Dirty Ancistrus and ammonia

[captmicha]

My tank maintenance needs have seriously shot up.

I typically understock and oversize to cut down on my maintenance bc I'm not able to keep up with it any other way. I usually had to do like a water change a month on most of my tanks.

But I've added just a few Ancistrus to some of my tanks, and the water quality goes bad really quickly. Now I'm having to do a water change 1x a week when it used to be only 1x a month.

I have several tanks. This is so much more maintenance now and I have health issues so it's a big deal.

Example of a set up: 55 gallon with a male Goldfin Kadango and three Paralabidochromis chromogynos. Sand substrate and rocks. With a 75 gallon HOB Biowheel filter that I've gutted and it's stuffed with 40 Poret. I don't think this is bad biological filtration for this size tank and set up.

But I added just two Ancistrus and now serious ammonia readings are happening after just a week.

Another set up: planted 65 gallon with three female Rainbow Cichlids. I've got *two* 75 (or over, I can't recall exact amount it's rated for) HOB Penguin Biowheels that I've gutted and stuffed with the 40 Poret. I put just three Ancistrus in there and now it's an ammonia farm.

I don't have ammonia in my water supply.

Does this sound about right? I'm having this issue with every tank I've put max 3 Ancistrus in.

I don't feed that much, but I do have algae issues. (Lights, no fertilization and Nitrites in water.)

Can these little fish really be causing so much ammonia so quickly?

 

[lkelly]

So you have a reasonably fast flow HOB filter with poret foam as the media? You might be essentially using it as mechanical filtration. At faster flow rates I'm not sure the bacteria colony will properly build up in the poret. There's a reason why sponge filters and HMF has slower flow rates - it gives the water time to make contact with the biological media to allow bacteria to grow.

Maybe try to add some sponge filters driven with air pumps.

 

[captmicha]

So you have a reasonably fast flow HOB filter with poret foam as the media? You might be essentially using it as mechanical filtration. At faster flow rates I'm not sure the bacteria colony will properly build up in the poret. There's a reason why sponge filters and HMF has slower flow rates - it gives the water time to make contact with the biological media to allow bacteria to grow.

Maybe try to add some sponge filters driven with air pumps.

Good catch, I didn't consider that.

Thanks, I'll try it out.

I'm not sure how much/size a sponge/s I should use. I won a bunch at auction so don't have packaging with them.

Any idea?

 

[lkelly]

Maybe try 2. It's going to take some time for them to get up to speed.

 

[captmicha]

Maybe try 2. It's going to take some time for them to get up to speed.

Am going to squeeze my established filter sponges out to seed them.

 

[JLW]

Interestingly, while fish like ancistrus produce copious amounts of poop, they don't produce much ammonia. Their waste is made up of undigested wood, as well as algae and other plant matter, none of which is particularly protein rich enough to produce a lot of ammonia (as compared to other diets). Its more likely that an increase in ammonia is either coincidental, or possibly due to a change in the biota of the tank, if there is indeed piles of pleco poop depleting oxygen.

Its kind of amazing that anything can extract enough to survive and grow from wood. Its got trace amounts of nitrogen, usually around 1% or so, but the bulk of it is cellulose and lignin, which are entirely carbohydrate based. They have to grind A LOT of wood to get any nutrition at all, and as a result, they're pretty effective at removing that nutrition without wasting any.

 

[captmicha]

Interestingly, while fish like ancistrus produce copious amounts of poop, they don't produce much ammonia. Their waste is made up of undigested wood, as well as algae and other plant matter, none of which is particularly protein rich enough to produce a lot of ammonia (as compared to other diets). Its more likely that an increase in ammonia is either coincidental, or possibly due to a change in the biota of the tank, if there is indeed piles of pleco poop depleting oxygen.

Its kind of amazing that anything can extract enough to survive and grow from wood. Its got trace amounts of nitrogen, usually around 1% or so, but the bulk of it is cellulose and lignin, which are entirely carbohydrate based. They have to grind A LOT of wood to get any nutrition at all, and as a result, they're pretty effective at removing that nutrition without wasting any.

Thanks. I need to see about upping my filtration game. Start fertilizing to get my plants taking up more nutrients too.

Maybe test the flow rate of my current filters to see if it's friendly to biological filtration.

I need to get an air pump, so I've seeded and put sponge on the intake tubes in the meantime.

I mix and match certain equipment anyways, so I think I'll probably eventually end up with sizable sumps for shared filtration with alike conditions.