what in the heck is going on?

J

Joshjohnson

New member
Please help if you can, i just put my new lights on my tank last saturday (see early post New Light). i left town friday night and got back on sunday night late this morning looked at my tank and i have cynao or something else that is beginning to cover everything. So i start to scrap the glass and turkey blast the stuff from the rocks and do a water change. then i tested all my water par. and boom i have a ammonia spike at 0.25. i looked for all my critters and they are all present and doing well so i retested thinking i made a mistake. second test 0 then about 3 hours after that i retested and boom 0.25 again. now i know my test kits are not the best but have been the same as my LSF when i take a sample in. Now here is the thing when i was tring to suck the cynao or diatom up i disturbed the sand bed (which is about 3 to 4 inches deep) can this cause a spike in the ammonia? Also all of my fish seem to be just fine no problems and my srhoom and ployp are full extended and have great color.

please if anyone can advise i will owe you a beer at the next happy hour.
 
If all your fish are ok, no problems I would not worry about it...

Do I get the first drink??
<~~Heineken
 
you bet, and i think i will be able to move my tank a few inches for that skimmer, have a friend that is willing to help and also has a large trash can for his tank that i can pump water into for the move
 
actually fish and other icky things recommends stirring up the sand bed.
thier tanks look wonderful so?

i dont know the answer to the cyano i have tried the redslime remover to no avail. i found its better to syphon what you can and keep at it.
actually right before i change my filter sock ...
i have a 10 foot syphon hose that i syphon into the sock .
get what i can and change the sock
 
cool, I will definately help too...I'll call you first thing tomorrow morning. Also what size is it??
 
it is a 47 gal 30 inch tall tank which i love with all the rock work stacked nice and high. i will try and post some pics but my wife has the good camrea and is in new york right now.
 
I personally wouldnt try any chemicals to get rid of it, just keep up with the water changes and get some snails in there...if u dont already have
 
yeah the don't do much but they did clean up some of my live rock very nice. they just seem to like to hang out on the rock and the glass and that's it. i think i need get some of those sand siffter snails but read alot of mixed reviews on them
 
You are probably getting the algae bloom do to your new lights. I got 1 when i upgraded my lights. Just keep up the water changes and maybe add a few more critters to help. I stir my sand bed atleast once a week but i have a shallow sand bed and dont know if that differs from stirring a dsb. If you havent stirred it up for a while that would probably explain your spike.
 
What do you mean by turkey blast? But as far as stiring your sand, that can cause a spike if something had died and the anmonia was being held in the sand bed, i definetly agree with John at FAOIS, i stir my sand bed frequently to prevent nitrate build ups which can cause large water parameter spikes if you leave them undisturbed.
 
by turket blast i mean i took a turkey baster and blew the cyano of my rocks and such. So does thi mean i should stir up my sand bed ?
 
umm...well if you got an amnonia spike from a small stir, then iwouldnt do it all at once. How long has your tank been set up? if its fairly new i dont think the sand bed would of caused the amnonia spike. But if you're running a protein skimmer i would stir the sand up whenever you scrub algae (thats what i do). If you dont, i would just sift the sand with your gravel vacumm whenever you do water changes. Oh okay, i didnt know if you were using chemicals with the turkey baster. When i used to have a cyano problem, i scooped the algae out of the tank.... i dont htink the algaewould of caused a problem with water parameters though.
 
Get a diamond goby, if you're 55 g or larger. That will do the job safely, 24/7, with no ammonia spike.
 
yup diamond gobies would work, but i had a dragon goby and he moved my sand EVERYWHERE, which actually kinda go annoying cause the sand was very uneven. He passed away a few weeks ago, didnt seem like he ate anything else but the stuff int he sand and he looked pretty malnurished. I guess he was too big for my 125.
 
My dad just started a 40 gallon a couple of months ago. It only had the standard little florescent on it. Then I gave him a nice set of pc's and in just a couple of days he had red slime growing everywhere! He siphoned most of it up and it isn't growing back. It was just such a huge change in lights that generated his growth.

(on a side note, I gave him some of my live rock and sand, and told him to wait a couple of weeks before adding fish. he said he can't wait; he's 72 and he might be dead by then :rolleyes: !!! THEN the lfs guy sold him a mandarin goby and a yellow tang -- of all fish to have first! Can you believe he got so lucky that not only did nothing DIE, his goby is eating flake!!! )
 
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