"~ jan JJsPond.us" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 12:09:17 -0400, "Bill Stock" wrote:

Somewhat rhetorical I think.

I was cleaning the boys yesterday (pond refugees) and I noticed that their
Ammo-Alert was far from it's pale yellow. It was up in the danger zone, so
I
tested with the Ammonia kit and it was reading around 400. YIKES. So I did
a
water change and added all the Ammo-Lock I had. I also added some Stress
Zyme, but I've never had much luck with this in the past. I'll keep doing
daily water changes and replacing the Ammo-Lock until I get things going
again,

Any advice appreciated.

Check your pH & KH. Sounds like you might have had a pH crash. Be careful
with the water changes, use the Ammo-lock to bind first, then water
change,
no more than 10%/day. Otherwise it will take longer for the bio-bugs to
grow and deal with the amount of ammonia created. ~ jan


~Power to the Porg, Flow On!~

Thanks Jan. A PH crash is unlikely, but I'll check. I have crushed coral in
both filters.

I was treating for parasite/fungus a few weeks ago with PP. The third
treatment did seem to knock back the problem, but did not cure it. so I
started feeding Medi-Gold to cure what I think is a recurrent Columnaris
problem. I was concerned about killing the filters with the PP, so I was
rotating the filters (on/off) between treatments. I did not see any Ammonia
spikes after the PP treatments. Last week when I started feeding the
Medi-Gold I started to see a drop in Nitrates. I thought this was the change
in food, but I should have clued in that the Cycle was dead. DOH!

I did a 50% water change again today and the Ammonia is still 1, so I don't
think the Ammo-Lock is doing much. I may do another change tonight or
tomorrow to bring the Ammonia down to .5 and keep it there (or less) until
it falls back to zero.