3 gal water change=?cycle crash

[HelplessNewbie]

Hoping for help figuring out what is causing my cycle crash.

Today, we took out 3 gallons from my 20 gallon long, and replaced with water that we treated with dechlorinator. We didn't gravel vacuum, nor clean any filters.

Within an hour, the water became milky cloudy, and haze is building on tank walls. Fish aren't swimming oddly (yet), but I am paranoid now since my cycle crashed 10 days ago. The amano's seem to be hiding again, just kike when tank crashed last time.

Recent changes in the tank:

10 days ago, tank crash

8 days ago, added 1 adult and 3 juvenile neo red shrimp

5 days ago, 6 endler fry born

3 days ago, took out 3 of 4 adult endlers for selling

2 days ago, added 9 juvenile neo blue shrimp

I found 1 neo shrimp carcass today.

So, tank has a total of 1 adult ender, 11 fry, 9 pygmy cory, 3 amano shrimp, 13 neo shrimp, bladder snails, seed shrimp.

No medications applied

Moderately planted, though plants are still recovering from the last crash. Mini-pump-driven pot scrubber filter, sponge filter with additional pot scrubbers, and temporary filters that were added and still running since last crash: hob, air stone driven pot scrubber filters.

Sand substrate with 3 handfuls of crushed coral in back.

ACO led light and heater with inkbird heater control Stick heater, too.

Will post water parameters tomorrow. The stress is getting to me and I need to get some sleep.

My hubby bought tonight in case it is needed tomorrow: 12 gallons of Great Value Purified Drinking water (label claims RO treatment and doesn't mention minerals added back)., a different brand of water conditioner (he checked it isn't expired) and more bacteria in a bottle. I have been doubting my interpretation of the chlorine part of the ACO test strip, so I don't know if my tap water is bad, or maybe my (reading of the) tests are bad.

Just before bed, I added to the tank: bacteria in a bottle and some squeezing from a seeded filter from another tank. Hoping that I will wake up to a tank of still alive and happy fish.

Edited October 17, 2023 by HelplessNewbie

[Odd Duck]

I’m sure your tank is still recovering from the crash. You are taking all the right steps. Do a water change again if parameters are high on testing tomorrow.  A mild bacterial bloom in the water can be a warning sign but doesn’t necessarily mean catastrophe is eminent.  Get some rest tonight.  Do the testing in the morning and see what your values show and post it up.  If I’m doubt, add Prime or other dechlorinator at double dose.

Have you tested your water from the tap?

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/16/2023 at 8:28 PM, HelplessNewbie said:

Moderately planted, though plants are still recovering from the last crash. Mini-pump-driven pot scrubber filter, sponge filter with additional pot scrubbers, and temporary filters that were added and still running since last crash: hob, air stone driven pot scrubber filters.

If you continue to have cycle issues, I would look into swapping out a portion of the scrubbers for something like lava rock, pumice, or other types of biological/ceramic media.

On 10/16/2023 at 8:28 PM, HelplessNewbie said:

Will post water parameters tomorrow. The stress is getting to me and I need to get some sleep.

Get some sleep, one day at a time!  Hopefully things improve though and we're all here to help!  No stress, just questions and things to try to figure out. 🙂

[Odd Duck]

Good point from @nabokovfan87 .  Your scrubbers may not have enough surface area to support the biofiltration you’re needing.  It sounds like you have plenty of overall volume. The other thing is the scrubbers have lots of flow through. Maybe you need slightly slower flow to let the beneficial “grab onto” the compounds you need them to process.

Definitely test your water if you haven’t already and let us know your tap parameters. 

[HelplessNewbie]

I will add more filter media, I have filter sponge pads soon... However, I had the same amount scrubbies in this tank for 3 months prior the crashes, without issue. I doubled the amount already. 

I had to rest all day afterwards, mostly because of my chronic illness, but we decided to replace 6 gallons with the Great Value ro water.

About the water parameters...

Here is a mystery. I repeated this test 3 times but had same strange result. I was too ill to test the source waters with the 3 different dechlorinators I have.

Key:

from left to right, A,B,C,G,I

C=tap water, weather has turned very cold here and so, first time water is coming in extremely cold from faucet. I estimate 60 deg F. Not sure if it matters.

G=Great Value Purified (ro-treated) Water

I=tank water after today's 6 gal wc (30%, not 35%) with G, AND treated with 5 times the recommended dose of a different, also unexpired dechlorinator (Tetra AquaSafe)

What is in my tank water that is preventing the dechlorinator from doing its job? And, why is my tap water showing 0 chlorine (previously consistently .8ppm)? Why does adding my tap water or the ro water to tank makes chlorine suddenly show up? Is 0 chlorine for the RO water the expected result?

Edited October 17, 2023 by HelplessNewbie

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/17/2023 at 1:52 PM, HelplessNewbie said:

What is in my tank water that is preventing the dechlorinator from doing its job? And, why is my tap water showing 0 chlorine (previously consistently .8ppm)? Why does adding my tap water or the ro water to tank makes chlorine suddenly show up? Is 0 chlorine for the RO water the expected result?

RO water should basically have nothing in it.  RODI water definitely should have nothing in it.

As far as dechlorinator, this is the closest I can find to a helpful video on the topic.

Essentially there's a matter of seconds-minutes for dechlorinator to do it's job.  If that's not the case then potentially you might have some bad dechlorinator.

Some other key points here...

 

Quote

I tested my tap water after using Prime® and came up with an ammonia reading. Is this because of chloramine? Could you explain how this works in removing chloramine?

A: Prime® works by removing chlorine from the water and then binds with ammonia until it can be consumed by your biological filtration (chloramine minus chlorine = ammonia). The bond is not reversible and ammonia is still available for your bacteria to consume. Prime® will not halt your cycling process.

I am going to assume that you were using a liquid based reagent test kit (Nessler based, silica). Any type of reducing agent or ammonia binder (dechlorinators, etc) will give you a false positive. You can avoid this by using our MultiTest^™ Ammonia kit (not affected by reducing agents) or you can wait to test, Prime® dissipates from your system within 24 hours.

 

[Shadow]

Depending on where you live as well, not sure if its city or rural, some municipalities flush their systems both before and after winter to prepare. This causes ammonia to often times be flushed through. So def test for everything if you are city bound ever so often. I remember watching a video by Alex at Fishtory! on YT. He had sudden crashes and deaths which he couldn't explain, as he lives outside Seattle or Tacoma I think, they flush like this 3x a year he said he found out. 

[HelplessNewbie]

I got a different test for chlorine that measures free and total. Tap is 0 ppm free, .5 ppm total. When I treat with any dechlorinator, it seems not to have any effect. What do you make of this?

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/18/2023 at 6:04 PM, HelplessNewbie said:

I got a different test for chlorine that measures free and total. Tap is 0 ppm free, .5 ppm total. When I treat with any dechlorinator, it seems not to have any effect. What do you make of this?

Free chlorine is a very effective disinfectant. Total chlorine is the combination of both free (available) chlorine and reacted chlorine, or chloramines. Chloramines are formed when free chlorine reacts with organic compounds including ammonia. Chloramines are not effective sanitizers and may cause eye and skin irritation in addition to a strong chlorine smell.

Chloramine levels can be determined by subtracting the amount of free chlorine from the amount of total chlorine (example: free chlorine = 0.5 ppm, total chlorine - 1.0 ppm, thus, 1.0 ppm - 0.5 ppm = 0.5 ppm chloramine).

[HelplessNewbie]

On 10/19/2023 at 5:57 AM, Pepere said:

have you detected ammonia by another means?

no, in fact, I don't even think there was any...

I saved a sample of the Oct 16 cloudy water. Will test tube test later.

On 10/19/2023 at 5:57 AM, Pepere said:

what causes you to believe your cycle crashed?  Is it the presence of Ammonia? Nitrites? Or just cloudy water?

Cloudy water and fish gasping, hiding and eventually gathering at surface.

On 10/19/2023 at 5:57 AM, Pepere said:

Do you have an API liquid test kit?

Yes, please see photos below of tank water testing. I repeated the nitrate test because the solution was cloudy, but it was cloudy both times.

 

On 10/19/2023 at 5:57 AM, Pepere said:

What makes you worry that your dechlorinator is not working?

After applying dechlorinator to a tap water sample and to the tank, the chlorine on ACO and total chlorine on pool test strips does not show a reduction, even on some tests seemed to increase when comparing tap to treated water.

Will report back with dechlorinator test photos.

On 10/19/2023 at 5:57 AM, Pepere said:

Have you tested your tap water for ammonia?

Yes, shows no ammonia. Here are tap water photos.

I also have comparison results with distilled water: tap (left), distilled (center), Oct 19 tank water (right).

The water has turned clearer this morning, though, so I will try to test on my saved Oct 16 sample and report back.

Yesterday

Today

FYI, I moved most fish and shrimp to qt yesterday because they were gasping and pale.

Edited October 19, 2023 by HelplessNewbie

[HelplessNewbie]

I have noticed PH is trending low, so I have been adding baking soda incrementally.

[HelplessNewbie]

Why would the addition of baking soda create free chlorine in my tap water? Is this expected? Which or both (free vs total chlorine) are important for aquariums? This was after waiting 1 hr, then testing all samples at the same time.

Edited October 21, 2023 by HelplessNewbie

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/20/2023 at 3:45 PM, HelplessNewbie said:

Why would the addition of baking soda create free chlorine in my tap water? Is this expected? Which or both (free vs total chlorine) are important for aquariums? This was after waiting 1 hr, before testing all samples at the same time.

I'm really not sure. Given the way google search has been updated for me it's practically useless. (Due to AI) and all I get is articles about adding baking soda and chlorine to a pool.  Hopefully there's a chemist out there that can explain the nitty gritty on the test and what's going on. 😞

[HelplessNewbie]

On 10/20/2023 at 8:21 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Hopefully there's a chemist out there that can explain the nitty gritty on the test and what's going on.

Me, too! I tried on another site, but all I got was "what you are describing is impossible". 😞

[Galabar]

Your pH reading seemed to be below the lowest level available on the kit.  Could it be that your KH dropped to "zero," causing the cycle crash?

Are you able to measure the KH of the saved (cloudy) water?

 

[HelplessNewbie]

On 10/20/2023 at 11:42 PM, Galabar said:

Your pH reading seemed to be below the lowest level available on the kit.  Could it be that your KH dropped to "zero," causing the cycle crash?

Are you able to measure the KH of the saved (cloudy) water?

 

Yes, I was thinking the PH drop could play a big part of the crash. My tap water loses PH after each dose of dechlorinator. Very odd. The water guy says dechlorination raises PH...

Anyway, can you confirm with your own testing if baking soda creates free chlorine? I was trying to use baking aoda to remedy the low PH.

I don't have a solution kit for testing KH, but I do have the test strips. Here is a photo with 2 different test strip brands used on the saved Oct 16 tank water. So, I have no buffer and I have no idea how low the PH is.

 

 

I might have jinxed any progress yesterday by filling the tank to the top with tap water then treating with dechlor... I tested my tank water today and yet it still shows chlorine (3 ppm Total Chlorine):

Ignore the first 3, those are other unrelated tests I was conducting.

There is also a lot of whitish coating on all the rocks, plants and walls. Should I perform another large water change, vacuum the substrate and rinse out the rocks and plants?

To prep for another water change, I just filled a tote with tap water and plopped a powerhead in it, hoping that the chlorine gas will dissipate without dechlorinator. A fellow hobbyist in town says he does this. I will check it tomorrow for ammonia before considering using it. What is an acceptable level of ammonia in the change water, knowing that the cycle is crashed and trying to recover? I plan to capture the remaining inhabitants and qt them, so the tank will be fishless prior to wc.

Edited October 21, 2023 by HelplessNewbie