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New to aquariums, especially live plants. In need of some help!


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So I've had my tank for about 6 months now, planted and it's been doing great. One of the fish got a disease, so I did the maracyn treatment. The fish still ended up dying, and then about a week after the treatment and water changes,  I got an ammonia spike. Ever since, I've been doing 1/2 water changes, no food, gravel vacuum. Every day it gets worse and now my plants are also dying.

The past few days the water is getting very cloudy. I water changes last night and woke up this am with the water so cloudy you can barely see the back of the tank. 

I'm at a loss and don't know what I'm doing wrong. The tank was cycled and thriving before I did the meds. I don't understand what could be causing my ammonia to spike higher each day. I went from 1ppm, to 8ppm in less than 36 hrs.

I have a hang on back filter, with a custom filter. Sponge intake, sponge inside, filter floss, and then a bag of bio media. I cleaned this in old tank water about 5 days ago, thinking it might be food and waste built up in filter causing the ammonia. 

I've never had a spike this high even when the tank was brand new.

I tested my water going in from tap. No ammonia.

What should I do next? Thank you.

 

This picture is a few weeks ago when my tank was thriving and plants were doing amazing. Now they're rotting away, and barely holding on anymore. 

IMG_20201001_192955.jpg

Edited by silverspec04
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I'm new also to aquarium's but from my understanding maracyn targets bacteria. I don't know if it targets beneficial bacteria, but from you saying the tank it cloudy it sounds like your tank lost cycle and is recycling again. If you ammonia is rising still I would do a light gravel vacuum and get that excess waste out of the tank. It could not be keeping up with what's in the Substrate.

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21 minutes ago, AtomCatMatt said:

I'm new also to aquarium's but from my understanding maracyn targets bacteria. I don't know if it targets beneficial bacteria, but from you saying the tank it cloudy it sounds like your tank lost cycle and is recycling again. If you ammonia is rising still I would do a light gravel vacuum and get that excess waste out of the tank. It could not be keeping up with what's in the Substrate.

That was my initial thought, however I've gravel vac the best I could around the plants and got I'd say 85% and I've done that a few times, I'm a month into this with it not cycling.

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6 minutes ago, silverspec04 said:

That was my initial thought, however I've gravel vac the best I could around the plants and got I'd say 85% and I've done that a few times, I'm a month into this with it not cycling.

That's unfortunate, there's a lot of knowledgeable people on here. Hopefully someone else can be more helpful best of luck don't get discouraged.

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Bump! 

 

Can anyone give me any pointers? I'm doing 30-50% water changes and every day the ammonia is back up to 4-8ppm. I have no idea how my fish are putting up with it still. Been using Ammonia lock from Tetra during water changes. I've done morning and night. Not feeding. I have live plants, cholla wood, and a few ornaments that have been in there forever. All the pieces have, nothing is new. I did the maracyn treatment and ever since I've been dealing with this. I've never seen ammonia this high even when new. 

I'm not sure how to figure out the cause at this point without messing up the ecosystem more by taking a things out. 

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If you haven't done it yet add some Seachem Stability or API Quick Start to boost the bacteria in your tank. Maybe add some to the tank and some directly to the filter to get that going faster. I'd definitely take out any dead plant matter you can. That's a really unfortunate thing that happened to you. I hope it improves soon. 

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