BeginnerFishKeeper Posted October 28, 2021 Share Posted October 28, 2021 I just finished cycling a little over a week ago (at least I thought I did) as I was able to dose my tank with 2ppms of ammonia and 24 hours later ammonia and nitrites were 0. Since then I’ve been dosing 2ppms of ammonia daily and ammonia and nitrites are always at 0 the next day. Suddenly today I test the water and both ammonia and nitrites are at 0.5 ppms? I can’t think of anything that could have caused that? I don’t see any snails in the tanks, I haven’t dosed any anti bacterial medications or anything like that all I’ve been doing is dosing 2ppms of ammonia daily. Is there anything I might be missing? I do weekly water changes every Friday, and during my last water change which was 5 days ago I trimmed and removed some dying plant leaves. Thats the only change I could possibly think of but every day since then the tank was able to process 2ppms of ammonia until now so I don’t think that affected it. Does this mean my tank isn’t cycled? Did beneficial bacteria just die off? Also I’m not sure if this is relevant but my ph was also 7.6 today, which I thought was strange because when I test ph before my weekly water change it’s usually 6.4 - 6.6, I was going to add crushed coral to raise my kh and hopefully my ph too but now my ph is 7.6 and I’m just confused. Any possible explanations or advice would be appreciated 🙂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted October 28, 2021 Share Posted October 28, 2021 Have you tested your source water for ammonia and ph? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeginnerFishKeeper Posted October 28, 2021 Author Share Posted October 28, 2021 On 10/28/2021 at 7:42 AM, Guppysnail said: Have you tested your source water for ammonia and ph? Yes, my sink water ph is 8.0 and ammonia is 0.5, but I’ve been doing water changes for 2 ish months now and everything’s been fairly consistent until yesterday when I tested my ph and it was higher than what it usually is and my ammonia and nitrites suddenly were up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colu Posted October 28, 2021 Share Posted October 28, 2021 (edited) If your getting ammonia from your tap water what I would do is set up a large bin for water change and.add small heater to temperature match the water and add a small filter with seachems matrix to adsorb the ammonia before you add it to your tank Edited October 28, 2021 by Colu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeginnerFishKeeper Posted October 28, 2021 Author Share Posted October 28, 2021 On 10/28/2021 at 1:01 PM, Colu said: If your getting ammonia from your tap water what I would do is set up a large bin for water change and.add small heater to temperature match the water and add a small filter with seachems matrix to adsorb the ammonia before you add it to your tank I use seachem prime to dechlorinate, won’t that detoxify the ammonia from my tap water? I don’t think this ammonia and nitrite spike is from my tap water though because I haven’t run into any sudden ammonia spikes with any of my prior water changes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colu Posted October 28, 2021 Share Posted October 28, 2021 You can just double dose prime with water changes if you have lots of plants that will help remove the ammonia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeginnerFishKeeper Posted October 28, 2021 Author Share Posted October 28, 2021 On 10/28/2021 at 1:41 PM, Colu said: You can just double dose prime with water changes if you have lots of plants that will help remove the ammonia Alright sounds good! I always question whether I’m dosing prime correctly because according to the bottle it ends up being like a couple drops per gallon. I don’t want to dose too much prime but I also don’t want to dose too little Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted October 28, 2021 Share Posted October 28, 2021 Prime is safe to dose up to 5x the normal amount. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeginnerFishKeeper Posted October 28, 2021 Author Share Posted October 28, 2021 On 10/28/2021 at 3:47 PM, Guppysnail said: Prime is safe to dose up to 5x the normal amount. Ok sweet, do you happen to have any ideas of what could have caused my ammonia & nitrite spike? I’m nervous to get a fish now because I don’t know what’s happening Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted October 28, 2021 Share Posted October 28, 2021 On 10/28/2021 at 7:28 PM, BeginnerFishKeeper said: Ok sweet, do you happen to have any ideas of what could have caused my ammonia & nitrite spike? I’m nervous to get a fish now because I don’t know what’s happening I have had tanks on and off most of my life. Last year I was curious of the ammonia dosing method of starting a tank so I tried. EPIC FAIL. Things happened to it I never seen and can’t explain. I’m sure it was operator error but it was way harder than anything I was qualified to do and I never trusted it to put livestock in. I tore it down and started over. There are folks on here who are great at doing it with ammonia drops though. Hang in there I’m sure one of them may know or can point you to what to do. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isaly Posted October 29, 2021 Share Posted October 29, 2021 On 10/28/2021 at 7:34 PM, Guppysnail said: I have had tanks on and off most of my life. Last year I was curious of the ammonia dosing method of starting a tank so I tried. EPIC FAIL. Things happened to it I never seen and can’t explain. I’m sure it was operator error but it was way harder than anything I was qualified to do and I never trusted it to put livestock in. I tore it down and started over. There are folks on here who are great at doing it with ammonia drops though. Hang in there I’m sure one of them may know or can point you to what to do. I'm cycling my first tank right now. I watched a ton of vids — I remember someone talking about the ammonia method who said the ammonia can't have any additives. If you just grab a bottle of ammonia from a supermarket shelf it may have additives that'll cause all sorts of problems. That same person said the way he does it now is throw in a raw shrimp and let it rot...ammonia...ready...set...go... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted October 29, 2021 Share Posted October 29, 2021 I used dr Tim’s for aquariums. Not sure I would want the type of bacteria that grows from rotting shrimp though. I do hope you figure it out. Good luck 😁 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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