Ammonia in freashly cycled QT

[ChuckG]

I screwed this one up but could use some prudent advice..

I stood up a new QT approx 7weeks ago.. It consist of a 20 gallon tank, heater, 3 large PVC elbows, and HOB filter (for carbon), and a canister filer (for bio).

The ammonia source was from fish food and initiailly the only filter was the HOB with cut up blocks of fluval sponge in it. Shorly after the ammonia dropped I decided to upgrade the bio filter and add the canister. It is a mid sized unit rated for 100G and has three tiers for media. I moved the active fluval sponge fom the HOB in to the 1st tier, the second and third tiers have each have one mesh bag of ceramic in them.

Fast forward to 1.5 weeks ago the initial cycle completed. Ammonia and nitrite were at zero... nitrate was up there and I had diatoms all over the glass and PVC elbows. I add two small clownfish and monitor.. everything stays at zero for a week.. sucess!

So I decide to perform some large water changes to remove the nitrates. At the same time I scrubbed the glass and removed the PVC to clean the diatoms out. The pump to the canister filter was off so none of the floating diatoms where sucked into it. Water changes were 1 day apart and 25% each. The water I had mixed up and standing by for a week. All parameters were equal before putting it in the tank.

Now the problem.. I am getting a measureable amount of ammonia buildup. It was at .25 last night and may be slowly rising I thnk possibly the majority of my nitrifying bacteria was on the glass and PVC and has now been siphoned off. Does this sound feasable?

What I really need now is some idea on what to do with the clowns. I put some carbon in the HOB to stave things off until I can get home from work. Is it realistic to think that changing carbon and hoping the canister filter kicks in soon after a mini cycle would work? I can run about 2 cups of carbon in the HOB filter. I don't really want to dose prime into the QT now as I will be adding copper to the tank later once everything has stablaized.

Or should I remove the two small fish to a bucket and change the water out everyday? I'm not sure which would wind up being more stressfull for them at this point. Any thoghts or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ChuckG]

OK did some reseach.. seems Amquel Plus in the QT may be the answer until the biologic filter stabilizes.

If I add Amquel now, can it be flushed out later via water changes so I can use copper in the tank?

 

[wooden_reefer]

I screwed this one up but could use some prudent advice..

I stood up a new QT approx 7weeks ago.. It consist of a 20 gallon tank, heater, 3 large PVC elbows, and HOB filter (for carbon), and a canister filer (for bio).

The ammonia source was from fish food and initiailly the only filter was the HOB with cut up blocks of fluval sponge in it. Shorly after the ammonia dropped I decided to upgrade the bio filter and add the canister. It is a mid sized unit rated for 100G and has three tiers for media. I moved the active fluval sponge fom the HOB in to the 1st tier, the second and third tiers have each have one mesh bag of ceramic in them.

Fast forward to 1.5 weeks ago the initial cycle completed. Ammonia and nitrite were at zero... nitrate was up there and I had diatoms all over the glass and PVC elbows. I add two small clownfish and monitor.. everything stays at zero for a week.. sucess!

So I decide to perform some large water changes to remove the nitrates. At the same time I scrubbed the glass and removed the PVC to clean the diatoms out. The pump to the canister filter was off so none of the floating diatoms where sucked into it. Water changes were 1 day apart and 25% each. The water I had mixed up and standing by for a week. All parameters were equal before putting it in the tank.

Now the problem.. I am getting a measureable amount of ammonia buildup. It was at .25 last night and may be slowly rising I thnk possibly the majority of my nitrifying bacteria was on the glass and PVC and has now been siphoned off. Does this sound feasable?

What I really need now is some idea on what to do with the clowns. I put some carbon in the HOB to stave things off until I can get home from work. Is it realistic to think that changing carbon and hoping the canister filter kicks in soon after a mini cycle would work? I can run about 2 cups of carbon in the HOB filter. I don't really want to dose prime into the QT now as I will be adding copper to the tank later once everything has stablaized.

Or should I remove the two small fish to a bucket and change the water out everyday? I'm not sure which would wind up being more stressfull for them at this point. Any thoghts or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

1. You need only one filter but you can have two, one for biological and one for carbon when you want to have chemical filtration, which the only instance of use is to remove unwanted drugs in QT (otherwise do not use chemical filtration when you are using any drug.)

2. You should not only have waited for ammonia to drop but nitrite to drop to zero to consider the completion of a cycle. And, the robustness of the cycle in decided by the sum total of ammonia the medium has processed in the 4-8 weeks of a cycle. The ammonia can be what you have added. Generally, the medium should have experienced a few pulses of several ppm N ammonia in the later one-third of the cycle. Often, what to test for during cycling is nitrite, not ammonia. The total ammonia is known to you by what you have added. 15 grams of moist emusified shrimp will yield 1 ppm N ammonia in 100 gals of water.


3. If you had cycled in a separate small container, other than the QT itself, you can then transfer the cycled medium to the QT. So, you will not have to consider any nitrate and organics issue in QT due to the high ammonia during cycling. Virtually you would have changed 100% of the water after cycling. A few gallons of water in a separate container will allow you to cycle well.

4. Nearly all nitrification bacteria are on the medium, not waterborne, and PVC should have little bacteria.

5. You generally do not need Amquel if you have time to cycle the medium for QT in advance, unless your fish suffer from concurrent bacterial infection when you are eradicating ich in QT. Antibiotics to treat bacterial infection have varying degree of impact on nitrification.

 

[ChuckG]

1. You need only one filter but you can have two, one for biological and one for carbon when you want to have chemical filtration, which the only instance of use is to remove unwanted drugs in QT (otherwise do not use chemical filtration when you are using any drug.)

I am running two filters so I dont have to disturb the cannister hosting the nitriyfying bacterea when I change out carbon after medicating etc.. Overkill but I can be a little extreme at times.

2. You should not only have waited for ammonia to drop but nitrite to drop to zero to consider the completion of a cycle. And, the robustness of the cycle in decided by the sum total of ammonia the medium has processed in the 4-8 weeks of a cycle. The ammonia can be what you have added. Generally, the medium should have experienced a few pulses of several ppm N ammonia in the later one-third of the cycle. Often, what to test for during cycling is nitrite, not ammonia. The total ammonia is known to you by what you have added. 15 grams of moist emusified shrimp will yield 1 ppm N ammonia in 100 gals of water.

The only thing I did when the ammonia dropped was move the sponge medium from the HOB to the cannister filter. This did not seem to have a negative effect as I continued to add food to decay afterwards and saw no mesurable NH3 and the N02 peaked and fell.

Only after NH3 and N02 read zero did I add any live fish.

3. If you had cycled in a separate small container, other than the QT itself, you can then transfer the cycled medium to the QT. So, you will not have to consider any nitrate and organics issue in QT due to the high ammonia during cycling. Virtually you would have changed 100% of the water after cycling. A few gallons of water in a separate container will allow you to cycle well.

Yes I like this idea, which is why I stood up the canister in the first place. I can run it speratly on a 5 gallon bucket and feed occasionally then employ on the QT as needed. I'm pretty sure i picked up on this idea from one of your posts!

4. Nearly all nitrification bacteria are on the medium, not waterborne, and PVC should have little bacteria.

I am at a loss for where all the bacterea went then.. either I siphoned the major colonies off the glass or they died from the water changes. The water parameters were very very close to the QT water though.

5. You generally do not need Amquel if you have time to cycle the medium for QT in advance, unless your fish suffer from concurrent bacterial infection when you are eradicating ich in QT. Antibiotics to treat bacterial infection have varying degree of impact on nitrification.

Got ya.. I thought I had properly cycled this tank. This is an emergency situation so I am going to use the Amquel to alleivate the ammonia problem until the bacteria colonies can reestabliish. Hopefully that will only require a mini-cycle since I know there has to be some bacterea already in the tank.

Thanks Woody!

 

[ChuckG]

If I use Amquel or Prime in a QT can it be completley flushed out later with water changes so cupramine can then be used in the tank?

What about vice versa.. if a tank was dosed with copper can you get enough of the copper out later so that if you use amquel or prime in the tank the copper does not become toxic to fish?

 

[wooden_reefer]

I am running two filters so I dont have to disturb the cannister hosting the nitriyfying bacterea when I change out carbon after medicating etc.. Overkill but I can be a little extreme at times.



The only thing I did when the ammonia dropped was move the sponge medium from the HOB to the cannister filter. This did not seem to have a negative effect as I continued to add food to decay afterwards and saw no mesurable NH3 and the N02 peaked and fell.

Only after NH3 and N02 read zero did I add any live fish.



Yes I like this idea, which is why I stood up the canister in the first place. I can run it speratly on a 5 gallon bucket and feed occasionally then employ on the QT as needed. I'm pretty sure i picked up on this idea from one of your posts!



I am at a loss for where all the bacterea went then.. either I siphoned the major colonies off the glass or they died from the water changes. The water parameters were very very close to the QT water though.



Got ya.. I thought I had properly cycled this tank. This is an emergency situation so I am going to use the Amquel to alleivate the ammonia problem until the bacteria colonies can reestabliish. Hopefully that will only require a mini-cycle since I know there has to be some bacterea already in the tank.

Thanks Woody!

Where have all the bacteria gone! likely you have not waited long enough after your medium experienced high ammonia during the cycle, if ever.

 

[wooden_reefer]

Thanks Woody!

I am much better looking than Woody Allen.