This tank got a 40% water change two days ago , nothing has died since then that I can tell .. what the hell. When I tell you my heart dropped out the bottom of my body , I’ve NEVER had a reading higher than 1.0 PPM .
Wouldn’t have even caught this as it’s not my regular maintenance day either but I have some guppies that need a new tank and wanted to see if the tanks were similar in ph before dumping them in , tested ammonia just for the hell of it and about keeled over myself .
Poor Gary the gourami , he hates water changes but it must be done 🙁 – pic for tax❤️
Posted by maggieme23
10 Comments
I’m guessing low pH?
Do you dose fertilizer?
How old is your test kit? Any chance it’s expired?
What’s your kh? When ever mine dips, the cycle kind of stalls
Looks like something upset your cycle.
What size is your tank?
Do you have a regular HOB filter or just the sponge?
Did you recently clean it in non tank water?
Quickest way to fix this is obviously the water change you already did. If there’s no genuine obvious rot and everyone is accounted for, I’d start looking at the plants themselves. Are they decomposing? Do your snails eat the plants and does that in turn lead to their decomp or does the plant generally hold up?
Do you have any larger mystery snails that have since passed and can be mistaken for sleeping? I see you had/have snails from another comment, but if they’re truly dead, mystery snails will smell rancid with a very quick whiff.
I would really recommend against tearing a tank apart but if you can take all the decor out without uprooting too many plants I’d check those spots. Last bet would be a gravel vacuum and pray I caught the source of the spike.
If all of that yields absolutely nothing and the spike is still high, you can probably be pretty sure it’s just a young tank and needs more time.
Honestly it seems very strange that you would have ammonia this high and nothing behaving strangely or dead. Treat it as if it is real but I am suspicious of the test. I’d repeat it at the very least if you haven’t already.
If there is any residue from the ph (especially the high ph tester) or other chemicals it will WRECK this test. Clean the tube and retest. Maybe use another tube.
My tests have done this before. Shake the shit out of your ammonia bottles and do a few more tests. Sometimes the compounds in the test bottles can seperate and need to be mixed back up.
If it doesn’t replicate after shaking them up you’re fine.
Sometimes dechlorinators can cause a false positive test if your source water is high in chloramine. A good way to test is to fill up a jug from your water source, add the dechlorinator mix and then do an ammonia test on that water to confirm.