# Sudden Ammonia Spike!



## 1rhom (Nov 6, 2009)

I just checked my water params to make sure everything is ok and to my surprise,the ammo is at 1.5-2ppm, nitrite 0 and nitrates at 10-20ppm.
I always remove the leftover food. Just lately,i left food in there overnight,maybe 10hrs. But not much food,maybe some shell from shrimps and a tiny piece of scallop. I just fed him 2 pieces of scallop and some shrimp. He ate them as soon as they hit the water...as usual!
Did a water change a few days ago and i'm going to do another today. 2 weeks ago when i did a water change,I also cleaned the filter and replaced the peat.I rinsed everything in aquarium water.Any suggestions as to why the sudden spike?


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## FEEFA (Nov 19, 2007)

Probably the leftover food in your tank, it began to break down causing your ammo to rise


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## 1rhom (Nov 6, 2009)

****** said:


> Probably the leftover food in your tank, it began to break down causing your ammo to rise


Even if very little was left in there for a bit? How come it's not showing nitrites? I just did a 30% water change.I'll check the water params tomorrow.A Eheim 2213 is enough filtration i assume??


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## Piranha_man (Jan 29, 2005)

That's quite a spike... and odd to not have any nitrites with it IMO.

My new spilo is having to live with an ammonia 1ppm jump right now too... probably due to the meds I put in his water to get rid of his tail rot.
I'm doing 25% water changes daily now.


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## FEEFA (Nov 19, 2007)

10hrs is more than a bit.

You may or may not end up showing nitrites, I'm thinking not since you combatted the ammo spike with waterchanges.

Your bb colony is large enough to handle the usual bioload, once you add more it is not ready for the extra ammo hence the spike. Now if you made that the new constant ammo source then your bb would feed and multiply on it and then be able to handle it based on how much media is in the filter and how lrg it is.

Or you possibly killed off some your bb after you cleaned it


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## 1rhom (Nov 6, 2009)

****** said:


> 10hrs is more than a bit.
> 
> You may or may not end up showing nitrites, I'm thinking not since you combatted the ammo spike with waterchanges.
> 
> ...


I rinsed everything in aquarium water.


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## balluupnetme (Oct 23, 2006)

Same exact thing happened to me after I rinsed my xp4...did a water change in the morning and came back home at night and my manny was upside down in my tank...I checked my water parameters and ammonia was at 0.50, nitrite 0, nitrate 10-20

I used aquarium water to clean the filter btw


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## PiranhaMike661 (Jul 9, 2010)

Well, I couldn't tell ya anything nobody else hasn't already said but good luck with the water changes....







DOWN WITH FILTER MAINTENANCE!!!


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## 1rhom (Nov 6, 2009)

Just checked the ammonia and it has gone down to 1ppm. Gonna do another water change tomorrow.I also added a filter on the powerhead for added filtration.


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## 1rhom (Nov 6, 2009)

I just check my water params and everything seems to be spot on.
Ammo 0, Nitrite 0,Nitrate 15.


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