Bad water overnight?

[imagirlgeek]

Tank water:
Ammonia: 4.0 (at first I thought my tank was cycling... but normally you wouldnt get readings from all three at same time?)
Nitrite: 1.0ppm
Nitrate: 40ppm
-------------------
Hardness: 300
KH: 0
ph: 6.2
-----------------
Chlorine: 0

Any ideas on what could cause those severe drops? I already know im going to have to start completely over on my tank, but so I know what to do differently next time. Tomorrow, ill probably do a solid 95% water change, and go from there... seems like my tap is far and beyond better than my current tank water. Baffles me with how much time I put into the darn thing, but hey... Sh*t happens right? Now to just figure it out and try again!

Andrew

High Ammonia levels will cause your pH to drop because it's acidic. What concerns me with your numbers is the KH. With 0 KH, you are not going to be able to maintain your pH at any consistent level. That alone can kill your fish. Severe pH swings can take out an entire tank of fish, and fast. Minor swings are normal and tolerable, but 7.8 to 6.2 is huge.

The higher the KH, the more stable your pH will be. The lower the KH, the more your pH will be affected by other elements, and will go up and down.

I don't know what the initial cause was for the KH to drop to 0, but that will definitely make your pH erratic. Be very care about adding more fish while your KH is at 0. Anything you do is going to affect the pH right now. Aerating the water will help to bring the KH and pH back up. A little baking soda will too.

[fshfrk]

Just talked to Andrew on the phone for 45 minutes. Like Traci said the ph and kh thing has me baffled?

[Andrew_B]

Dave: Ive only had the eheims for about 3 weeks, and only thing ive done to them was rinse out the media well before attaching it to the tank. But now that I think about it... I used tap water to rinse them out, the same tap water with an ammonia reading. Probably not a good thing?

I just got off the phone with John, told me what he does to make up for the ammonia in tap. Basically told me dont bother with any chemicals outside of SAFE/PRIME, and even then, add it to the water dilluted and over the duration of the refilling of water into the tank during a change instead of all at once. Going to take this as a good oppurtunity to start over from scratch, let my eheims build up properly before adding fish. Changing my substrate now, while I can. Not 100% on weather ill go with a fish or fishless cycle. With some fish seems easier, but fishless seems like it could provide a more stable base.

But yeah, with the pH/KH oredeal... for the first 6 months of my tank, I tested for these weekly and they never moved a smidge, so i stopped testing. I'm assuming they plummeted the same time as my ammonia spiked about 2-3 weeks ago, which honestly, I still dont know the cause that even happened in first place!

I'll still have to call my water company, was suggested that maybe my water was just recently switched over to lake houston water. I'll talk to them when they open back up on monday to see what they know

[Andrew_B]

So Im getting right back into it. Already drained my tank and took out the old gravel substrate. Drained the Eheims, wiped down the glass/tubing/suction cups. Going to Leslies and picking up Silica Sand to use as a new substrate. Now just seemed like a good time to change it up. Going with a fishless cycle. I read at a few other sites and they mentioned the use of ACE Ammonia, janitorial strength cleaner (10% ammonia) - I'll have to see what other garbage is in it before I use. Or if anyone else has any other suggestions on what I could use thats local, that would be great!

Since apparently none of my filters even have proper bacteria, would it be worth for me to drop the HOB Penguins and only use my 2x eheims and powerheads? I do understand that more filtration is better, but as far as I know, those HOBs are just moving water around - at least with the eheims, I know the water is getting proper filtration, or at least will when the tank stables out.

Never did a fishless cycle before so this is what I plan on doing - correct me if I do anything wrong. Fill tank up with water, dechlorinate it... let the filters run for a day or so. Use said Ammonia, find a calculator online that tells me how much I should use. Raise/test water until it reaches 3-4ppm Ammonia levels. Let the bacteria do the work and once ammonia drops to under 1ppm, raise it back up to 3-4ppm. Do this 2-3 times, then start testing for nitrites, but keep adding ammonia for the bacteria to feed off of until I actually add fish (probably 4-5 weeks down the line). Do this until I reach 0 ammonia 0 nitrites, and do a large water change to drop the nitrates. When they're under 40ppm, it's good to add fish. Anything Im missing, or should do differently?

Also - to add to this so very long post - Since Im going through this all again, any ideas on what I can do to avoid having this big mess happen again? Definitely using less chemicals this time around. Probably set something up for water changes that runs the tap water through a good amount of carbon before reaching the tank. I guess any little bit helps.

Thanks again for the help guys! Also, it's pretty apparent, the amount I talk/type is relevant to how tired I am!

[Suelovesfish]

Too much Amquel/Prime. Fish with mouth wide open are looking for air.

Airate the hell out of the tank and add only one(Prime is besr imo) per directions

Add Seachem's Stability as insurance!!!