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Water Quality Issues

800 views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  aussieJJDude 
#1 ·
Hello All,

I've been keeping my Freshwater Aquarium for a few years now & everything has been going great. Though my area recently had a power outage for several days & my heater, filters, etc. were not working. Ever since then, I've been having issues with my tank. Several of my fishes have become ill, & I'm becoming concerned with what's going on. I did some water quality tests, & barring any wrongdoing on my part, the results were shocking to me.

To break it down, I have very acidic water with a ph at or below 6.0

Rediculously high Ammonia (nearly 8.0 ppm)

Nitrite levels look good at 0 ppm even

Then we have the Nitrate levels at a paltry 80-160 ppm.

Needless to say this is a huge problem & I'm rather upset that it got this bad.

So to wrap it up, I just want some advice on what to do to clear up this issue. I don't want to cause more problems than I've already got trying to figure this out on my own, but I want to get my poor fishes back to when they were happy again!

Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Doctor Marmalade
 
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#2 ·
Do water changes! First off, change at least 80 - 90% of the water, and remove half of the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. If possible try to get a dechlorinator that also will detoxify water, which will provide a bandage fix over the issue. Clean out the filter media well, removing debris - in old tank water only, to preserve beneficial bacteria. Water from the tap will kill the bacteria due to the additional chloride and such.
Each day, perform a water change of around 10 - 50% (25% is a good starting point) and measure the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. If they too high (>0ppm, >0ppm, >20ppm respectively) then perform larger daily water changes until the tank has cycled, where you should have an estabilished tank again.
 
#3 ·
check the ammonia with the seachem multi test kit for ammonia. Probably the ammonia is all locked up.


add fast growing plants like anacharis. that will suck out the ammonia and also suck out the carbon dioxide which will raise the pH.


my .02
 
#4 ·
If anything, you want your ph to be low with high ammonia so its converts to ammonium (less dangerous!)

NH3 + H3O+ > NH4(+) + H2O
(And to a lesser extent)
NH3 + H2O ⇌ NH4+ + OH−

(H3O+ is due to acidified water... which "normally" has a low pH. Thats why fish in a bag are fine due to the bag having a low pH and the water contains ammonium (NH4). Once open, pH goes up and ammonium converts to ammonia.)
Best thing to get rid of ammonia is water changes, plants will just provide a slow responding bandage while water changes will have an instant result.
 
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