dinokath
Aquarium Advice Activist
Hey all,
Went through some **** (the swear filter cut out the word you use to describe the hot place you go to when you die if you are a bad person??! wow...) recently with my 3 year old fish only 55 gallon tank with a Magnum 350 and dual biowheels. The bio system crashed or something and I got what I can only figure to be a horrible bacteria bloom. Water was cloudy, I mean like milk. Horrible. I lost one fish, who wasn't doing well to begin with and was a little old (a pleco with a swim bladder problem, figured it to be a blockage, tried peas, tried broccoli, tried zucchini, no go. He died. I was VERY bummed.)
Current tank load is:
Three 3" bala sharks
Two Kissing Gourami's
One Blue Gourami
Two VERY old Zebra Danio's
EDIT - I have been feeding them once every three days just enough to make sure they eat it all in 5 minutes, so no chance of over feeding them here...
Hardly what I would call an overload for a 55 gallon tank, but if you keep reading, it is possible my tank is beginning to cycle, which could be a problem, but I have no where else to put them! To bring you up to date on my **** experience. I wound up taking everything out of the tank, with the exception of the fish. I mean gravel, fake plants, fake rocks, everything. I disassembled the entire filter system, bleached it, cleaned it, reassembled it and got it flowing again. My bio-wheels were crammed with stinky and I mean STINKY nasty crud. I had smelled them before and they never really stunk, just smelled like a fish tank, like a nice clean river or stream. Well, these babies were rank, so I bleached them too. Plus my ammonia kept spiking to 6ppm using a salicylate test, which from what I understand reads the dangerous ammonia.
Some told me it was a mistake to bleach the bio-wheels, some said that is what they would have done. It's in the past now and it is done. That was was on 3/21, 10 days ago...
NOW, two days ago, the cloudy water is back! Here's what I have done between 3/21 and two days ago:
- replaced the gravel with Eco-complete
- After all the reading I did, it kind of jumpstarted my interest in getting back into making a great aquarium and boosted my interest in the hobby again. I always wanted a planted tank, but never had the $$. Have a few buck to spend now so I hooked myself up with pressurized CO2, a REAL light (had that cheap light that comes with the tank, like 18 watts or something. Got a twin light 108watt T5HO setup) and the other associated goodies needed for a planted tank. Anyway, I digress....
- 75% water change - I know, way too much, but you didn't see my water. It was milk I tell you, milk. The micron polisher wasn't touching it.
- Switched the activated carbon based filter over to ceramic media. I read everywhere that activated carbon and planted tanks don't get along.
- Changed the spun foam sleeve on the filter
- Put about two handfuls of crushed coral in the canister to boost KH in anticipation of the planted tank to boost buffering capacity.
The Eco-complete went in last Thursday. It was cloudy after putting it in, sure, but it cleared up nicely and the water was beautiful. I took the original gravel I took out of the tank, stuck about three handfuls in a sieve media bag and stuck it down on Eco-complete to help boost the bio-filter's rebuilding. Water chemistry was fine at the time:
3/26/2009 (after adding the Eco-complete and letting everything settle out)
Temp - 76F
pH - 7.0
Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrates - 0 (wasn't expecting any)
Nitrites - 0 (same here, wasn't expecting any)
GH - 3 degrees
KH - 3 degrees
CO2 - 6ppm (getting ready for a planted tank, so figured I'd get a starting point - the injected CO2 system is NOT installed yet....)
Checked again on 3/29/2009
pH - 7.6
GH - 4 degrees
KH - 4 degrees
NO3 - 0.1 ppm
Ammonia - 0 ppm (yes, zero)
My tap water is as follows:
pH - 7.0
GH - 3 degrees
KH - 3 degrees
Nitrites - 0 (they better be...)
Nitrates - 0 (same thing, they better be)
SO, what is so weird? Well, just took a tank water sample reading:
3/31/2009
Temp - 76F
pH - 7.6 (to be expected with the crushed coral, right?)
Nitrates - 0
Nitrites - .05 (seems normal, eh?)
Ammonia - 2.5ppm (This is an NH3/NH+4 test remember)
GH - 5ppm
KH - 2ppm
CO2 - Didn't check.
So, my questions are:
- Is my tank cycling again?? I read that the beneficial bacteria are all over the tank, on the walls, in the gravel, etc, so even though I cleaned all of what I cleaned, there should have been a substantial amount of bacteria on the tank walls, yes?
- What is up with the KH?? I am using crushed coral to boost buffering and increase alkalinity and it is dropping?
- Why would pH increase and KH decrease given all I have described?
I have been dosing with Seachem Prime and Seachem Stability per the instructions on the bottle. Those a pretty good products from what I have read. That's the extent of my tank's chemical dependency. Not a big fan of chemicals but I need/want to keep my fish alive. They are cheap little fish, but they are trusting me to keep them alive and I take that seriously! Plus, I want a nice clean pretty tank to look at too...
I looked over my fish 'diary' and this is what I had in there. Plus, it has only been a week so it should be easy enough to remember! Based on what you have read here, any thoughts? Thanks in advance!
Dean
Went through some **** (the swear filter cut out the word you use to describe the hot place you go to when you die if you are a bad person??! wow...) recently with my 3 year old fish only 55 gallon tank with a Magnum 350 and dual biowheels. The bio system crashed or something and I got what I can only figure to be a horrible bacteria bloom. Water was cloudy, I mean like milk. Horrible. I lost one fish, who wasn't doing well to begin with and was a little old (a pleco with a swim bladder problem, figured it to be a blockage, tried peas, tried broccoli, tried zucchini, no go. He died. I was VERY bummed.)
Current tank load is:
Three 3" bala sharks
Two Kissing Gourami's
One Blue Gourami
Two VERY old Zebra Danio's
EDIT - I have been feeding them once every three days just enough to make sure they eat it all in 5 minutes, so no chance of over feeding them here...
Hardly what I would call an overload for a 55 gallon tank, but if you keep reading, it is possible my tank is beginning to cycle, which could be a problem, but I have no where else to put them! To bring you up to date on my **** experience. I wound up taking everything out of the tank, with the exception of the fish. I mean gravel, fake plants, fake rocks, everything. I disassembled the entire filter system, bleached it, cleaned it, reassembled it and got it flowing again. My bio-wheels were crammed with stinky and I mean STINKY nasty crud. I had smelled them before and they never really stunk, just smelled like a fish tank, like a nice clean river or stream. Well, these babies were rank, so I bleached them too. Plus my ammonia kept spiking to 6ppm using a salicylate test, which from what I understand reads the dangerous ammonia.
Some told me it was a mistake to bleach the bio-wheels, some said that is what they would have done. It's in the past now and it is done. That was was on 3/21, 10 days ago...
NOW, two days ago, the cloudy water is back! Here's what I have done between 3/21 and two days ago:
- replaced the gravel with Eco-complete
- After all the reading I did, it kind of jumpstarted my interest in getting back into making a great aquarium and boosted my interest in the hobby again. I always wanted a planted tank, but never had the $$. Have a few buck to spend now so I hooked myself up with pressurized CO2, a REAL light (had that cheap light that comes with the tank, like 18 watts or something. Got a twin light 108watt T5HO setup) and the other associated goodies needed for a planted tank. Anyway, I digress....
- 75% water change - I know, way too much, but you didn't see my water. It was milk I tell you, milk. The micron polisher wasn't touching it.
- Switched the activated carbon based filter over to ceramic media. I read everywhere that activated carbon and planted tanks don't get along.
- Changed the spun foam sleeve on the filter
- Put about two handfuls of crushed coral in the canister to boost KH in anticipation of the planted tank to boost buffering capacity.
The Eco-complete went in last Thursday. It was cloudy after putting it in, sure, but it cleared up nicely and the water was beautiful. I took the original gravel I took out of the tank, stuck about three handfuls in a sieve media bag and stuck it down on Eco-complete to help boost the bio-filter's rebuilding. Water chemistry was fine at the time:
3/26/2009 (after adding the Eco-complete and letting everything settle out)
Temp - 76F
pH - 7.0
Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrates - 0 (wasn't expecting any)
Nitrites - 0 (same here, wasn't expecting any)
GH - 3 degrees
KH - 3 degrees
CO2 - 6ppm (getting ready for a planted tank, so figured I'd get a starting point - the injected CO2 system is NOT installed yet....)
Checked again on 3/29/2009
pH - 7.6
GH - 4 degrees
KH - 4 degrees
NO3 - 0.1 ppm
Ammonia - 0 ppm (yes, zero)
My tap water is as follows:
pH - 7.0
GH - 3 degrees
KH - 3 degrees
Nitrites - 0 (they better be...)
Nitrates - 0 (same thing, they better be)
SO, what is so weird? Well, just took a tank water sample reading:
3/31/2009
Temp - 76F
pH - 7.6 (to be expected with the crushed coral, right?)
Nitrates - 0
Nitrites - .05 (seems normal, eh?)
Ammonia - 2.5ppm (This is an NH3/NH+4 test remember)
GH - 5ppm
KH - 2ppm
CO2 - Didn't check.
So, my questions are:
- Is my tank cycling again?? I read that the beneficial bacteria are all over the tank, on the walls, in the gravel, etc, so even though I cleaned all of what I cleaned, there should have been a substantial amount of bacteria on the tank walls, yes?
- What is up with the KH?? I am using crushed coral to boost buffering and increase alkalinity and it is dropping?
- Why would pH increase and KH decrease given all I have described?
I have been dosing with Seachem Prime and Seachem Stability per the instructions on the bottle. Those a pretty good products from what I have read. That's the extent of my tank's chemical dependency. Not a big fan of chemicals but I need/want to keep my fish alive. They are cheap little fish, but they are trusting me to keep them alive and I take that seriously! Plus, I want a nice clean pretty tank to look at too...
I looked over my fish 'diary' and this is what I had in there. Plus, it has only been a week so it should be easy enough to remember! Based on what you have read here, any thoughts? Thanks in advance!
Dean
