High Ammonia Levels

[fishguy23]

Hi MF, I'm hoping someone could give me advice in my 29 gallon, I recently added a sump to my 29 gallon eclipse & was surprised to find my ammonia levels being high, i did a quick inventory & discovered my BTA was missing??? I'm thinking when I was aquascaping I might have crushed him, not sure though. So my question is if the BTA is polluting the water and I can't find it, do I continue to do daily 5% water changes until or????. Prior to this weekend I had no traces of ammonia

 

[meschaefer]

Hi MF, I'm hoping someone could give me advice in my 29 gallon, I recently added a sump to my 29 gallon eclipse & was surprised to find my ammonia levels being high, i did a quick inventory & discovered my BTA was missing??? I'm thinking when I was aquascaping I might have crushed him, not sure though. So my question is if the BTA is polluting the water and I can't find it, do I continue to do daily 5% water changes until or????. Prior to this weekend I had no traces of ammonia

Yes, do water changes. Assuming your tank is fairly established it should recover quickly.

 

[mstrofdisaster]

Hi MF, I'm hoping someone could give me advice in my 29 gallon, I recently added a sump to my 29 gallon eclipse & was surprised to find my ammonia levels being high, i did a quick inventory & discovered my BTA was missing??? I'm thinking when I was aquascaping I might have crushed him, not sure though. So my question is if the BTA is polluting the water and I can't find it, do I continue to do daily 5% water changes until or????. Prior to this weekend I had no traces of ammonia

If I were you, I'd find and remove the remains if possible and then do 50% w/c to get your values back down. What are your nitrates/PO4 currently?

 

[fishguy23]

re:

So if I could find the remains do 50% but if I can't continue to do at least 55 everyday, until? I'll test again tonight

 

[fishguy23]

would 50% water change shock the rest of my livestock as well?

 

[meschaefer]

would 50% water change shock the rest of my livestock as well?

Not if your careful to match the parameters between your tank water and water change water.. salinity..PH... Temp...etc.

 

[mstrofdisaster]

Not if your careful to match the parameters between your tank water and water change water.. salinity..PH... Temp...etc.

Yep!

I had some Ca/Alk problems a while back and did 2 50% w/c over the course of a week and suffered no losses at all.

If you cant find the remains assume it was eaten up already and do your big w/c as recommended. You should be fine in a day or two after the change.

 

[fishguy23]

I have yet to invest in an RO/DI system, I was going to do a water change using nutri/ sea, would that suffice? probably 10 gallons worth (about 30% i guess)

 

[Lenny718]

Nutri/sea should be fine, I just don't recommend Tap water.

 

[mstrofdisaster]

I have yet to invest in an RO/DI system, I was going to do a water change using nutri/ sea, would that suffice? probably 10 gallons worth (about 30% i guess)

Nutrisea is good - if your salinity is not 102.7 make sure you dilute to the proper salinity with RO/DI or Distilled water.

 

[Reefsaint]

Rethink and restart! get some chemipure elite change 50% of the water slightly dose and check daily!:splitspin