Serious Issue With Nitrates And Ammonia

[devy]

Hey folks,

Brand new member here. I have a quick question. I have a 50 gallon tank with the following fish:

3 female crowntail bettas
1 Albino Cory
2 Bronze corys
2 Blue corys
2 Run of the mill plecs
2 Longfin Albino Bristlenose Plecs
1 Clown plec
1 Red Gourami
3 Zebra Danios

Now before you say anything I know that is a lot of plecs for that size of tank. I am planning on putting them into others and maybe giving the run of the mill ones away. Since there are so many bottom feeders as you can imagine the Ammonia and Nitrate / Nitrite levels are through the roof. In addition I am using a 50 gallon filter in combination with a 20 gallong filter. I like well filtered water. I also have three air stones going at any given time. Can that much aeration hurt?


In your opinions how many water changes should I be doing a week to keep these levels down. I do not want to do too many water changes as the guy at the fish store told me that would hurt the water quality.

Any help would be great.

 

[tenohfive]

As per usual, the guy at the LFS was talking rubbish - don't trust anything you're told by LFS employee's, getting good advice is uncommon and it's not worth chancing. Verify anything you're told elsewhere (like here) prior to doing anything.

As long as you're using dechlor and stay around the 50% mark you can do loads of water changes without issue. If you've got anything showing for ammonia or nitrite do a 50% water change. If you've got your own testing kit, test daily prior to any water change. If you show anything for ammonia or nitrite, do a water change. If you don't have a kit, a) buy one - the API freshwater master test kit is cheap and very reliable if you get the liquid drop version, and b) do 50% water changes daily until you're steadily at 0 for ammonia and nitrite. Nitrate is less of an issue. How long has the tank been setup for, how did you cycle it (if at all) and have you been using dechlorinator when doing water changes?

And unless you're running a heavily planted setup with a CO2 kit there's no such thing as too much aeration.

 

[codheadjohn]

How long has the tank been running? When were the last additions and how many fish? Has any major work/cleaning been done on the filter? Is it fully cycled?

 

[devy]

Tank has been running for 3 months. I dechlorinate the water and run an airstone inside to help break down the chlorine. I was advised to do this by somebofy in the LFS store. Should I not be doing this? Only new changes have been the addition of the 5 cory cats and I did not list it up there but 1 Vampire Shrimp. They were introduced in two shots 3 and 3 with a week inbetween them. I added the 2 Bronze and 1 Albino yesterday. I had not tested the water since last Thursday when I did my last water change, at that time hardness, softness pH ammonia and nitrate were perfect, with nitrate and ammonia at 0ppm. It is very strange. I tested the water this morning and the test strip is not the nice pinky/ehite it was almost red. I am very concerned. I have about 20 gallons at home that have been dechlorinated and sitting for 48 hours. I was going to do that water change this evening. Any tips before I do the water change? I am at work and leave in 3 hours. Any last minute tips would be great.

I have not done any work on the filter spcifically except rinsing my sponge and cleaning the suction tube.

I cycled the tank by letting the water run without any fish for two weeks. Only water and gravel were in the tank. After that period of time I cycled 25% of the water. I let it sit again for two weeks with no water changes. When a water change was done at the four week period I added the 3 female crowns and 1 plec. Since then I have been adding fish occasionally and doing weekly water changes (this includes siphoning the gravel).

Any pointers?

 

[codheadjohn]

Tank has been running for 3 months. I dechlorinate the water and run an airstone inside to help break down the chlorine. I was advised to do this by somebofy in the LFS store. Should I not be doing this? Only new changes have been the addition of the 5 cory cats and I did not list it up there but 1 Vampire Shrimp. They were introduced in two shots 3 and 3 with a week inbetween them. I added the 2 Bronze and 1 Albino yesterday. I had not tested the water since last Thursday when I did my last water change, at that time hardness, softness pH ammonia and nitrate were perfect, with nitrate and ammonia at 0ppm. It is very strange. I tested the water this morning and the test strip is not the nice pinky/ehite it was almost red. I am very concerned. I have about 20 gallons at home that have been dechlorinated and sitting for 48 hours. I was going to do that water change this evening. Any tips before I do the water change? I am at work and leave in 3 hours. Any last minute tips would be great.

I have not done any work on the filter spcifically except rinsing my sponge and cleaning the suction tube.

I cycled the tank by letting the water run without any fish for two weeks. Only water and gravel were in the tank. After that period of time I cycled 25% of the water. I let it sit again for two weeks with no water changes. When a water change was done at the four week period I added the 3 female crowns and 1 plec. Since then I have been adding fish occasionally and doing weekly water changes (this includes siphoning the gravel).

Any pointers?

Ok, you never actually cycled the tank. You probably did what the LFS said, which they say to get money out of you immediately, and then in the future when the fish don't survive

Cycling involves adding ammonia to the tank to provide a source of food for the bacteria to multiply until reaching a steady state system within the tank where no ammonia is on the readings. You have done a fish in cycle, which means that the tank is probably now cycled, but the addition of new fish has added extra bioload to the filter. Lots of water changes and daily testing are required to keep ammonia and nitrite below 0.25ppm until the filter catches up with what you added.

Fishless cycling is the more desirable method and there are articles in the begginers section of this site.

Advice is big water changes and daily monitoring. Also, a liquid test kit is much more reliable than the strips

 

[devy]

That seems like some solid advice.

Thanks for all the tips. I do not want to see any more fish die because of some bad tips. As a side, is an Upside down cat a bottom feeder?