Unending ammonia spike

[ksj]

It started about a week ago. I did a large water change, (about half) of my 90g with a 30g sump. A day later I checked my levels and found medium amounts of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Since then I've been doing 1/4 tank water changes every 2 days and the ammonia seems to only be increasing. At this moment its about 1-2 ppm with Nitrite around 0.25 ppm. Haven't checked nitrate yet today. My kribs that I had gotten at the auction had happily made a nest under a lot of moss balls and laid eggs but after two days its obvious they've abandoned it so the eggs must have died. I've also lost some shrimp.

I'm a bit scared. Should I keep making water changes? Large ones like 1/3-1/2 the tank? Or just hope it deals with itself?

I use api tap water conditioner.

[sniggir]

Is this a new system? if not have you serviced your filter? go light on the feedings, allso if it isn't a planted tank try a gravel vac

[ksj]

Its been set up for over a year. Moderate amount of plants. No where near overstocked. Today ammonia is at 0.50-1.0. Did not feed them yesterday.
I just want to know if I should keep doing water changes, how much water to change or if I should just leave it alone and wait.

[bergenm]

City water has chloramine in it - chloramine is chlorine bound to ammonia. When you neutralize the chlorine you are left with ammonia at detectable levels. If you do water changes every day you will always have ammonia testing in your water.

If you have ruled out over feeding, and have not done anything drastic to your filter (changed all the inserts at once or rinsed your inserts under tap water), then I suspect you are detecting the ammonia left over from the constant water changes.

I would suggests leaving things alone for a few days and then test, keep the feedings small and watch for any signs of stress to be safe.

You should also check the expiry date of you test kits.

[ksj]

Thank you very much for your advice. My sump tank consists of sponges and filter floss which I clean completely and about 50 of those dollar store scrubbies that I leave alone to collect beneficial bacteria. I'll wait a couple days and see what happens.

[ksj]

The spike continues. No water changes since last time I mentioned it and very little feedings. Should I go back to frequent water changes?

[tanksalot360]

It appears that you will continue to add trace levels of ammonia with every waterchange, as there is chloramine as mentioned above. At least until the beneficial bacteria sufficiently recover to reduce that ammonia much quicker.
At this point I would avoid disturbing the tank much further and resort to:
1. Plants that are know to use ammonia directly from the water (hornwort) opposed to other nitrogen forms ie. nitrate
OR 2. Chemical filter media that is designed for this problem - purigen which is effective at absorbing all nitrogen compounds (incl ammonia) or other ammonia removers that bind it and neutralize it.
....OR both.
....our water conditioners that claim to remove ammonia are typically temporary as compounds formed are generally unstable and later release the ammonia back into the water

Adding more biological media may prevent this in the future.

[George2]

Just out of curiosity, what kind of substrate are you using? Have you added any subtrate or does your water changes disturb it? I know that some subtrates such as ADA AquaSoil Amazonia will produce alot of ammonia at the beginning.

[ksj]

I use sand. Sand for playgrounds. Once washed it makes great and natural looking substrate. Its been fine for over a year now. And I've got lots of bottom feeders that poke and prod at it.
Honestly, the ammonia has been there since the auction. Though I only added 2 kribs and a couple plants. I removed a lot of fish.

[bergenm]

The sand could add to the issue, over time a deep sand bed stratifies into two layers, the top layer has aerobic bacteria in it and the bottom layer has anaerobic bacteria. When the anaerobic layer gets disturbed (such as adding plants) the release of the bacteria can cause an ammonia spike - although I am having a hard time understanding why the ammonia level would remain elevated, unless you have just recently started stirring up the sand with each water change.
Do you ever see bubbles coming out of the sand?
http://www.aquaworldaquarium.com/Articles/TonyGriffitts/silent_killer.htm

[ksj]

Yesterday there was a large bubble. Its not very common though.
Anyway, good news: Ammonia, nitrites, nitrates are all 0 finally.
Bad news, I woke up this morning to find nearly every surface covered in white..something. It felt oily. I did a small water change last night along with adding about half the amount of flourish a tank my size should get. Any ideas what it is? PH has lowered to 7. It use to be  around 7.6

[bergenm]

My best guess is that your sand bed has collapsed, basically the anaerobic bacteria has built up to high levels and is now getting out into the main water stream. This can cause gas bubbles, ammonia/nitrite spikes, lowering of your pH, and can also be harmful to your fish. I suspect that white slime is also either bacteria from your sand or bacteria that are blooming from feeding on the dissolved organics coming out of your sand.

This is one of the problems that come with having a sand base. Typically when you hear of Deep Sand Beds they are 5"-6" deep, but with coarse sand. By using fine sand I am guessing you have created the same environment with a thinner base.

If it was my tank, I would move the fish, 1/3 of the water, and the filter inserts out of the tank and put them in buckets or tubs. I would siphon out all of the sand (it will probably smell pretty bad) and rinse it – I would not try to siphon out the sand with the fish still in the tank, it would probably end badly for the fish... I would then dip the plants and rocks in a 10% bleach solution for a minute and then rinse. Clean the tank a set it back up – hopefully by preserving the filter media you will avoid having to go through the cycling process again.

When you go to add the fish back in I would do it very gradually, acclimatise them very slowly to the fresh water as some of their old water parameters might be out of line.

The decision will be whether or not to put the sand back in... if you do, I would keep under 1" deep and add burying snails (assassin, rabbit, Malaysian trumpet) or loaches (kuhli, dojo) these will keep the sand aerated and stop the buildup of anaerobic bacteria. You can also help by turning over sections of the sand bed when you do water changes.

The other option is to move to gravel or coarser sand...

Good luck.

[Gilbotron]

Anytime I've had anaerobic conditions I could tell by the smell more than anything - if after a bubble occurs it smells like sulfur then that is likely the situation.  Very common with dirted tanks when you use too much dirt.  If it is the case, a simple fix is to poke the substrate all over with a chopstick/stick to release any gas pockets.  This should alleviate any immediate problems and freeing the trapped gas pockets will allow them to burst hamlessly in the air and not slowly/constantly seep into the water.  I had to do this lots of times and never had any issues leaving the fish in the tank when doing it.

Is it possible something died in the tank and is rotting somewhere? Freshwater clams are notorious for burying themselves, dying, and fouling the water.  If you have a good snail population then this shouldn't be the case...

[ksj]

I don't know why but today the water is pristine. I'm starting to think I over cleaned it (leaving my bio media out of the water too long so it may have dried too much and killed the bacteria).
Regardless, thank you all so much for your comments and advice. Its greatly appreciated to know if I have a problem, I can always come here.