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Red steaks on Otto - Ammonia or Bacteria?


OneTankWonder
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Hello folks - just noticed one of my Ottos has red steaks on him. Need your help please on best course of action. 
 

Tank STT: tank set up for 3 months

Ottos added: 2 weeks ago 

Ammonia registering on Tetra Easy Strips as 0.5 ppm. I did over feed yesterday - went a bit crazy on the Repashy. I did use the test strip correctly. 
 

pH - always the lowest on test strip, Seattle tap water 6.2 

KH: 0

GH: 75ppm ( I use wondershell) 

Nitrates at 20ppm, I did dose Easy Green two days ago. I dose easy carbon daily. I have started running CO2 in the last 7 days.

Did 50% water change on Sunday. 
 

I will do a water change. 
 

But should I dose the tank with Maracyn? 

help please! 

 

 

 

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Edited by OneTankWonder
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Did 20% water change. Heavily planted 17g.
 

Went to buy API Master Test Kit. Followed directions precisely. 

Ammonia at 0.5 ppm still (used test strip earlier, still at same level after water change)

pH at 6.4

Nitrate now at 0 ppm - wondering if the plants ate it all? Rerunning test in case of error in the vigorous shaking steps. 

Nitrite 0ppm

Also going to test water from faucet. 
 

edited to add: 

water from faucet testing at 0.25ppm ammonia 

Added 1.5ml of Prime 

retested ammonia in tank after Prime: 0ppm

Did I restart my whole cycle by doing 50% water change on Sunday? I have two sponge filters in the tank. Stupidly I just broke down my hospital tank on Sunday also, after having completed QT for everything, so didn’t need to run it any more. 

update 2:

Now I am reading the API test kit might be measuring harmless ammonium as opposed to ammonia. So now I am back to square one. I added some Fritz 7 beneficial bacteria, and I will observe the Otto in the morning to see if there is any progress one way or another.

Edited by OneTankWonder
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Thanks Daniel and Ben for your replies - I appreciate it. 
 

I don’t think the Otto looks stressed, but those red streaks appeared very quickly - I will have to study him tonight when I get off work. 
 

I don’t have a test kit for CO2, so ordering one right now, thanks for mentioning it. 

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