Ammonia spike!

[Familyfishny]

Hey folks, I was doing a water change before I left town, and I accidentally disturbed the decorations more than I meant to, and found a bunch of gunk under it. I tested the water because it smells funky and in fact the ammonia is at one nitrate is it 10 I didn’t test nitrite. I have Seachem prime which I normally use, and I’m doing like a 40-50% water change. I’m leaving town in the morning. help! What do I do tonight?

 

[Familyfishny]

I sucked up some of the offending sand and replaced it with fresh too.

 

[Familyfishny]

And on second look, it looks like the ammonia is closer to .5. That was the water from the bottom of the tank that I sucked right of that funky area.

 

[Stefan3289]

What size is your tank and what was the decoration? Likely as you said you released a bunch of stuff trapped under it. Typical with spikes you want to do a large water change of around 80%. What I would do is after your 50% water change, I would wait a little for everything to settle and then do another 30% percent just going on the surface to pick up any of the gunk. Also, I’m a little confused exactly what you did with the sand.

 

[Familyfishny]

37 gallon, stone arch and caves with some sad plants. I suction off a little sand every time I vacuum the tank, so I have a stash of clean sand from that. I took out one of the little caves b/c the cories tend to shovel algae pellets behind it while trying to eat them, and that’s where I found the pile of gunk. I siphoned out the sand to the flooor in that corner and replaced it with the cleaned sand so there wasn’t an exposed edge of potentially ammonia pockety sand.

 

[Kyanite14]

Well the plants aren’t dying so I don’t think that’s the cause, are there fish in the tank? I agree the spike was likely from kicked up stuff left in the substrate. Best thing to do are water changes and added ammo lock or prime. Don’t do too much of a water change at once, or you could disturb the PH and other parameters.

 

[Familyfishny]

I did about a large water change and the fish (guppies, cories, and a BN pleco) are all alive and swimming this morning. Thanks, everyone.