Here we go again

[jtrain252]

Ok well i have had my tank now for over 6 months. At first i was having issues with cycling. i had slight ammonia and slight nitrite for a while and had to keep doing water changes. Then after about 2 months my nitrite was spiking hard then one day boom ammonia good nitrite good i coudl go about 2 weeks before nitrate would get high. Everything was fine and dandy for about 2 months. Then 4 weeks ago i pulled out my one decoration cleaned it gravel vac'd the whiole aquarium did a water change. a week later i changed my filter medium from the tetra slide in bags with the black mesh insert to 2 sponges on the bottom of the filter and a bag of ammonia eating "rocks" that lay ontop of the sponges. ever since then my plants which were THRIVING have stopped growing. Not dying just not growing, my nitrates are present just not high and no nitrite which is great but now every 5 -6 days i get about .50-1.00ppm of ammonia. ITs been this way for a month n o matter what i do its starting to annoying me because i wanted to add 2 more cory for a total of 4 andf my betta cause hes still kicking in my 10 gallon. Anyone have any advice

[Cermet]

Not certain but it very much appears that you removed all the filter's bacteria when you changed out the assembly - converting the filter can cause a complete lost of all beneficial bacteria and then you need to start a completely new cycle.

My first guess is that this did occur and now ammonia eating bacteria is trying to grow but very slowly.

Since ammonia is just untreated fish waste which is what your are reading the filter is not doing its job; also, nitrite is the first stage of real bacteria processing/growth and it sounds as if that has not occurred for some reason.

Did you, by any chance, forget to add the dechlorinator? or use untreated tap water to clean the filter or have done so recently? One or both of these could be the cause(s).

Cleaning a tank has zero effect on the filter and would not cause anything as you have described (ignoring the filter part of the cleaning.) Only the filter cleaning/change would have caused that issue. Neither the cleaning or filter loss would harm plants (just the opposite) but untreated chlorinated tap water would hurt them (even once.)

Why after nearly five weeks raw ammonia is still an issue has me baffled unless some water changes were also done with chlorinated water; maybe someone else can offer ideas.

[jtrain252]

i use my stresszyme and stresscoat everytime every time i change the water. When i first did the filter switch i kept the black mesh filter in the tanks filter with the new sponges as a way of trying to keep some of the bacteria after about 3 weeks it was removed. I dont know whats going on i figured i would have a mini cycle but its like its not going anywhere. the ammonia just slowly goes up to harmful levels trhen i do a water change and repeat. no nitrites at all :( as far as the filter i figured using two sponges instead of that filter bag that has to be changed so much more often would be better

[rmiller]

By changing all of your media at once you took out all of you bacteria. You are completely recycling your tank. If you follow the directions in the cycling with fish article you should be fine. From now on just rinse your media in old tank water. There is no need to change it unless it is falling apart, which can take years. Make sure you use a good quality declorinator when you do water changes.

[Lady Hobbs]

If you run two filters, you can clean one this month and the next one the following month. You can not do total cleaning or will never have a cycled tank. You also can not clean your filter media under tap water UNLESS you have a good back-up bacteria source.

[jtrain252]

i didnt clean it under tap water i cleaned it in tank water andi soaked the new filter media in the dirty tank water before introducing it in. ill just have to wait for this tank to cycle again. Do i really need to take the sponges out and clean them once a month.

Especially if i was running two filters?????

[CrunchyLeaf]

I know I went without changing my sponges because of my fears about ruining the cycle in my tank and I began to get high nitrate readings because my filter was so dirty. After I went ahead and cleaned a portion of the filter media in tank water and then the remaining media a month later, my nitrates finally became manageable again. I believe this is the reason you need to clean your sponges, but maybe you could do them bimonthly. 1 filter 1 month and 1 the next, as LH suggested.