water change related question

[ElitePirate]

Hi Friends,

Sadly, my yellow watcherman goby died today. My tank is a small one, 15 gallon - 56L. I removed him immediately, but i think he was there like that for at least couple of hours. Should i do a water change now?

My ammonia alert sticker is showing as safe and i did a manual test and my ammonia result around 0.25mg/l - nothing spiked just now it's always been like this. I have no idea why but for the past 6-7 months my ammonia always around 0.25 even though i do 50% water change every 2 weeks..

any idea what i should do now?

 

[ElitePirate]

#reefsquad please share your thoughts

 

[Tastee]

Sorry for your loss however I doubt there is any chance the dead goby will have caused any issues in that short a time frame. The more important question is why are you seeing ammonia in your tests.

How old is your tank?

If you have measurable ammonia then that suggests your tank is not fully cycled. If you suddenly introduce new fish to a cycled tank you would see measurable ammonia until the bacterial colony grew to accomodate the new ammonia load, but this would be fairly short, depending on the number/size of fish you introduced.

Ammonia tests are fairly reliable but you may have a faulty kit. Ammonia badges are not as reliable as a proper test.

What test kit do you use?
Have you tried a different one?
Perhaps take a sample to the LFS and ask them to test for you.

 

[ScottR]

Hi Friends,

Sadly, my yellow watcherman goby died today. My tank is a small one, 15 gallon - 56L. I removed him immediately, but i think he was there like that for at least couple of hours. Should i do a water change now?

My ammonia alert sticker is showing as safe and i did a manual test and my ammonia result around 0.25mg/l - nothing spiked just now it's always been like this. I have no idea why but for the past 6-7 months my ammonia always around 0.25 even though i do 50% water change every 2 weeks..

any idea what i should do now?

In this case, obviously something has to change. Not sure what you got in your tank but you could be overstocked. If not, then you need to change your WC schedule. I used to have a 15g before upgrading. I did 15% change every 2-3 days. Also I had lots of LR in there to harbor helpful bacteria that break down ammonia. Another thing you can try doing is adding bacteria, cleaning your filter, adding/changing your bio/ceramic rings (I never use). These are just some ideas. But I can’t stress how much you need to look into changing something until you get it to where you want it to be.

 

[ElitePirate]

@Tastee my tank is 7 month old. I have 2 clown, 1 blue damselfish, 1 yellow goby.

Other than these 3 fishes I have a cleaner shrimp, fire red shrimp, 1 hermit and couple of snails as my CUC.

I also have live rocks/Natural Coral Bone Stones etc in my filter. so bacteria growth is there, but i have no idea how to get rid of ammonia after this long. im using Colombo test kit. i know the kit is good because recently only i started making my own RO/DI water then i used to test that water with ammonia kit once in a while and the kit shows the correct result..

i think i should try a new test kit..

@ScottR thank you. yea i dunno why its like this. i guess im gonna open a new thread and discuss about this..

Thanks guys

 

[Tastee]

@Tastee my tank is 7 month old. I have 2 clown, 1 blue damselfish, 1 yellow goby.

Other than these 3 fishes I have a cleaner shrimp, fire red shrimp, 1 hermit and couple of snails as my CUC.

I also have live rocks/Natural Coral Bone Stones etc in my filter. so bacteria growth is there, but i have no idea how to get rid of ammonia after this long. im using Colombo test kit. i know the kit is good because recently only i started making my own RO/DI water then i used to test that water with ammonia kit once in a while and the kit shows the correct result..

i think i should try a new test kit..

@ScottR thank you. yea i dunno why its like this. i guess im gonna open a new thread and discuss about this..

Thanks guys

That is quite a high bio-load for a small tank. By comparison I currently have 6 small fish, 3 larger inverts and several smaller inverts in a 65g SW tank. My target is 8-9 fish in this tank.

I don’t know what your filtration is but I would suggest adding as much high surface area items as you can - Seachem Matrix or Marine Pure balls, as well as your LR. If you run a HOB filter you can put Matrix into that and drop Marine Pure balls into the tank itself. To remove ammonia and nitrites you need good water flow over the filter media, for nitrates I believe that low flow is better. In my small FW tank I have 6 or so balls on the substrate, two next to the power head input to provide flow. The 4 without flow are there for nitrate export (hopefully!).

I could probably tolerate a much higher livestock load in my SW tank as I have heaps of LR and other filtration (e.g. ~60 MP balls in the first section of my sump). In a tank without a sump it is much more tricky. Obviously the more LR the better and the type of LR is important. If it is heavy rock that is less beneficial than light rock as heavy rock generally means less surface area.

 

[ScottR]

To add to this, in my 15g, I had 2 clowns, 2 damsels, a goby and 2 shrimp and snails. I never had any problems and didn’t feel that it was overloaded.

If this were my tank, I’d add a small amount of bacteria. I use Prodibio. The type that comes in small glass vials. With the smallest vial, I’d add half a vial and just toss the rest.

 

[ElitePirate]

thanks guys :) really appreciate your input

 

[Dom]

Hi Friends,

Sadly, my yellow watcherman goby died today. My tank is a small one, 15 gallon - 56L. I removed him immediately, but i think he was there like that for at least couple of hours. Should i do a water change now?

My ammonia alert sticker is showing as safe and i did a manual test and my ammonia result around 0.25mg/l - nothing spiked just now it's always been like this. I have no idea why but for the past 6-7 months my ammonia always around 0.25 even though i do 50% water change every 2 weeks..

any idea what i should do now?

I think you got it out of there quick enough. Maybe a precautionary water change, but I think you're fine.

 

[ElitePirate]

yea i agree. i did a 50% water change this morning just to be sure :)