I Had an Ammonia Spike in 4 "Cycled" Fish Tanks! Here's What I Did

What more information on cloudy water? Check this video out: https://youtu.be/s6t-d1kBLHg Want more information on ammonia in your aquarium? Check this out: https://youtu.be/5l-POiCc0dI Here is how we quarantine fish: https://youtu.be/S_-8UETrQv8 Our new shirts can be found at: www.primetimeaquatics.com/merch Want to become a Prime Timer and see behind the scenes fish room videos? Consider becoming a member: www.youtube.com/channel/UCYVN... For the latest in the fish room check us out on Instagram primetime_aquatics If you want to see all the cool stuff Joanna does with other types of scapes check out her channel! www.youtube.com/channel/UCPEZ...

I really appreciate that you show mishaps and minor emergencies and use them as a training tool on how you recover from them. That kind of knowledge is most useful for beginners in my opinion. The thing about beneficial bacteria and the "cycle" is that you can only tell how well it's working based on information and numbers after the fact and there's little way to predict how it'll behave to adding or removing a bunch of fish. I can certainly see how and why this happened in quarantine tanks since the bio loads are probably changing VERY often and they are likely stocked over the capacity that they would be if they were normally running display tanks.

I totally agree Jason! Very important to remove as much ammonia and also nitrites as possible. I'm old school and have not tried nitrifying bacteria in a bottle. I squeeze out old filter media (sponge or fluff) from another cycled tank. Thanks for sharing. 👍

I added a few guppies to my cycled tank, and woke up to cloudy water. I tested and saw that ammonia and nitritAtes were up. (Zero nitrItes). Followed your advice and did 80% water change and added Fritz-Zyme Turbo 700 and Prime to tank. Thank you!!!

Extremely well explained. Thank you.

Great point. Established only means established for those inhabitants.

thank you for sharing this with us

Great video! I would not be surprised if many people thought they had a nice stable 4-5 year old tank, only for a new introduction of fish to cause spikes.

For those inexperienced this is great info. For me it is just common sense

Thanks for the information as always. Got me concerned after watching this, so going to test my water now.

Thank you for this

Thank you! Again nice to see "real world" experience. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!!

Great video!

Good advice. Thanks for sharing, Jason. Wasn't aware of A.C.C.R. or Turbo Start. 👍

I’ve got one going on right now in my grow out tank,the super reds have been very good to me lots of fry added!

Very timely video for me. Thanks a bunch! I have a fully cycled 55 gallon that I had not put any fish in yet. Was still deciding what I wanted. In the meantime my good friend had a 55 that sprung a leak 😮 She rehomed to me her 14 swordtails and 3 albino corys. I watched it so closely because of the big bio load all of a sudden. It did fine for a couple weeks then sure enough a big ammonia and nitrite spike! Did a 50% water change and it helped. Now they are doing so well and having babies. I finally feel like a real fish keeper now 😅Thanks for your videos.

Great video👍 When I get a spike like that, I do a big water changes and add box filter from another tank. My box filter is polyfil and smaller size Seachem Matrix. And I use little more than recommended of Fritzyme 7.

Thank you very much for showing this issue and letting us know what product to use. In my case I have been breaking my brain trying to find a product that will neutralize ammonia from the tap. Solving that problem will cut my purchased water bill by 3/4. Cheers👍

Canister! It helped my tank little sponges are ok in tiny tanks still prefer externals

I've used fritz turbostart 700 with a fishless dose of 2ppm ammonia to start new tanks for a couple years now. It's amazing. A huge water change then fritz turbostart immediately cleared a spike for me last year. Great video, thank you for sharing with us. Happy holiday season to all.