Recovering from the Texas SnowMageddon *advice needed*

[Solidus1833]

So, on  a positive note, I did not lose a single fish from either my 20g or 72g. However right now I'm dealing with some massive nitrate levels. Let me give some details. 

My house went nearly 1 week without consistent power. Between 7 days I only received around half an hour of electricity on two different occasions. So I essentially put my backup heater in my big tank wrapped both tanks with insulating blankets, gave a salute and hoped for the best. So needless to say it worked, the temps didn't drop below 68F which is 10F below where it is kept. The house was at 48F at the lowest point. 

The 72g has a Fluval fx4 with Biohome media and two types of sponge, coarse/fine. I've never had an imbalance like this before. After spending all of last week cleaning the Fx4 and doing 25% water changes a day and 50% on Friday yet I saw zero change in nitrate levels.  So I went to my lfs for some advice and they told me to get some Biochem-Zorb and place it in my Fx4. So I placed the BC-Zorb in my bottom tray after all the biohome yesterday afternoon. I expect to run it for atleast a week before I either add another pouch or try something else besides weekly 25% water changes. 

So essentially Im asking for some advice here to see if anyone else has had this problem. I suppose what I'm going through is 'old tank syndrome'. Was one pouch of BC-Zorb enough? I'm beginning to think I may have needed to buy two pouches. The tank is planted so I never get any ammonia readings. Nitrites are 0, and all the other parameters are normal just the Nitrates are through the roof. 

One other thing to mention is when I opened up my Fx4 on Wednesday to service it. My fine sponge is normally blue yet now its red. I think this means my Biohome is deteriorating? Could this be a cause of my nitrate spikes? This tank was in a such good cycle I could go 3 weeks with no water change before I would see nitrates go above 40ppm. 

 

Bonus pic of Ricky (royal) and Leo (Para) pleco's monchin, and a picture of the full tank taken this morning. 

Edited March 1, 2021 by Solidus1833
Spelling, adding pics

[Tamitha]

Have you tested your water source? I would suspect it's also high in nitrates as a result of all that happened. If it is high then water changes will do little to help. What do you consider crazy high nitrates? I ran a tank for over a year with nitrates anywhere from 140 to 160ppm. My fish were fine but it did grow algae. I added fast growing plants to get my nitrates down and once it was down I removed the excess plants. 

[Solidus1833]

Thank you for the reply. I did test my water source as that was my first thought too. My source is normal, Nitrate/Nitrite and ammonia all 0ppm. The PH is still normal too. I always like to keep nitrates around 40-80ppm as the plants feed. I do use Easy Green from time to time but not really every week. I've not added any Easy Green in 3 weeks now. From what I'm reading on my api test kit my nitrates are somewhere between 80 and 160ppm. I'm just worried I have some crazy imbalance going on. Trying to diagnose it has resulted in zero change. 

[Biotope Biologist]

Of course they recommend buying charcoal. Charcoal won't do anything in this situation. Unfortunately you are going to have to go old school until you get consistent power. Your temperature solution is great I have nothing to say about that. But, the biggest thing is without water movement your nitrate levels will sit high. 

 

Here are 2 solutions that you should try.  Take your canister filter intake out of the aquarium. If you have a sink nearby clean it thoroughly. Close the valve in the bowl and fill the sink bowl as much as you can. Dechlorinate that water. Put your intake in the sink and establish suction to siphon that water into your canister filter. Leave the canister filter out tube in the tank. You may need to elevate your canister filter to establish outflow into your tank. Grab another tube or your gravel vacuum and establish suction from your aquarium. Put that tube on the bottom of the tank and have that tube exit into a waste bucket or your bathtub if you are close to a bathroom. You will cycle your tank water doing this every couple days and you will want to exchange about half of the tank's capacity. It is old school and this is how we ran our wet labs with minimal electricity at university. Running water through your canister filter will make sure to not shock your beneficial bacteria to death and essentially you would have to restart your already established tank.

 

The other solution is essentially the same just using 10-20 gallon buckets of water, it's just annoying because you have to establish a gravity feed for the water. and constantly refilling and lugging buckets is annoying.

 

Also, bonus tip. Buy 2-3 battery powered air pumps. Hook 2 up in the 72g and 1 in the 20g. We used to use these to transport salmon fry in university that need 80% oxygen saturation in their water at all times (finicky little things).

[MN-AQUARIST]

I think your best approach is to continue doing frequent water changes to get the levels back where you are comfortable with.  What could have happened with the intermittent power loss is an ammonia spike from bacterial death,  which your tank recovered from.  The ammonia was then converted down the nitrogen cycle to nitrate causing your levels to spike. 

[MJV Aquatics]

Like you, my first thought would have been high nitrates in the source water. Since the source tests okay, it's a head scratcher that repeated partial water changes aren't lowing the nitrate levels. Perhaps you need aggressive gravel vacuuming and a larger percentage water change or two...like 50-75%.

[MJV Aquatics]

I'm not familiar with the BC-Zorb product, nut have a lot of experience with API Nitra-Zorb. Is the BC-Zorb also rechargeable with salt water? In any event, a nitrate adsorbing resin along with the gravel vac and increased water change(s) should resolve the issue.

[Solidus1833]

1 hour ago, Biotope Biologist said:

Of course they recommend buying charcoal. Charcoal won't do anything in this situation. Unfortunately you are going to have to go old school until you get consistent power. Your temperature solution is great I have nothing to say about that. But, the biggest thing is without water movement your nitrate levels will sit high. 

 

Here are 2 solutions that you should try.  Take your canister filter intake out of the aquarium. If you have a sink nearby clean it thoroughly. Close the valve in the bowl and fill the sink bowl as much as you can. Dechlorinate that water. Put your intake in the sink and establish suction to siphon that water into your canister filter. Leave the canister filter out tube in the tank. You may need to elevate your canister filter to establish outflow into your tank. Grab another tube or your gravel vacuum and establish suction from your aquarium. Put that tube on the bottom of the tank and have that tube exit into a waste bucket or your bathtub if you are close to a bathroom. You will cycle your tank water doing this every couple days and you will want to exchange about half of the tank's capacity. It is old school and this is how we ran our wet labs with minimal electricity at university. Running water through your canister filter will make sure to not shock your beneficial bacteria to death and essentially you would have to restart your already established tank.

 

The other solution is essentially the same just using 10-20 gallon buckets of water, it's just annoying because you have to establish a gravity feed for the water. and constantly refilling and lugging buckets is annoying.

 

Also, bonus tip. Buy 2-3 battery powered air pumps. Hook 2 up in the 72g and 1 in the 20g. We used to use these to transport salmon fry in university that need 80% oxygen saturation in their water at all times (finicky little things).

 

Yeah I was questioning that advice my LFS gave me aswell as I dont run any charcoal. Biohome is such a good media I've not run charcoal in over 10 years. This Biochem Zorb is a resin/charcoal mix so atleast its not 'just' charcoal. But I'm honestly questioning its use. 

Sorry I should have elaborated a little more. I've had full power since the 22nd. I do appreciate your advice though. 

Edited March 1, 2021 by Solidus1833
added words

[Solidus1833]

1 hour ago, MN-AQUARIST said:

I think your best approach is to continue doing frequent water changes to get the levels back where you are comfortable with.  What could have happened with the intermittent power loss is an ammonia spike from bacterial death,  which your tank recovered from.  The ammonia was then converted down the nitrogen cycle to nitrate causing your levels to spike. 

I think you may be onto something here. My ammonia is at .25ppm which its normally 0 as the plants take care of it mostly. I've gravel vacuumed so much over last week I hardly pick up any crud. I suppose I may just need to keep daily water changes, but not sure if 50% a day is harming the cycle from rebounding or not. I plan to do another 25% this evening.  

[MN-AQUARIST]

If you only change water and don't clean any filters or gravel vac it should disrupt the cycle.  

[Solidus1833]

1 minute ago, MN-AQUARIST said:

If you only change water and don't clean any filters or gravel vac it should disrupt the cycle.  

Good point. I've not cleaned my fx4 since I serviced it on Wednesday last week. It was honestly the worst I've ever seen for me at least. I thought of replacing some of the fine sponge but didn't want to take too much bacteria out of the system yet. 

[Solidus1833]

So I figure Id update for today. I did a 50% water change around 4 hours ago. My nitrates showed minimal drops so somewhere between 160ppm and 80ppm. I say this is an improvement because over last week and yesterday my nitrates would immediately hit 160ppm on the api test kit. As of this evening the color isnt the darkest red but somewhere between 80ppm and 160ppm. I also decided to test our tap water again and it looks like the city is pumping ammonia into the water. Strait from the tap is .50ppm, and the water I just tested from the 72g is about 4hrs old and somewhere in-between .25ppm and 0ppm. I suppose that means my cycle is beginning to recover? I may do another 50% or maybe a 30% tomorrow depending on how much ammonia I test from the tap. 

[Biotope Biologist]

Oh good well I am glad you got that resolved then! I would imagine like I was saying earlier you likely had a partial die off in your canister filter that is now recovering. I would in that case go ahead and do a 30% water change every other day. Of course observe your fish closely for any signs of stress, but too many water changes and your beneficial bacteria won't be able to have time to get situated and reduce your levels.

 

Also if you have a friend with an established tank or pond you can grab some of their water to help vitalize your population in the canister filter.

[Solidus1833]

7 minutes ago, Biotope Biologist said:

Oh good well I am glad you got that resolved then! I would imagine like I was saying earlier you likely had a partial die off in your canister filter that is now recovering. I would in that case go ahead and do a 30% water change every other day. Of course observe your fish closely for any signs of stress, but too many water changes and your beneficial bacteria won't be able to have time to get situated and reduce your levels.

 

Also if you have a friend with an established tank or pond you can grab some of their water to help vitalize your population in the canister filter.

I dosed with Stability when I cleaned the Fx4 on Wednesday, but I may put some more in this evening. I believe Stability takes about 3 days to really set in. I've cycled a tank with Stability in 48 hours before aided with a nasty sponge filter. I think you are right about a partial die off from the 7 days of zero filtration.