skaffen Posted October 15, 2008 Report Share Posted October 15, 2008 I lost a few fish to a nitrate spike after using E-Mycin to get rid of blue-green algae. I never saw the ammonia or nitrite level increase, and overnight within 8 hours the nitrate was at toxic levels, but still zero for ammonia and nitrite. So my question is, how fast does a mature biofilter do the ammonia-nitrite-nitrate conversion? Does ammonia get converted pretty much instantly, and ditto for nitrite? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted October 15, 2008 Report Share Posted October 15, 2008 The same thing happened to me a while ago and I have used furan2 ever since without problems. It must happen pretty quickly because it was in a 250 litre tank which was not heavily stocked. I moved the fish to another tank as soon as I noticed they were stressed but they all died over a period of about a week. Mine were female killies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skaffen Posted October 15, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 15, 2008 Furan2 gets expensive when you're dosing a 440 l tank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ianab Posted October 15, 2008 Report Share Posted October 15, 2008 If you have enough bacteria they will process the ammonia and nitrite almost instantly, hours anyway. The ammonia wouldn't have been released in one burst, it would have been over hours as the algae died and and was broken down by other bacteria in the tank. The only reason you would see an ammonia buildup is if you dont have enough filter bacteria, or they have been killed off by the treatment. The best move now is several large partial water changes to bring the nitrate level down to something safe. A couple of 50% changes should do it, and you can do those as often as you need. It's also likely that other toxins were released when the algae was killed off, and that would help kill off your fish as well. Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skaffen Posted October 15, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 15, 2008 Thanks, Ian. All under control now, pretty much as you said, lots of water changes. Details in the last post in this thread: http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/blue-g ... 31392.html I was just curious about how fast the bio-filter converts. I guess unless you seriously overload it, it keeps ammonia and nitrite almost at zero. My first major fish loss Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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