2nd Cyle?

[Dazzlearoobob]

Am i goig thru a 2nd cycle? My ammonia has been spiking for the last week and I'm now starting to get Nitrites showing on my tests. My ph is very unstable. Changing daily from 6.0(the lowest my test kit goes) to 6.6. I've been doing 15% w/c for the last 4 days. Will all this affect my fishies?
Thanks for your help.
Darren

Any ideas???

 

[Dazzlearoobob]

any ideas

 

[Dazzlearoobob]

bump

 

[Inchworm]

Hi Dazzlearoobob

I'll move your thread to the New to the Hobby section. The members who post there will help you get through this.

In the meanwhile, it will never hurt to do some extra water changes while you are doing a fish-in cycle. I remove more water and even do it more than once a day to keep that ammonia down. It will definitely harm your fish if you leave it there. Slowly but surely is the key to success with this method.

 

[cowboy507]

Id say you might be going through a mini cycle.
your bacteria might have gone dormant by having such low pH, so id try raising it, unless you have sensitive fish that need a low pH.

how long has the tank been established?

a lager water change, at least 50% if your ammonia is above or around .5 ppm is recommended
just check the stats every day and large changes might be needed.

just out of curiosity
what size tank do you have and whats in it?
edit:
nevermind just saw your signature. lol.

 

[Dazzlearoobob]

Thanks Cowboy,
Tank has been established since January. Never did a fishless cycle. Never even knew what that was back then.lol
I'll keep doing the water changes and see what happens. I really can't understand why the PH is dropping so much. All I have in their is the fish with a large aquarium ornament and various plants.It's so puzzling. I am going thru a snail infestation though.lol Could these be reducing the PH? There were 40 of them in the filter recently so I rinsed the filter media thru tank water to remove them. I've also set up a second filter and pump to try and build up my bacteria levels and ensure I don't do adverse harm when I have to clean one of them.
Thanks again,
Darren

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with Inchworm and cowboy. Your situation would probably be better off with significantly larger and more frequent water changes. Regardless of a cause, which cannot always be determined right away, you should always react to bad stats with significant water changes done with good technique (to be on the safe side use conditioner to remove chlorine/chloramine and roughly temperature match the return water.)

Have you been able to do nice deep gravel cleans when doing your weekly water change? How about your tap water stats, do we have those posted up somewhere?

~~waterdrop~~