[TK220]

A little background, I was out of town for work two weeks ago and as a surprise my wife cleaned our 220 gallon tank (I normally maintain the tank). Problem is, she did about a 75% water change and cleaned all of our filter media with tap water. I now have high levels of ammonia, no nitrites and and no nitrates. I can only assume that she killed all of our beneficial bacteria in her aggressive water change and filter cleaning. Which I still find strange, it seems like some bacteria would have survived in the gravel?!

What do I do now?! I have a fully stocked 220 gallon aquarium that has been running for over a year now and I do not want to lose any of my beauties (full list of tank dwellers below).

I have been doing 20% water changes every other day and doubling the dose of Prime. I have also been adding "cycle" to expedite the cycling process. Is there any other action I can take?

My little guys all seem to be doing fine, but I want to make sure I am doing everything possible to help them get through my wives brutal cleaning effort. Any ideas on how long it will take to get the tank cycled again?

Tank Dwellers
1 Large Green Severum
1 Keyhole Cichlid
1 Convict Cichlid
1 Firemouth Cichlid
2 Blood Parrots
1 Bala Shark
6 Clown Loaches
5 Giant Danios
4 Australian Rainbow Fish
1 Pleco
2 Corys

 

[edouthirt]

Some bio-spira should help... imo "Cycle" is worthless junk. bio-spira is the only product that has worked for me to actually speed up a cylce.

However, I think that bio-spira is now called something else "The one and only" or something like that...

check out the marineland website to get more info on it...

If you go this route... add the bio-spira and stop doing the water changes. If you continue the water changes you will remove the bio-spira from the tank before it can take affect... I've read that it can take 2-3 days for all the beneficial bacteria in the product to adhere to media/substrate/ets... so you don't want to be doing water changes right away.