooping .50 ammonia ? What the hell??

I can't pick up stability or cycle etc for another 2 weeks, I've been dosing with prime now every day. Do I just do a water change every day now ? And by how much without ****ing it up anymore ?

I added media from my grossest tank ( crayfish tank. So many blah gross filter but strong bacteria that tank usually sits at 10 with close to 30 baby crayfish in it ) to hopefully ease the issue off

Tank is a planted 75 gallon fish tank, I moved almost everything but some sand from my 20 to my 75. It was perfectly cycled then the next day it crashed supposedly from a ph drop compared to the level it was previously.
15 cories, 8 pea puffers and a BN pleco. Semi decently planted.

Flival 306 canister filter

Soon a sponge filter once I can pick on up.

Tap water is not the issue otherwise I'd have some very expensive shrimps dead on my hands.

I absolutely do not have a tank I can put my fish in to ride this out. My 20 needs to be redone seam wise which is why I moved almost everything over to the 75.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Ill tell you something about ammonia and your ammonia test. The ammonia being picked up by your ammonia test might not be all that harmful.

Most ammonia tests arent testing for free ammonia, they test for total ammonia nitrogen. This is free ammonia PLUS ammonium. While free ammonia is extremely harmful in even very small amounts, ammonium is nowhere near as harmful. The proportion of free ammonia to ammonium you have picked up in your test is determined by your pH and water temperature. The higher the pH and temperature, the more ammonia will be present compared to ammonium as a proportion of the 2. At typical aquarium temperatures you need a very high pH before 0.5ppm total ammonia nitrogen becomes harmful to your fish.

Picture attached, green is good, yellow is start to take action, red is take immediate measures.

While seeing ammonia in your test is a sign that something has happened its not something to panic about. 0.5ppm is what you typically cycle a tank at and is relatively safe.

Are you sure your cycle crashed? Maybe something died and you had a sudden increase in ammonia that your cycle needs a little extra time to process out?

If your cycle has crashed then proceed as you would a fish in cycle. Water changes to keep ammonia + nitrite combined below 0.5ppm. Feed lightly. Introduce some established media if you can, bottled bacteria if you cant.

 

[Alfiehar]

I'm hopefully glad it isn't harmful to them, everyone is acting pretty normally, eating and everything.

Already got rid of the nitrites in the last day thankfully but instead been replaced with ammonia reading. Which is what has me confused.

My ph is definitely below 7. I think it was 6.3 the last time I checked. I forgot to boil down the large log I added haha. Won't do that again. And house temp is 72. All tanks are. I breed geckos so I have the temperature in the place set to one solid temp I don't have to deal with heating.

Added some cycle already ( my one dog decided to run into me with a open bottle bye bye most of it on the floor), cycle media from the previous filter and some bioballs or what ever they are called from my grossest tank that is use to eating up ammonia and such as quick as possible thanks to the over stocking of God forsaken crayfish I can't do anything about ( dearest fathers tank haha went with tall verses long )

Attached is my test results, one was this morning ( no nitrites ) and last night's ( nitrites seen)

Nothing has died, I always double check for that after loosing a hundred dollars worth of shrimp to a dead Mystery snail.

I can only think maybe the duckweed that got sucked up into the filter died ? But I've since cleaned that out with some old water from one of my other tanks. Hours ago, I got the same results as I did this morning so I'm definitely lost there.

I was so hoping to add my last set of cories to the tank today so they get out of the baby grow out tank.

 

[Aiken Drum]

https://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159994

 

[Alfiehar]

A bit of a interesting read but I'm still a paranoid bugger because I love these guys a lot.

But I am a bit at a less anxious state knowing that going off the chart that they aren't in to bad of a danger then I thought they were.

Keep dosing with prime ? And let them settle through the ammonia spike ? Or do a water change and continue on with the dosing? As I seriously want to keep it at 0/.25 reading on ammonia though it sits at .5 for now.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Its up to you. If your cycle has crashed and you keep removing ammonia through water changes then it will take longer for it to re-establish and you will be forever doing water changes to control water parameters. The higher you let your water parameters get to the more food for your beneficial bacteria and the quicker your cycle will establish. 0.5ppm combined ammonia + nitrite is a balance between relatively safe levels and giving your cycle enough food to establish. Some people will push ammonia right to the edge of those charts and the cycle will establish even quicker, some people will be ultra cautious and keep ammonia right down as much as possible.

It might not even be your cycle crashing, could just be an ammonia spike. Only some extra time will tell.

 

[Alfiehar]

It's just going straight to nitrates now so I think the worst part of the crash is over for the conversion of nitrites. It's just getting ammonia down I would say.

Nitrates won't read super high thanks to the mass of bloody duckweed I have in the tank. Cories eat it throughout the day.

Guess wait till the readings go down to add my other cories. Hopefully they don't mind being in the tank with the newly hatched babies for to long. It's pretty barren.

 

[Alfiehar]

Ammonia is not at 1.0ppm