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down2earth
02-19-2012, 02:40 AM
i check my water conditions daily. in one of my tanks the ammonia levels keep rising. i do a WC and its good the rest of the day. but in the morning its going back up. its been like this for 2 weeks almost 3. figured it was the new fish i added then. but 3 weeks wouldnt be the new fish... i thought

i also added a new sump. but i didnt take down the old sponge filter. the sump came from a salt water tank and has been dried out and sittin in my friends garage for months. i ran it with fresh water/bleach for 3 days. changing the water out with fresh water only. let it set for 2 days to dry out. then put in new bio rings in the bottom of it for extra bio surfaces. refilled it with the used bio balls it came with.

i just got these readings

ammonia .25-.5ppm
nitrite 0ppm
nitrate 5-10ppm


thank you for your time.

TWA
02-19-2012, 03:21 AM
Test out of tap. Test with dechlorinator. You're probably adding ammonia with your water changes. If you're dechlorinator doesn't remove ammonia it might just break chloramine into ammonia and chlorine, it takes care of chlorine but not ammonia.

RudeDogg1
02-19-2012, 03:24 AM
Because its cycling I'd expect btw any old bacteria on it would now be dead and salt water bacteria for obvious reasons won't survive in fresh water. You have basically put a brand new filter on it and I'd say the sponge filter isnt coping. Have you not got an external filter on another tank you can take some media out of and seed the sump or squeaze the sponge into the sump.

Rudi

down2earth
02-19-2012, 01:06 PM
i have been using only sponge filters on all my tanks.

i have my discus tank in my bed room. they have no problems. this tank has 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites with 5ppm nitrates 40 gallon with a sponge filter.

i think ill take the sponge filter from the 40 gallon with some tank water from it as well. rinse the sponge in this water and put it into the 60 gallon.

the 40 gallon also has a new sump in it with nothing in the sump. so it only added to the water quantity. im kinda afraid to add bio rings to it now since this is happening on my 60 gallon pleco tank.

down2earth
02-19-2012, 05:55 PM
i just put the sponge water from my discus tank into the pleco tank and now my tank is so dirty lookin but ill let the sump filter this out of the water and then ill do a 40-50% water change tomorrow to get some new water in there instead of discus waste water.