Post by dstarr on Dec 8, 2019 17:41:13 GMT -5
So I've been battling Crypto in my reef tank for a little over a month now. I went through a few bottles of Kick-ich and Rally and at first it seemed like it might have started working, then a second round hit and every fish was covered head to tail tenfold. Once one of my fish started acting lethargic, I finally caved and bought a hospital tank and all the necessities for it: a heater, sponge filter, air pump, light, some PVC pipes and a couple of pieces of live rock. I then transferred all of my fish into the tank and started dosing with Copper Power, half strength, and building up to full strength over 4 days. I had an angel, puffer, and a wrasse so they're sensitive to copper. By the end of the first night, my lethargic fish was already gone. My puffer stopped eating for 3 days, and finally with some live shrimp, started getting back to normal. For the Last week, everyone's been good. The crypto has just about disappeared, with a couple of spots still hanging on to my angel's tail, my blue tank, the worst of all, completely clear. I thought I was in the clear. Then 2 days ago, my goby jumped ship. Found him on the floor next to the tank, so I went out and bought a lid for my quarantine. Then, 2 days later, I wake up to my angel and yellow tang dead, my wrasse looking a big reddish and some flakiness on his head, plus what looks like a couple of ich spots suddenly, and my puffer, fins half gone, eyes dialated, and just swimming in circles and bumping into everything. It seems like the tank had an ammonia spike, and I'm not sure how.
With the copper in the water, I can't use my ammonia testers. The API pretty much reads through the roof no matter what, so I got a Seachem alert badge and it just sits at 0.05 the whole time with zero change in any direction. Even after this debacle the API read 8 ppm and the Seachem read 0.05. I'll do 2 back to back 50% water changes and then after dosing and testing for copper, my ammonia reads 4-8 ppm, so I know it can't be accurate. I guess I'm wondering, how quickly does ammonia spike in an uncycled tank? It's a 20 gallon tank (17 gallons of water after displacement). I change at least 2.5 gallons a day, usually 4 gallons. I vacuum the bottom of the tank after each feeding, or use a baster to pull out any fish turds or large food flakes floating around. I had just swapped 4 gallons before bed, and 6 hours later, they were all dying. I then immediately swapped out another 5 gallons, and put my puffer and wrasse in a piece of Tupperware with some un-medicated clean water. 5 hours later I went home on my lunch break and my puffer was dead, the wrasse barely moving next to it. So I did a 50% change in the big tank, put the wrasse back in, and checked my levels without adding any more copper (there's still some in there, though way below therapeutic levels by this point). My ammonia was still at 1 ppm after swapping nearly 100% water since last night. Last night's 4 gallons had 2.0 ppm copper. I've swapped about 12 gallons today between this morning's and this afternoon's changes, and haven't messed with the copper, so I'm sure it's below 1.0 by now.
Is is possible my ammonia was that high since day 1? Was it not just the copper messing up my reading? Or if it was, how quickly does the ammonia spike? I had 7 fish in this tank, and after a 25% water change, 6 hours later 3 were dead or dying. Everyone was doing fine last night.
With the copper in the water, I can't use my ammonia testers. The API pretty much reads through the roof no matter what, so I got a Seachem alert badge and it just sits at 0.05 the whole time with zero change in any direction. Even after this debacle the API read 8 ppm and the Seachem read 0.05. I'll do 2 back to back 50% water changes and then after dosing and testing for copper, my ammonia reads 4-8 ppm, so I know it can't be accurate. I guess I'm wondering, how quickly does ammonia spike in an uncycled tank? It's a 20 gallon tank (17 gallons of water after displacement). I change at least 2.5 gallons a day, usually 4 gallons. I vacuum the bottom of the tank after each feeding, or use a baster to pull out any fish turds or large food flakes floating around. I had just swapped 4 gallons before bed, and 6 hours later, they were all dying. I then immediately swapped out another 5 gallons, and put my puffer and wrasse in a piece of Tupperware with some un-medicated clean water. 5 hours later I went home on my lunch break and my puffer was dead, the wrasse barely moving next to it. So I did a 50% change in the big tank, put the wrasse back in, and checked my levels without adding any more copper (there's still some in there, though way below therapeutic levels by this point). My ammonia was still at 1 ppm after swapping nearly 100% water since last night. Last night's 4 gallons had 2.0 ppm copper. I've swapped about 12 gallons today between this morning's and this afternoon's changes, and haven't messed with the copper, so I'm sure it's below 1.0 by now.
Is is possible my ammonia was that high since day 1? Was it not just the copper messing up my reading? Or if it was, how quickly does the ammonia spike? I had 7 fish in this tank, and after a 25% water change, 6 hours later 3 were dead or dying. Everyone was doing fine last night.
