# Crazy ammoniua spike



## rubadub (Sep 12, 2010)

so i recently moved 
and had to move my fish tank with its inhabitants 
i was expecting a recycle and figured my fish wouldnt make the transition
however
i had both my filters (eheim pro3e 2076 and a eheim wet dry 2229) still full with water
it has now been 3 weeks
and my ammonia is so high that its basically Blue in the test tube (api freshwater test Kit)
still reading 0 nitrites
and 0 nitrate

for the past 3 days i have been pulling dead fish out 1 per day

i have 3 fish left in the tank

should i just euthanize the remaning fish and just try fishless cycling the rest?
should i wait for ammonia to drop?
should i add anything to the tank?
should i remove anything from the filters???

any suggestions are greatly appreciated

almost forgot 
its a 72 gallon fish tank


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## J-P (Feb 27, 2011)

see if you can get any used filter media from someone, that will help.

What caused the spike? Did you forget to use a dechlor product?

Also you might want to try a product called "septobac" it will help with the cycle.


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## rubadub (Sep 12, 2010)

teh tank was up and running for 3 years
so the media in the filters was cycled media

yes i used declorinator, always do

and i have no idea what started it lol
i told u i moved
so whatever was in my tank came out
i was expecing a short lived cycle
not a 3 week crazy ammonia hike with what looks like no end to the cycle


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## Holidays (Apr 18, 2010)

Test your water source first if that's fine then you might as well do 100% water change daily consistently redure the amount of water change after a few weeks and watch the amonia level. some thing is killing the bacteria and polluting the water...

I would remove all of the gravels and decorations if you have any

http://www.gtaaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22880&highlight=100%25


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## Holidays (Apr 18, 2010)

maybe your filters got contaminated during the move from the container or something...you might have to clean everything and replace the media and all of the water.

Or Try the bactreria growth liquid from bigals


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## Holidays (Apr 18, 2010)

Ok, I think this may be the easiest and safest thing to do for now:

Big Al's Multi-Purpose Bio-Support contains 300 million live bacteria per teaspoonful to enhance the growth of any biological filter and reduce ammonia build up

http://www.bigalscanada.com/Features/Products/watertreat.html


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

First thing to do would be a large water change to lower the ammonia level.


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

In my personal experience and opinion, I don't find it very usesful. It may have a lot of bacterias, but they aren't the ones that will help you. You need nitrifying bacteria, not just bacteria in general.
You are probably locked into a meltdown. It's your dying fish that is supplying the ammonia. Keep fishing the dead out.
Do you have gravels? If you do, I would take a guess that the move kick off the cycle, there's are alot of things in there you don't want kicking around. They may have been dormant but once you stir it up, it will cause a cycle.
Also, not sure how long you leave the filter off. If it's like 8 hours, a lot of bacteria might have died then.
So there are 5 things you need to do.
1) Check for dead fish a least once a day if not more.
2) Make %50 daily water changes to lower the ammonia.
3) Add a full dose of Seachem Prime if you have it. Ie., 5ml per 10G so you need to add 35 ml. Prime can help lock up some of the ammonia as well. But I won't over do it. Just do this once.
4) Lower the temperature, no need to speed up the decay process.
5) Make sure you gravel vac like crazy and get all that poop out.

You might want to check your filter to make sure it's not clogged. If it is, you need to ligthly rise it in old tank water.
If you have a UV filter, run it at the other end of the tank away from the filter.

Good luck.

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## Holidays (Apr 18, 2010)

50% water change is nothing, when you move 3 weeks ago you probably didn't bring any of the water other than the one in the can filter. So that's probably about 98% water change of the 72 gal... And you probably know about filter and been doing water change if you kept fish for 3 years well.

I would remove the old gravels and leave it bare if you don't need it like for plants. put all the fish in the bag, put new water in, condition it, add the bio support, test it, then acclimate the fish back into the tank.


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## Holidays (Apr 18, 2010)

if you have been taking out dead fish everyday due to ammonia then its time to remove all of the ammonia. Do some research about doing cycle with fish in it..this is what you need to do now, don't euthanize them. Lowering temp to how many deg? it may lower the fish immune system and reduce bacteria growth...I wouldn't do that

How about posting pic of your tank?


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## shanexu (Jul 3, 2009)

get a bunch of floating plants, they take out ammonia and other wastes pretty quickly.

also check for metals levels.
some metals present in water prohibits bacteria growth.


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