2 Wk Rebuild with Bacterial Bloom

[CJhilljack]

I rebuilt my 1 gallon jararium Dec 30th. Yesterday, I noticed a bit of cloudiness that I'm pretty sure is bacterial bloom. Yesterdays test results were Ammonia .50, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 5.0 - I did a 20% water change, and I also did a water change on the weekend, also 25%, which I'm not sure I should have been doing. It seems some folks say they do daily water changes on a new tank, but other says leave it alone the first 3 weeks. Results today are: Ammonia 1.0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0. I was just reading it's best to ride these bacterial blooms out unless Ammonia spikes. This makes sense, but at what point does the ammonia level trigger a water change? Since this was a rebuild, it has the same plants and snails that were originally in the jar, but the snails don't seem to be in distress so far. 

 

[RennjiDK]

NH3/4 will always be present in our aquariums. Depending on the testing method and its accuracy, I would WC at anything over 0.125.

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/12/2023 at 5:39 PM, CJhilljack said:

Yesterdays test results were Ammonia .50, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 5.0 - I did a 20% water change, and I also did a water change on the weekend, also 25%, which I'm not sure I should have been doing. It seems some folks say they do daily water changes on a new tank, but other says leave it alone the first 3 weeks. Results today are: Ammonia 1.0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0. I was just reading it's best to ride these bacterial blooms out unless Ammonia spikes. This makes sense, but at what point does the ammonia level trigger a water change?

Good question....

I personally don't follow the "leave it alone" method. If I see ammonia and I have lifestock, then I do water changes. Let's say I'm cycling a new tank, I have it setup, I toss in the filters and some fish food and let it sit.

I know just based on water volume, how much food I should add to "cycle" the tank and then I add a little bit every few days. That's my ammonia source. In that instance, yeah, let it sit. There's no fish and it's a very, very controlled situation.

Let's say I had a tank and there was a cycle, my cycle crashed, and I'm testing for ammonia now. In that situation, regardless of how much, I'm doing water changes every 24 hours if I need to. I opt for 50% WCs normally. If things go a bit haywire and I have over .5 ppm, then I'll do a bigger WC and follow that with my normal 40-50% WCs until things are settled. I test daily, morning and night if need be in that situation so I can map out of ammonia is stable and waiting to be processed or if the ammonia is still spiking somehow. I check for a dead fish and check that all equipment is working.

Water changes dilute the ammonia, and then testing helps me understand what on earth is going on.

[CJhilljack]

Thank you both for the advice! 

[CJhilljack]

I left it for now, to see if it would continue to climb, but today it's down from 1.0 to .50. Nitrate is 5.0 so we'll see. Thanks again for the help!

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/17/2023 at 4:58 PM, CJhilljack said:

I left it for now, to see if it would continue to climb, but today it's down from 1.0 to .50. Nitrate is 5.0 so we'll see. Thanks again for the help!

Sweet!  Thanks for letting us know.  Keep checking on things, but good to hear things are sliding in the right direction for you. 🙂

[CJhilljack]

Things are looking up, I just finished testing for today & here's the results:
Ammonia .25; Nitrite 0; Nitrate 0 
 
I added some more frogbit from my 2 gallon jararium this morning & also a baby crypt from that jar. The water clarity is much better now, I think the bacterial bloom has run it's course. 

I have a lot of melting of my stem plants, I hope they will bounce back.