Bio Filter Increased?

[Guest Rileyporter]

How do you increase your bio filters efficiency? I am finding high levels of ammoina in my tank. Here goes another water change today. The tank is still fairly young (4 weeks now) and I did add 3 new fish to the mess about 4 days ago. I asked this question at my LFS and (tropical fish off of georgia ave) and Ken gave me TLC for Saltwater aquariums. I guess it is bacteria in a bottle. In a few weeks I will start using microalge in my sump when its all setup so that should help, but is there anything else I can do right now?

 

Thanks for the help guys.

 

Riley

[dhoch]

Time....

 

What your biofilter is made up of is micro-organisims... they take time to grow and multiply... that's why people say to go slow at first... and also wait to adding fish till after the first cycle..

 

Dave

[Guest Rileyporter]

Time....

 

What your biofilter is made up of is micro-organisims... they take time to grow and multiply... that's why people say to go slow at first... and also wait to adding fish till after the first cycle..

 

Dave

 

 

Well my tank water at least 50% of it was saved from the tank when I bought it from a friend. So I am pretty sure its not going to "cycle" as it had been setup for 2 years previous.. so I dunno.

[davelin315]

That's a natural assumption but not necessarily the case. Whenever you move a tank there's a chance that you'll have another cycle. As you disturb things and stir things up some of the biological filter and organisms in the tank are bound to die. When they die, they produce extra waste that the filter is no longer able to handle. Biological filters develop to the point that they need to, when the bacteria lack enough food to keep on growing they level off. The ecosystem will not overpopulate itself because that would lead to a crash.

 

When you moved the tank, even if you saved water, that doesn't mean that the water won't be fouled. The only reason you would have increased ammonia is that there is simply not enough biological filtration in the tank yet and the aerobic bacteria (I think this is the nitrosomas, can't remember the name of it for certain, though) have not multiplied enough to handle it. If you have detectable ammonia that means that your entire cycle will be happening again, although it could be a quick one. I would pull the fish that the store sold you (they shouldn't have sold them to you if they knew you had ammonia in the tank as those little bottles of bacteria aren't going to solve your problems for you) and leave your tank alone for a few more weeks. Test every other day for ammonia and when it starts going down start testing for nitrites. Actually, I would pull all of your fish from the tank, but that's just me.

 

When waiting for your filter to mature, it's definitely a case of "speed kills"...

[dhoch]

Most of those bio-organisims are not on the water, but on the surface of things (sand/rock/etc)...

 

Saving the water doesn't neceissarily help (allthough there is some in the water)...

 

Moving in a bunch of new fish after decreasing your bio-filtration (by moving from one tank to another, there is ALWAYS some decrease) really stressed your bio-filter.

 

Dave

[dandy7200]

If this were me I would try to try to minimize the effects of the the ammonia (but I would like to know exactly what ammonia level you are detecting), Get a poly filter quickly, moving your fish is going to cause more stress, they can handle a little ammonia, they can also handle a little Amquel, I always keep this on hand for emergency QT. Get a bag of carbon in the system. Macro algae will not help. The bacteria in a bottle might, I would use it if that is what it is. Don't add any more fish. My new system has been up for 4 months and no fish yet. You don't have to wait this long but, it is not a unreasonable amount of time. Hate to break this to you but, your tank IS cycling. Take things very slow right now, be prepared to lose the fish you have in there now. Personnally if the fish floated in my tank I would leave them in there and throw in a bunch of hermit crabs, this would ensure a complete cycle, wait about a month or so and then start restocking. Best of luck.

[rrubberbandman]

i used this with good results

http://www.thatpetplace.com/Products/KW/F6...1/Itemdy00.aspx

Bryan

[Guest Rileyporter]

Thanks for all the information guys. My ammonia levels are at roughly 0.5 ish. if anything a tad lower. I installed new carbon and filters. Question is do I do water changes right now while my tank is cycling? or is that going to be coutner productive?

 

Riley

[rrubberbandman]

Thanks for all the information guys. My ammonia levels are at roughly 0.5 ish. if anything a tad lower. I installed new carbon and filters. Question is do I do water changes right now while my tank is cycling? or is that going to be coutner productive?

 

Riley

riley ,

i would say no to water changes(but i may be wrong).......add some chemical filtration....chemi-pures...poly filters.....or the like.

sit back and let it do its thing.....hows the aeration(gas exchange)?

Bryan

[dandy7200]

.5ppm is safe IMHO. I cycled my tank with three full jars of food. My ammonia spike was 8.0ppm or higher (limit of kit) the smell of death reaked through the house. My wife was not impressed. There were both corals and hermit crabs in the tank that hitched a ride from Tonga and there was no way to get them out. The full cycle took three weeks. I still have both the coral and hermits that cycled this tank. They lived through that so I imagine they are some tough cookies. Here is a tank shot at 8.0ppm Nh3....

 

 

Man I can still smell it just by looking at that picture.

 

 

That said, you need to keep a close eye on your tank for the next few weeks. Test, test, test again. You will get quick at testing your tank and then in the future you will be more apt to test because you know how quick it is to do so and you wont even have to read the directions on the kit anymore.

[davelin315]

Honestly, I wouldn't use any chemicals. The reason I say pull the fish is that they will get stressed out and then they become less disease resistant. If you pull them out you can save them. That's not to say that they won't survive a cycle, but the problem is that they might not. If you have nice fish, pull them out and leave the tank alone. The ammonia is already there so let it do its job. By adding chemicals such as amquel or ammo-lock you're stalling out the cycle process. Those chemicals, from what I understand, bond with free ammonia/ammonium and make it inert (I could be way off on this, but that's what I've been told before). When it's inert it is not as harmful to fish. It doesn't pull it out of the system, but from what I understand, it also is no longer usable for bacteria. Again, I could be wrong on this, but...

 

Is your ammonia level increasing or decreasing? Also, you will need to take nitrite and nitrate measurements, too. As your ammonia decreases your nitrite should go up, and as your nitrite goes down you'll see more nitrates in your system. Over time these will all level off as they adjust to the biological load of your tank. The ammonia is already there, by the way, so by pulling the fish you're not hindering the process but you are prolonging the stress they are going through. Think of it like being exposed to ammonia fumes. It burns your eyes and your throat - fish are breathing this as a liquid, so it's also burning their gills, eyes, and pretty much their entire body - internally and externally. They can handle it for awhile, but it's certainly not good for them.