HELP!!!! my water is horrible

[studlylilmouse]

Yes Jed it was erithrimycin and yes i knew it was going to kill the bacteria. I was informed that it would come back in about a week, i put fresh carbon in the day after treatment was over, just like recommended im going to put a new carbon in tomorrow night. i am going back to using ammo-lock and prine, have to go buy more cycle. i did a water change yesterday and am going to wait a week b4 another, my ammonia level is higher tonight than it was before the water change yesterday thank you all for your helo and concern

[R34dawn]

Originally Posted by unclejed

Hello stud, Excessive water changes will deplete the beneficial bacteria and only exasperate the problem. Also, they will alter the over all chemistry of the tank especially because it is only a 60 gal. You have created a re-cycle by using the EM which I believe is erythimicin. Even though it states it will not deplete the bacteria, that can't always be trusted, unfortunately. Stop the water changes and give the tank a chance to settle down. The prime is a good idea. Add double the dose of Cycle every 3 days fore 3 doses to re-establish a good base. The tank will re-establish itself naturally if left alone now. Use the carbon or similar product to rid the tank of the EM. Hope all goes well, we all do things with the best intentions in this hobby that don't always work out. Keep your chin up!

At this time I don't think there is any bacteria to deplete, (beneficial that is) if he did change enough of the contaminated water it will speed up the colonization of new aerobic bacteria

[Camilsky]

Originally Posted by studlylilmouse

Yes Jed it was erithrimycin and yes i knew it was going to kill the bacteria. I was informed that it would come back in about a week, i put fresh carbon in the day after treatment was over, just like recommended im going to put a new carbon in tomorrow night. i am going back to using ammo-lock and prine, have to go buy more cycle. i did a water change yesterday and am going to wait a week b4 another, my ammonia level is higher tonight than it was before the water change yesterday thank you all for your helo and concern

Just a word of advice: be careful with dosing antibiotics! Please remember that antibiotics work selectively! You get rid of some very defined spectrum of bacteria, whereas other drug-resistant strains survive! You would not like to end up with few gallons of bio-hazardous waste

[Jason McKenzie]

It is possible that you have permanently damaged your biological filtration in you LR and Live sand. the medication will leach from the LR for a very long time.

Unfortunatly I would recommend getting new LR and New sand. Basically starting over

Sorry

[studlylilmouse]

I had never thought about the EM leaching from the LR but duh, makes sense, i even bought 30 lbs of new rock about 4 wks after EM, but i guess i should have done more water changes first, needless to say all fish finally gave in to ammonia, so i shut off power head and am letting HOB run by itself for awhile, just 2 days after last fish is gone, ammonia level is down not sure what its at but test is gone from dark blue to dark green, so hopefully its a step in the right direction. the strange thing is all my crabs are still alive, and i have bristle worms all over the place, and there are still snails alive, i thought these would be first to go from water. oh well this tank is gonna cycle for awhile, im gonna do a few ater change and reseed LR in hopefully a month or so