Never Ending Battle

[bigfish]

Hi

I'm fighting a never ending battle with my tropical tank, tested my water chemistry ammonnia was 0.5mg and nitrite was 0.50 and rising!!!! i couldn't understand why so i did a gravel clean, 30% water change and rinsed out the filter media in the old aquarium water and put everything back and re tested it in the morning an the result was still the same

The tank has been fully matured since christmas, so im not sure of what is going on, i have now added stress lyme to encourage bacteria growth.

My tank is a 60 litre hex with small pea gravel, amazon swords, cambomba with 3 corys, 3 daino's and 2 platies. The water is slightly cloudy and the temp is at 30'C as in cardiff we are having really hot weather so i have turned off the heaters.

My corys are sat on the bottom no doing much which im not sure if the excess heat is affecting them. They are all feeding well.

I'm soooo confused

HELP!!!!!!

 

[val]

I found a product that really helps to keep down all the chemicals. It's called Kordon AmQuel plus. It's a great water conditioner. The cloudy water sounds like you have some bacteria growth. That will help to combat the chemicals.(and the plants will to, of course.)

Hope I was of some help,
Valerie

 

[bigfish]

Thanks val for advice, my tank has started to clear abit better since i rinsed out the filter pads and cartridges.

I guess thats what i get for changing gravel and messy with it. certainly looks better.

What plants would you recommend for a tropical tank as these amazon swords i have, have all gone brown and look terrible? and keep floating about even with weights on

 

[val]

Well, that's good news!
As far as plants go, first you need make sure you have adequate lighting for them to grow. Fluorescent, at least. Twisted Vallis, Java Fern, Dwarf Swordplant, Hairgrass, and Fanwort are all nice with different textures. Try keeping them in pots this time.

Good luck,
Valerie

 

[cool_jool]

Hi I am sorry to hear of you problems. I am new to this, but perhaps the dying plants are causing a problem? Have you removed them. Sometines when plants die they encourage 'bad' bacteria as they decompose. Hope things get better. Any advice on my high temp? cool_jool