Sudden ammonia spike in 75 gallon tank.

[narayanang76]

I said that "I want to reach a point where I can skip the water change" pertaining to the current frequency of what I am doing, 30% water change daily.

In the past I used to change 30 to 40 percent water once every 10 days, but I had the parameters in check except for nitrate at around 20 to 40ppm.

Yes, I completely understand without water change the fish wont survive.

I have an Asian Arowana he is now 3 year old. When we got him he was 8 inches. Now he is over 2 feet in size. Initially he wss in a 125g but within a year the tank was too small for him. Now he is in a 220g. With my earlier 125g and 220g i never missed the werkly water change of 40%.

If you miss WC one week and then try to do a more larger water change after 2 weeks say 70% it may turn catastrophic for your Arowana. Any change in the new water mainly pH, temp etc will be stressful for the fish, they will stop eating and someimes die too.

So you will need to look for a larger tank very soon and upgrade your filtration for your Arowana if you plan to keep him longer and still continue with weekly water changes a must.

 

[Galantspeedz]

I said that "I want to reach a point where I can skip the water change" pertaining to the current frequency of what I am doing, 30% water change daily.

In the past I used to change 30 to 40 percent water once every 10 days, but I had the parameters in check except for nitrate at around 20 to 40ppm.

Yes, I completely understand without water change the fish wont survive.

Bigger volume of water, more media, better filtration , smaller fish, less feeding

 

[skjl47]

If you miss WC one week and then try to do a more larger water change after 2 weeks say 70% it may turn catastrophic for your Arowana. Any change in the new water mainly pH, temp etc will be stressful for the fish, they will stop eating and someimes die too.

Hello; I think this comment may be about a situation after a long time between WC. That is sometimes the pH of the tank water becomes different than the pH of the source water.
When this is the case a large volume of WC does cause a sudden change in the pH. My practice has been to do smaller volume (say 20 -30%) WC more frequently. By this I mean 20% every day for four days.

In other words if you go two weeks between WC then a large volume change may generate significant water parameter changes.

With an arowana in what is effectively 55 gallons of water it seems likely you will need to do WC very often. It may be that once a week WC is much too much of a stretch. I will go with saying WC more often, 2 to 3 times a week, at around 30% to 40%. Even this is likely to not be enough as the fish grows. At some point it seems likely you will need to be doing daily WC of 50% or more to just keep up marginal water quality.

 

[rajpradeep32@gmail.com]

Hello; I think this comment may be about a situation after a long time between WC. That is sometimes the pH of the tank water becomes different than the pH of the source water.
When this is the case a large volume of WC does cause a sudden change in the pH. My practice has been to do smaller volume (say 20 -30%) WC more frequently. By this I mean 20% every day for four days.

In other words if you go two weeks between WC then a large volume change may generate significant water parameter changes.

With an arowana in what is effectively 55 gallons of water it seems likely you will need to do WC very often. It may be that once a week WC is much too much of a stretch. I will go with saying WC more often, 2 to 3 times a week, at around 30% to 40%. Even this is likely to not be enough as the fish grows. At some point it seems likely you will need to be doing daily WC of 50% or more to just keep up marginal water quality.

I have been doing things as suggested by you all, WC 30% every 2 days once, this made sure the ammonia to drop to 0ppm from 0.5ppm whenever the wc is done. The aro also revived from health issues and showed good appetite and started to swim properly. I also made sure to keep up with the WC.

But all of a sudden aro has started to show sickness again, keeps swimming at the surface with nose up(almost like gasping) and places itself directly in front of the wavemaker and also had stopped eating, I am quite confused where I am going wrong since the water parameters are also not bad.
I recently changed the ro membrane in my ro filter and started using water from it, could this be causing an issue.
I have been feeding superworms and dried shrimps to the aro, aro that stopped eating almost for the past 3 days.

 

[skjl47]

At some point it seems likely you will need to be doing daily WC of 50% or more to just keep up marginal water quality

WC 30% every 2 days once

Hello; I think some fish keepers focus on the water test kit results and ignore that there are many other things in the water we do not have any tests for. You also say the water tested --- "since the water parameters are also not bad." Not sure what not bad may mean. Anyway you are feeding stuff that if not eaten or removed from the tank will rot and put decay by products into the tank. Even if eaten the foods will become metabolic emissions from the fish itself..
What I am driving at again is you are probably not doing enough WC. 30% seems too little. You may be looking at the need for 50% or more every two days and maybe even more often to just keep up. I went back thru this thread again and noted a resistance from your posts about upping the WC. If you somehow thought you could do some increased WC for a few days untill things improved and then go back to a lighter schedule, that may be wishful thinking. Let me add that I am not there and do not know the whole situation.

recently changed the ro membrane in my ro filter and started using water from it, could this be causing an issue.

Hello; Any such new change can be a suspicion. I do not have any way to know for sure. Have you check the parameters of the source water with a test kit?

have been feeding superworms and dried shrimps to the aro, aro that stopped eating almost for the past 3 days.

Hello; At the very least be sure to remove any uneaten foods as soon as possible. Give the fish a bit of time to eat and then get the food out so it cannot rot.

Hello; I am figuring the fish is still in a 70 gallon tank with about 55 gallons of water? Still seems too much fish in too small amount of water.

Also have you been keeping the mechanical part of the filter clean? Uneaten food bits and other organic detritus( fish poo and such) will rot in the filter the same as in the tank..

 

[rajpradeep32@gmail.com]

Hello; I think some fish keepers focus on the water test kit results and ignore that there are many other things in the water we do not have any tests for. You also say the water tested --- "since the water parameters are also not bad." Not sure what not bad may mean. Anyway you are feeding stuff that if not eaten or removed from the tank will rot and put decay by products into the tank. Even if eaten the foods will become metabolic emissions from the fish itself..
What I am driving at again is you are probably not doing enough WC. 30% seems too little. You may be looking at the need for 50% or more every two days and maybe even more often to just keep up. I went back thru this thread again and noted a resistance from your posts about upping the WC. If you somehow thought you could do some increased WC for a few days untill things improved and then go back to a lighter schedule, that may be wishful thinking. Let me add that I am not there and do not know the whole situation.


Hello; Any such new change can be a suspicion. I do not have any way to know for sure. Have you check the parameters of the source water with a test kit?

Hello; At the very least be sure to remove any uneaten foods as soon as possible. Give the fish a bit of time to eat and then get the food out so it cannot rot.

Hello; I am figuring the fish is still in a 70 gallon tank with about 55 gallons of water? Still seems too much fish in too small amount of water.

Also have you been keeping the mechanical part of the filter clean? Uneaten food bits and other organic detritus( fish poo and such) will rot in the filter the same as in the tank..

Water parameters which I check are only ammonia , nitrite and nitrate. Ammonia keeps increasing to 0.5ppm the next day after wc and I have been doing 30% WC atleast once in 48 hours.
Nitrite keeps showing 0ppm and nitrate is between 20 to 40ppm (dark orangish color comes in the api result).

I have now reduced the water level to around 40 gallon, since the fish was showing sign of gasping for air and wanted it not to feel any pressure.

I am also scooping out all food waste and fish waste from the tank using fishnet and also using a gravel cleaner to remove things.

I cleaned the canister filter almost a month back, which actually crashed the nitrogen cycle, I didnt clean the canister filter post that, may be will clean one of the canister filters now ( a mild rinse).

The ro memberane change is in the filter using which drinking water for home purpose is also done. I checked the ammonia level in the filtered water and it is zero.

 

[rajpradeep32@gmail.com]

Hello; I think some fish keepers focus on the water test kit results and ignore that there are many other things in the water we do not have any tests for. You also say the water tested --- "since the water parameters are also not bad." Not sure what not bad may mean. Anyway you are feeding stuff that if not eaten or removed from the tank will rot and put decay by products into the tank. Even if eaten the foods will become metabolic emissions from the fish itself..
What I am driving at again is you are probably not doing enough WC. 30% seems too little. You may be looking at the need for 50% or more every two days and maybe even more often to just keep up. I went back thru this thread again and noted a resistance from your posts about upping the WC. If you somehow thought you could do some increased WC for a few days untill things improved and then go back to a lighter schedule, that may be wishful thinking. Let me add that I am not there and do not know the whole situation.


Hello; Any such new change can be a suspicion. I do not have any way to know for sure. Have you check the parameters of the source water with a test kit?

Hello; At the very least be sure to remove any uneaten foods as soon as possible. Give the fish a bit of time to eat and then get the food out so it cannot rot.

Hello; I am figuring the fish is still in a 70 gallon tank with about 55 gallons of water? Still seems too much fish in too small amount of water.

Also have you been keeping the mechanical part of the filter clean? Uneaten food bits and other organic detritus( fish poo and such) will rot in the filter the same as in the tank..

Cleaned the canisters and now I see a lot of white thin worms swimming in the water, something like flat worms.

 

[Tobiassorensen]

Id say buy a proper tank with proper filtration right away if possible yesterday. When you lower the water in the tank you make the water more concentrated. The thing you need is more water not less. Are you even listening to what people tell you? And if your parimiters shows ammonia within 24 hours since WC something is really wrong with your tank. Go buy yourself a new tank or sell this beutiful fish right away. Nothing personal on you but you have to listen if you want this fish to survive

 

[rajpradeep32@gmail.com]

Id say buy a proper tank with proper filtration right away if possible yesterday. When you lower the water in the tank you make the water more concentrated. The thing you need is more water not less. Are you even listening to what people tell you? And if your parimiters shows ammonia within 24 hours since WC something is really wrong with your tank. Go buy yourself a new tank or sell this beutiful fish right away. Nothing personal on you but you have to listen if you want this fish to survive

Sure, I will try to fix this issue in another couple of days, else will better sell it, I dont want to see it suffer either.

 

[Tobiassorensen]

Sure, I will try to fix this issue in another couple of days, else will better sell it, I dont want to see it suffer either.

You need to get your hands on a bigger tank right away. This fish will grow massive and can gain 100cm eventually. You will need a tank of at least 6-800 gallons for this fish. As i said nothing personal on you but you woll have to listen to what people here tells you to do to get this fish to survive.