# Cleaned filter too much, and now my tank is freaking out.



## maykaym4 (Dec 2, 2008)

Hi all,

My new tank has been cycled and steady for about 6 months now, no problems with the fish or anything, and no problem with any spikes/drops/etc. Okay, so a couple weeks ago my filter had quite a bit of build up, to the point that the water flow was a lot less than it should have been (I know, I know, shame on me for even letting it get that bad). So I tried to clean it up without making it too clean, but apparently I still managed to go overboard and killed bacteria or something (I don't really know how all that necessarily works...but I know that bacteria = good in this circumstance).

Anyway, my pH dropped, nitrate and nitrite have been increasing... What can I do to help my fish during this process? I have mollies (6 adults, and about 25 babies in the baby net that are waiting to find a new home). Someone told me to get some Seachem Stability (which could be completely worthless for all I know), and that most people see results in a few days, but I've been using it for a few days and everything just keeps going up. 

They don't really seem to be in any distress, although the numbers for my water readings are in the "danger zone". Should I just drop the Stability all together and get something else, or do I just have to ride this out and hope my tank fully cycles again? Also, how much of a water change should I be doing through this process? I don't want to do too much and freak the fish out, but I want to do enough to keep them as safe as possible. 

Any suggestions? Thanks so much!


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Change enough water to get all the levels down into the safe levels, repeat as necessary until things stabilize. Add Stablity twice, a week apart, adding more then that won't help.


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## Knight~Ryder (Dec 2, 2007)

Okay, so from what I understand cleaning the filter is a bad thing? I am confused here. As long as I put the biowheel back in I can clean the filter really good right?

Because in about 20 minutes I'm going to take the filter out with no carbon, wash out the whole filter, change 30% of the water. Put it all back and add a new emporer filter with carbon as well. This is safe right?


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## maykaym4 (Dec 2, 2008)

I put my biowheel back in and mine still turned to doody, so I'm not sure. I went to my LFS, and the owner there told me that I cleaned it too well and that they are really touchy sometimes. He said that most of the bacteria lives in the filter, and that by removing what I thought was making it worse, was actually making it better. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but there isn't really any other reason that my tank should have gone haywire... I figured he knew what he was talking about, but I'm not positive.... Hmmm.....


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## maykaym4 (Dec 2, 2008)

Oh, I also forgot to add that he (and the other guy that worked there) said that the filter shouldn't be touched by water that isn't "fish water"... and that water straight out of the faucet can easily wipe out your bacteria. Have you cleaned yours out like you are planning on doing before??


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Any time you clean a filter you kill of some of your "good" bacteria. The biowheel is supposed to hold enough bacteria that you can swap your cartridge without danger of needing to re-"cycle" your tank. You might want to skip a meal or go lightly on food for a day after cleaning.


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## Shaggy (Apr 29, 2005)

You can clean your filter, but clean it using the same water you sucked out of the tank. Do not clean the filter with normal tap water, as it will kill all benifial bacteria. The best deal is just to stick the filter into the 5 gallon pucket(or whatever you are using) you used to hold the vacuumed water that you just cleaned out of the tank and squeeze the filter a few times.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Yes, chlorinated tap water kills bacteria, that why we chlorinate. Try to alway keep one part of the filter "dirty", rinsing it only in "waste water" that is coming out of the tank for a water change.


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## smark (Dec 2, 2008)

I use a two part filter system. I change the filter and the filter media at different times. I use charcoal in a Nylon footy and a white scotch guard scrubby for filtering. By changing at different times it leaves a good amount of the bacteria present at all times.


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## Knight~Ryder (Dec 2, 2007)

I am talking about the whole thing unit that hangs. Thats what I want to clean. I already took out the old filter and put a temporarary one in because of the medication.

Im going ahead and cleaning the whole unit anyway.


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## Fishfirst (Jan 24, 2005)

Knight Ryder: sounds completely fine... just keep the bio wheel moist while you do it...


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## smark (Dec 2, 2008)

I have to clean the whole unit also. My one tank produces so much build up, it gums up the inlet. When I’m cleaning it out sometimes I have to tap it out to get the chunks out. I leave the charcoal bag sit in the water when I clean the unit.


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## Knight~Ryder (Dec 2, 2007)

Well, the job is all finally done.

I took out about 13 gallons of water. I took out many ornaments and washed/scrubbed them unti some of the brown came off.

I then took out the filter that I made and threw that away. I grabbed a new filter with the carbon and rinsed it in the old water I had then I let it sit in a bucket.

Then I took out the whole unit and scrubbed everything off and ran water through all the holes and unit itself. (I left the biowheel in the tank) I took off the parts off seperately and washed them as well until I couldn't see anymore algae. ALOT of stuff came out.

I washed my thermometer as well.

I put 13 gallons of declorinated water back in, set the unit up, put the filter in and plugged it back in. Then I rearranged the ornaments differently and took out a few things.

Hours later it's all done, I hope I didn't ruin anything and the fish are all safe. 

It needed to be done, brown was taking over.


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## smark (Dec 2, 2008)

Nothing beats a clean and clear tank.


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## Buggy (Oct 17, 2006)

By doing a "big clean" and putting in brand new filter media, you might experience a small spike although the biowheel should help keep it to a minimum. What probably would have been better is to put the new filter IN WITH the old filter for a few days to let it get a good seeding, then throw the old one away. I don't think cleaning the unit and the decor will hurt anything since most of the bio is in the filter media and bio wheel.


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## Fishfirst (Jan 24, 2005)

sounds like it should be fine... especially if you didn't gravel siphon the gravel... if you did... just be prepared to do a water change or two over the next week.


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## Knight~Ryder (Dec 2, 2007)

Fishfirst said:


> sounds like it should be fine... especially if you didn't gravel siphon the gravel... if you did... just be prepared to do a water change or two over the next week.


Oh, I did! It was really really bad. It really really needed it. So your saying I need to do a water change right away?


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

FF is saying that by doing a "big clean" you could be down enough "good" bacteria to see an ammonia or nitrite spike and therefore need to do another water change soon. If you have the tests, run them every day for a week, just in case. If you see ammonia or nitrite rising (normally you wouldn't see any), change water to keep them in the "safe" range. The biofilter should bounce back quickly, but there is a chance you could end up like maykay. I'd guess what happened there was that a "mini-cycle" caused by cleaning let either ammonia or nitrite spike high enough to finish off the remaining "good" bacteria and is making the tank act like a new, uncycled tank.


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## COM (Mar 15, 2008)

This discussion supports the concept of using filtration with multiple pads or using smaller filters and only cleaning / changing one at a time.

Personally I have two Emperor 400s running on my 55 gallon tank. Each has a capacity for four Eclipse filter pads and two biowheels. I have each equipped with two Eclipse pads and two media containers filled with AmmoChips and cotton floss. I change one filter pad about once a month or so on each filter (I alternate months) and occasionally put in new AmmoChips and cotton floss. This is significantly less than the manufacturer would recommend but I have crystal clear water and no problems whatsoever.

Just a thought...


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## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

Okay if you want to do a deep clean that is fine. However you cannot deep clean the entire tank at once. Well you can but it is not recommended. The bacteria live primarily in 2 places: The filter and the gravel. So you don't want to clean both the filter and the gravel at the same time. 

When you clean the filter you can help yourself the most by cleaning the old pad in water change water. If you feel you just cannot do that then set aside a bucket of treated (amquel, prime, etc) water so that it is dechlorinated before you rinse. That is taking things a bit far though. If you want to change out the sponge then don't deep clean the filter at the same time. You can rinse it out but not really anything more than that. 

If you want to scrub the filter itself put the sponge and biomedia into old tank water. Then you can scrub the filter casing to free it of hard water buildup and other gunk. 

I would then wait a week or two before doing any gravel vacs. 

If you take the cleaning in stages like this then you will likely not have any problems at all. By the way "brown" is most likely diatomes and will go away on their own. While they are somewhat unsightly they are not harmful at all.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

His tank is 6 months old. I find that with low-light + hard, alkaline water, brown diatoms can grow indefinately. I agree they are just ugly, but don't hurt anything.


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## Knight~Ryder (Dec 2, 2007)

emc7 said:


> + hard, alkaline water, brown diatoms can grow indefinately.


Seems to be my problem for now...


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## Knight~Ryder (Dec 2, 2007)

Alrighty, I did my test.

2 days after big change:

PH as always 8.2 (has never changed)
Nitrite - a big 0
Ammonia is 0.1

There seems to be no spike even after the massive filter/unit clean and change as well as the gravel vaccuming.

So I guess I have nothing to worry about.....or do I need to change water?


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## Fishfirst (Jan 24, 2005)

ammonia is .1 so I would probably do small ones dayly til your bacteria can catch up (usually less than a week) Also you can skip a couple days of feeding and that may solve your problem as well.


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## trashion (Aug 24, 2007)

Ammonia should always be zero due to the mechanism of the nitrifying bacteria, so any ammonia indicates that there was a spike.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Ya, but its less than .5. If it goes away by tommorrow, spike over. Big deal. If it goes up change water.


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## Knight~Ryder (Dec 2, 2007)

emc7 said:


> Ya, but its less than .5. If it goes away by tommorrow, spike over. Big deal. If it goes up change water.


So if there was a little ammonia, how come there was no nitrites?


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## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

My bet is that the nitrites are just not going fast enough to convert the ammonia, but they are there. Even just not feeding for a couple of days could solve this problem.


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## Knight~Ryder (Dec 2, 2007)

Obsidian said:


> My bet is that the nitrites are just not going fast enough to convert the ammonia, but they are there. Even just not feeding for a couple of days could solve this problem.


I'm scared about my precious bolivian rams. They never go to the top and eat, and I am worried they will get weak.


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## Fishfirst (Jan 24, 2005)

lol, then instead of laying off the feeding just do some smaller water changes to compensate... its all good


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

ammonia comes first, You get nitrite when the ammonia goes away. Don't worry about the rams, cichlids can go at least 4 or 5 weeks before the suffer serious damage from starvation. I would cut feeding to once every other day until ammonia and nitrite are gone


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## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

Rams would love some sinking cichlid foods  That would be a great way to ensure they are eating. You can also feed them other meaty kinds of food. Mine loved shrimp pellets. It would be easy to overfeed these foods to beware of that.


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## COM (Mar 15, 2008)

I wouldn't get too worried about the ammonia spike. You clearly went a little overboard on cleaning. In this circumstance, I would expect an ammonia spike, then a nitrite spike, then some higher nitrate levels. This should all settle out within a week or so.

In the future, try not to clean the filter, gravel, and do a heavy water change at the same time.


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## maykaym4 (Dec 2, 2008)

Whewh. My tank is finally back on track and normal. Now I know what NOT to do next time. Haha. Thank you to everyone!


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## 207lauras (Jan 28, 2009)

*still confused*

ok I am a dork with a 10 gallon aqueon kit that I purchased at petco. I was under the impression that I needed to change my filter (the white one with the charcoal or whatever in it that looks like a scrubby pad) every 4-6 weeks. This unit doesnt have a bio wheel (like my old eclipse system did) but there is a weird plastic insert that is kind if like a 2nd plastic filter that the water goes through just before it spill out into the tank. I change the white one probably every 3 weeks at the moment (because it looks nasty and the mopani wood is still leaching tannins) and leaving the plastic one alone. Am I wrong in what I am doing?


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## FlatLine (Dec 30, 2008)

I usually vacuum half my gravel at a time, I take the water that I emptied out of the tank, let the solids settle, then I use it to scrub my ornaments, thermometer and anything else before I put them back in. I then have a couple 5 gallon pals that I have sitting with water I poured a day or 2 prior with a bubble bar in each, with the appropriate amount of water conditioner. This way, in theory, no bacteria should be killed, just moved into the waste water. I then use the waste water in small amounts as plant fertilizer, which seems to work quick well compared to my old regimen of miracle grow.


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## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

You want to change it every 4-6 weeks, with going closer to 6. To help with the tannins you can get an additional thing of charcoal to assist you if you can get some that will fit in there. The tannins will continue to leak for a while so in the meantime you just need to be patient. It will all be good


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