Demobanana

I knew there was some kind of connection between ph and ammonia, I will definitely try testing the water the day after to see if it got different results

never knew that but I'll remember to keep it in stock

ok great

I just have a tetra air pump thats meant for 10g and the tank is a 10g. And no I dont have a gang valve, but a little bit of the air going to the sponge filter is going to a tiny airstone on the other side of the tank. And for the cycled media I thought my media was cycled but I guess it wasn't because nothing happened with it. But wouldn't the chlorine and chloramine destroy the bacteria then? I use prime as a dechlor too Just added an airstone inand I do dose more dechlor when I water change but if I may ask, what would the salt do if its an ammonia problem?

Yes, I think it was on the right track but I added too much ammonia (unintentionally, when I water changed and the tap had high ammonia) and now its kinda all out of whack. I think my tank will cycle eventually but its going to take a lot more time since I have a lot more ammonia.

My plan was to wait it out and let my bacteria build and have the plants eat more and more ammonia but its taking a lot longer than expected and I know Im going to have to water change or top off soon, I think I'll just water change it so the ammonia lowers and vac some mulm

forgot to mention I dont know what I was saying when I said that, I don't actually think something was leeching, my previous thought was that maybe the molm I had was leeching all the ammonia in my tank (before I tested it and found all the ammonia in my tap). Also I do have a small-medium sized pothos thats doing pretty good in there. I would say all my plants are doing pretty good. Tank is a 10g Oh thank you i didnt know that. will be a bit more cautious in the future with dechlorinators hmm...but if theres no fish its fine,right?

Honestly I think my issue is that the ammonia in my tap is lowered, but when I've been water changing my tank with tap that previosuly did have a lot more ammonia in it and it was too much for my tank. Will water change but I already have a buttload of plants in there and for the feeding/stocking there isnt anything in there except for what I mentioned in my comment above. i understand the water changes, but what do you mean by "Prime is a bandaid"? Other than an ammonia detoxifier I use it as a dechlorinator too

Oh no I 100% know there is def. chloramines in my water, I live in a big city so its to be expected. I always double dose my dechlor before adding in water to my tank but I will try maybe adding an airstone to my tank? The actual filter in there is a sponge filter, and I dont know how I would overkill the filter without getting a bigger air pump. Substrate is a thin layer of sand a gravel, but there's some big rocks in there too and a bag of gravel from another (cycled) filter. Stocking is nothing but snails, detritus worms and cyclops, and the only "feeding" is some of the plants and organic mater breaking down in there.

Im not trying to add bacteria, my initial plan was to add the prime so the ammonia would be temporarily locked into nitrate, except I would keep adding it until all the nitrate was taken up by my plants and all the ammonia was gone. And I estimate around a good half of my 10g is all plants, and they've clearly been taking some of the ammonia. I set up the tank around a month or 2 ago and I threw some plants (for which plants, look above) and some rocks in a bag from an already cycled HOB to hopefully get some life going in there, and I put in a dual sponge filters and that's been set up for a month. Honestly I thought the media from my other filter would've been enough to help it, but around the same time my county put a big amount of ammonia in the water so I just had to wait and I've been water changing it (big, ~40-50%) every few weeks to suck up some excess molm thats been on the ground, but I guess it was just too much ammonia that was coming in at one time. But if I really cant drop the level soon I think Im just going to pop my other filter in there, which would leave my other tank filterless. Yeah that seems like a good first step, just dont want to do it too much because of whatever might happen to my plants.

maybe, I'll try it and test it. The test kit is the API master kit, nitrite and nitrate are like 0 (I thought a few months was enough for a filter to cycle, guess something's going on with mine) and if it helps Ph is around 6, which is weird bc the last time I tested it was around 8. Im pretty sure my county lowered the ammonia level recently and that must've affected my tanks Ph, as well as the weird water change schedule I had. I'm up for trying it but do you think that much water changes so fast would affect my bacteria (that either isn't there or isn't converting any ammonia) in my filter/substrate? The biggest thing I'm worried about is my bacteria colony and all my plants growing in there. For context theyre all fast growing stems like foxtail, rotala, and bacopa. Also have java moss, and I've heard plants dont do well to fluctuating conditions.

oh ok forgot you could just dose more than the label said. And I have no idea whats leeching ammonia, I'm assuming its the water changes on the tank since the tap comes out to .5 ppm ammonia, and my tanks not converting it to nitrates fast enough the thing is I have done water changes, its just the water from the tap that I change with has ammonia in it, even testing it now. There is some molm here and there but I doubt its the main cause, I think my plants and filter just arent converting the ammonia fast enough, and I was putting more in when I water changed the tank

Can I continuously use ammonia detoxifier for an indefinite time span (or like 3 weeks) if I have something to take the nitrates out and small water changes or top offs to take care of whatever might be building up in the water? Also I know a lot of detoxifier directions only specify the ratio of detoxifier needed with gallons, but I have a truckload of ammonia, do you guys think it would work the same for 3 and 10 ppm f ammonia? Or is it just different for every manufacturer?

Ohhh ok thank you maybe it is the cold causing the appetite thing. Since my main tank is a couple degrees higher and my other cories eat fine I imagine it’s a mix of the sickness and temp. And is garlic guard just garlic? Have plenty of that at home, didn’t know fish were into it

After hearing so many horror stories of boiled fish while you’re away on Amazon, I’m kinda wary, especially since it’s either 5 or 1 star reviews there but it’s not too expensive compared to the seemingly high quality ones going $50+ so I’ll probably just get one. I’m assuming every fish in my main tank has ich too, will the gradual heat affect snails or plants? also I got the heater and ich x on the way but what do I do about his appetite? Don’t think I’ve seen him eat once since I got him and I’m afraid he doesn’t have enough energy to go through the treatment. Is loss of appetite an internal parasite or ich thing?

Upon closer inspection pretty sure he has ich too so that'll be fun to deal with. I was foolish to not get a heater in the first place, usually where I live it doesn't even get below 50 F. Probbaly should've waited and gotten the fish in summer. Any heater product you would recommend?

Ph: 7.4 Hardness: 9-10 KH: 7-8 (the dropper was giving me half drops at some points) Temp. : ~67 F Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 0-5 ppm (All parameters from the QT tank) Some backstory: Friday I went to my LFS and got a couple pygmy cories. One of them was looking a little bad when the employee got them out of the tank (as in the others were swimming and that one was practically half-buried under the gravel in the breeder box). When I pointed this out, the guy gave me it for free. Fast forward that night, I could find everyone but him, and found him "resting" in the middle of a vallisneria crown, not moving an inch except slightly moving his tail. His fins were down and clamped when on the ground and looked absolutely terrible. And I mean terrible. Of course, I panicked and set up a quarantine tank out of an old tank I had sitting around and popped an old sponge filter & some sponge from my HOB on the main tank. The QT tank is in the restroom which means its only about 65 F and I netted the very lethargic cory and dropped him in. I also put 2 tbs of aquarium salt in for good measure (the QT tank is 10 g) since I heard that those symptoms- skinny, lethargic- usually match internal parasites. The thing is the new fish really didn't eat that much so I never got to see any glimpse of white poop. Right now I don't have access to anything online because Amazon's business days start on Monday so I went to my LFS to get some general cure but they were out. I ended up getting some frozen bloodworms instead, something I never fed my fish and figured the cory would take to. Unfortunately the cory now is just sitting in random spots, barely moving except his tail and pretty much discolored. He also sometimes just leans a little sideways. Doesn't help that the QT tank is cloudy but he really just looks terrible. I want to get a medication but after hearing that general cure sometimes doesn't work, I really don't know what meds to get, there's so much. Praziquantel in Paracleanse, Levamisole in Expel-P, and god knows what else is out there. Also don't really expect him to recover. Anything you guys recommend doing? also forgive me for the really bad quality pictures I have, this wouldn’t even allow me to post the video I have of the Cory wiggling. The top one is a relatively fine Cory I have compared to the bad one at the bottom.

ever since I added the pygmy cories a couple days ago the platy's been acting a little erratic...he even tried to bite one on its way down from the bag. That might be because I'm kinda cautious of feeding too much (he's strangely fat now too). Other than that the platy doesn't go up too much and the cories seem to be just surfing up and down the glass. The platy is the only one acting kind of strange, now half the time he darts away when I approach the tank, something he really wasn't doing for the first 2 weeks (besides the first couple of days). And yeah just to be safe I put a couple of mml of dechlor in there.

just checked ammonia w/ the API Master kit just in case, still 0. And the dechlorinator I've been using for some time is the API conditioner that says 1 ml/20 gal (the tank in question is a 20 g) is for chlorine and heavy metals, and it says 5ml/30 g.... now that I think about it my city might be using chloramines and I usually only put about 2 ml in. Do you think I should just drop some in right now or water change and then add it in?

Here's some context. Around 3 weeks ago I added a platy in one of my (kinda) new planted tank. And when I say kinda, I mean the tank has been running since last July but I had yet to add any fish in there. Family emergency had me on leave for 3 days. I did a water change a day or 2 before, and I figured if he really got hungry he could've eaten any of the algae I have. I come back, and the platy is pretty motionless with red gills. So I test the water, and everything is good, and the nitrates are around 30ppm, which was about my normal ppm (I had some plants that could benefit off it) and do a water change anyways. So maybe my test was broken, so I took it to the LFS and got it tested, which they said it was fine and offered to exchange it. So I did. After the first couple days I started immediately seeing the same symptoms and water changed every other day. He seemed a little better but still had the red gills. Everything was 0 except nitrates, which were around 10 ppm. Couple days ago I added a small group of pygmy cories. They seem fine as I type this but they also had the red gills the next morning, much like the 2 platys before. Nitrates are still 10 ppm....and there's an HOB and sponge filter getting air in there. And as far as I know, red gills are a sign of parasite, lack of O2, or ammonia burn. But the only thing left are parasites, and I oddon't think they can develop them in less than a day, seeing as they looked fine in the store and the bag. What should I do?

Yeah...I've really never had any good luck with it, Im going to assume its something about my natural water (probably hardness) and it always rots off grows a tiny bit on the top and then everything rots off.

ok cool I'll just combine everyones answers and simplify it to wait it out, water change, and add epsom salt.

no, but i can if needed. Have a bottle of easygreen on hand from other tanks.

A water softener? Not that I know of, but who knows, I dont own my property. I'll just pretend I do for the sake of the steps. Wow, it could be a magnesium deficiency, I suspected it for the ludwigia but left it alone since it looked healthy anyways. Lucky for me, I do have epsom salt. Now to just find a 1/8 teaspoon. I'll probably have to take a 1/4 teaspoon and try to measure a half of one out. Do you really think the leaves are al dying because of a magnesium deficiency? And no, the brown doesnt come away, I think its actually dying and not an algae coating it. I figured the algae coating it was killing it and then leaving, but if you say it rubs away it might not be that. But honestly last time I had brown diatom algae spots on my wisteria it didnt rub away either so...who knows. Like I said my wisteria is the only plant in there turning brown and yellow and dying- even with the ludwigia, the others look just fine without the curling. They still have those leaves though. Oh and I never did find my pamphlet for the test kit, so I just took the samples and compared em online. For my tank (changed water 100% around a week and a half ago), gh is 13-14 and kh is 6-7. Ph looks around 7.6 or higher, almost a darker sky blue. If it helps. And I dont know why I didnt say this earlier but my water provider says 7-9 on magnesium, 24-26 on calcium 7.7 on average for PH, less than .4 on nitrates and .4 for ammonia and chloramines. Anyways, thanks for the help, I just really hope wisteria turns out to be a thing I just cant grow. Because wow those stems and roots looked great when I got them.

Yeah the suspense is killing me…but what can I do but wait? Just really hope all that formerly healthy bottom growth doesn’t wither away. It would also look pretty ugly.