Thursday, January 29, 2009

Ammonia Spike

I've been fighting a bit of a conundrum with my Eclipse at the moment. For some reason I'm having to deal with an ammonia spike. Given that the tank is over six weeks old, almost seven actually, and it's not big and well stocked it's odd that this would show up now. It's been three weeks since the rasboras were added. The two things I've done lately are starting a proper vacuuming routine (not the epic failure that was the turkey baster. Fish poo shows up remarkably well on white sand, on black... not so much) and adding the diverter.

It wouldn't make a lot of sense for the vacuuming to be the cause, I'm removing things that make ammonia. The diverter doesn't make sense either. Potentially there could be fungicides in it but the packaging makes no mention of it and the diverter is the same material as the old one that's been in the tank for four weeks.

Consider me stumped.

The downside is that the growths on the rasboras are back. he upside is it looks like the ammonia is coming back down. With any luck this spike will be over soon.

There is more good news though, it looks like the algae problem is about beat. After a good scrub about two weeks ago the brown algae is not making a come back. There's small spots here and there but it's not expanding. Also the filamentous stuff on the driftwood is looking pretty bad. It is no longer gauzy and swallowing the piece, it's stringy, weak, and looks to be barely holding on. My new crypt is also looking good as well. It hasn't grown or anything but after a week in the tank it's holding steady.

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