Ammonia and Nitrates climbing again?

[holbritter]

What common causes are there for this?
My ammonia is .25 and the nitrates are up to 20.

I do weekly water changes of 25 - 50%

Nitrites and ph are constant, and fine. 0 on the nitrites and 8.0 on the ph.

I just seem to be having a problem with the other 2, and am getting a little frustrated.

BTW: I traded in my Tetras and Danios, and added 4 baby angels, but that was just yesterday. I should have checked the water ahead of schedule, because now I'm worried about the babies. I'll of course do an immediate water change.

[Cichlid_Man]

Your water changes seem to be ok and scheduled fine.
Have you added any medication? Some of the meds can crash a cycle?
How long was your tank cycled before this started?

As you said, please do a 30 % change to try and get the levels down.

Was your filter off for any period of time?

Did you recently clean your filter and maybe cleaned out all the media at one time?

Any chemicals used near the tank.

One BIG cause could be over feeding also.
Food causes waste, waste causes ammonia, and if your bio load for the amount of fish you have isn't good enough, over feeding can cause cycle crashes.

When you added the angels, did you let any water from the bag go in your tank?

[kimmers318]

Good suggestions cichlid man.....something had to have been done or happened to cause you to get small ammonia reads. I wouldn't exactly say your cycle has crashed, so don't panic, but something caused the bio load to be too high or killed off some of your bacteria, just need to find out why.
Remember, cleaning any of your filter media or aquarium items in tap water can potentally kill some of your good bacteria because of chlorine in the water and now the remainder has to catch back up.

[holbritter]

Thanks Chichlid and Kimmers!

Have you added any medication?

No

How long was your tank cycled before this started?

It's been cycled for over a month now.

Was your filter off for any period of time?
Not recently
Did you recently clean your filter and maybe cleaned out all the media at one time?

Nope...learned my lesson on this one :)

When you added the angels, did you let any water from the bag go in your tank?

No. After I drip acclimated them, I poured the water through a net to another container, then put them in the tank with the net.

I'm leaning towards the food thing, although I didn't think I was feeding too much. I was only putting a pinch of flakes in, and dropping some shrimp pellets for the corycats. One per cory. (3)

Also....with the nitrates being high, doesn't that mean I have the bacteria?

Now with the bigger fish gone, and just having all babies, I'll even cut my "pinch" of flakes down. I'm kinda afraid of starving them though.

One more thing....I put some floating (fake) plants in for the gourami. Now, since it's a hex, there's not much footspace on top, and with the outflow of the filter, the food gets pushed around into the plants, where mabey it doesn't get eaten?? I don't know what to do to prevent this, and not even sure if it's the cause.

Thanks for any input.....gonna get started on the water change now.

[Lady Hobbs]

You mentioned ammonia and nitrates but not the nitrites.

I recently moved my 55 gallon and had no set-back due to being cycled for a period of time. However, the very next day I added fungal meds for one measly little catfish I was unable to catch. This set my tank back a small amount. My ammonia actually went to .50 for two days and was barely traceable by the 3rd day again. I believe the meds do cause a bit of a mini-cycle to the top area of the gravel but never really a huge set-back.

I wouldn't worry much about a reading of only .25. That's still the lowest on the totem pole as far as readings go. Possibly adding some plants stirred the gravel up just enough to set you back just a tad.

I don't think you have anything to worry about.

[minabird]

Now with the bigger fish gone, and just having all babies, I'll even cut my "pinch" of flakes down. I'm kinda afraid of starving them though.

One more thing....I put some floating (fake) plants in for the gourami. Now, since it's a hex, there's not much footspace on top, and with the outflow of the filter, the food gets pushed around into the plants, where mabey it doesn't get eaten?? I don't know what to do to prevent this, and not even sure if it's the cause.

Thanks for any input.....gonna get started on the water change now.

holbritter-

Has your ph always been 8.0? If your ph has risen recently, that would be the cause of your higher ammonia. A higher ph causes more ammonium to be converted to ammonia. If this is the case, find out why your ph has changed.

If it's always been 8.0, then the uneaten food may be the source of the extra ammonia.

Also....with the nitrates being high, doesn't that mean I have the bacteria?
Yes, some bacteria converts the nitrites into nitrates, which are used as a nutrient by plants and removed by water changes. 20 ppm isn't very harmful too fish for the short term. The lower the better tho. At 40 ppm over a long period, nitrates start becoming toxic to fish.