Does this make sense...

A couple of weeks ago when I got my new Showa Koi the shipper told me to use the following for three weeks as a preventive measeure.



Well I used it for a week and then stopped.

There is a bit of a long winded story as to why I am asking about this but I will cut to the point. Can the use of this destroy the bacteria in my bio-filter?

I had a very unexpected Amonia spike and I can't figure out why. This system has been running for over a year now and the levels are consistently zero across the board.





Steve

Kanaplex is an antibiotic, but the website says it doesn't affect the filter. Lots of people say lots of things...
Melafix is a general anti-bacterial with a fairly low level of active ingredient. Its main medicinal ingredient will kill bacteria, but for it to be truly effective it needs a dosage that would kill fish too. It might, maybe, possibly, conceivably affect bacteria (good or bad) in the concentration it's sold at. People keep telling me it's worked for uninfected wounds, but I've yet to hear of it clearing an infection.

The temperature could also be the culprit, couldn't it? I imagine the bacterial fauna is affected as the water cools down, but if the fish are still in there excreting, that might explain it. Maybe?

I talked to the folks at Pond Care today and they said it is definitely not their product, still trying to get hold of the other guys.

So I am continuing to do twice a day 200gal water changes in order to keep the ammonia levels as low as possible. The systems has a pretty heavy bio-load and I pretty much have no biological filtration until the systems cycles again. Should hopefully get some Nitrites showing up in the next day or so.

Steve

Finally starting to gets some Nitrites showing up, still doing 200gal a day water changes.



Steve

Well I think I have solved the mystery of why/how the bio-filter in this system crashed.

Some of you make look at this and say what a rookie mistake and well maybe it was. However when you are using water from the tap that has bordered on RO water for a number of years you tend to take it for granted.

The problem actually coincided with my local municipality switching from Ozone to Chloramine in there treatment process.

So...

In the picture below the water comes from the tank to the right, flows into the vortex filter, to the bio-filter, into the sump and then on to a UV filter and back into the tanks. My routine for water changes is to open the valve at the bottom of the vortex filter to let out the solid waste and about 200gal of water at the same time. I would then close the valve and stick a hose in the vortex filter replacing the 200gal of water.

Well in essence I was flushing 200gal of Chlorimine laden water through my bio-filter on a fairly regular basis. So guess what that did to my bio-filter?



Since I switched to humping water left in the outside ponds for water changes, my boi-filter has come back online and is doing much better. The ammonia levels have peeking and falling to zero, my Nitrites and Nitrates have peeked and are falling back down as well.

I have now switched back to the city water but treating in prior to adding it to the system with Vanish. I now also add the top up water to the sump, which is as far away from the bio-filter as you can get in the system.



Steve

Glad you managed to figure it out. That is quite a lot of water you have to deal with. Bet your back is glad that you are not humping water anymore.