I thought I would shake off any embarassment and admit to doing something REALLY stupid, in the hopes that it might help remind others NOT to do as I did.

I have a 40 breeders tank, filtered to 570gph and a UV. The tank has been fully cycled. It contains 5 (I know - I deliberately overstocked it!) smaller Phoenix fish. They are only about 2 inches in body, so, with careful/frequent water changes it has been easy to keep the parameters perfect even with heavy feeding.

Until now.

I have a cast on my writing wrist. So I have been writing with my other hand. I am semi-ambidextrious - but my handwriting is not that great with my "good" hand, and it lacks a lot with my "off" hand. I carefully wrote in my fish book that I changed the water on the 24th of May. Unfortunately, my handwriting transposed Tues into Thurs, and 24 into 29. When I tested the water today, it came up 8+ ppm ammonia! Nitrites were trace and nitrates were 40....



So, I moved the fish into a fresh water filled temp tank, and changed out 99% of the water, cleaned the filters and washed all the intakes and cartridges..... When the fish were happily esconced in their clean home again, I tested again. The test said the ammonia was over 4 ppm.



That is not, physically possible! First, if I had given it much thought, I would have realized that the fish would not have been happily dancing for their food and swimming happily around the tank if the ammonia had truly been at 8+. They would have been DEAD. They are not.

Secondly, these are delicate tailed fish - long flowing tails that show problems with the slightest water problem. They are in fine finnage.

I then realized that I was using the end of the testing bottles. That may not be good. I cracked open a new set. I tested again and then again, getting zero ammonia both times.

I wish I had saved a bit of the original water so I could have retested it - I am truly curious as to just how bad the water really was!!!!

The lesson learned:

Write carefully! REading the wrong dates and days for water changes can be misleading. Instead of changing out every 4 days, I ended up going a lot longer!

Test the water regularly. I had gotten rather lazy with my water testing - for I know my tanks and fish so well (I thought) that a test was not necessrily done each and every change.... I need to get my rear in gear and test more than I do.

If the first test seems outrageous, it may be! I panicked and dived in for a major water change! It used up a lot of my limited water supply for the day - and will crimp my other tank's supply (I can do it, though, no fears!), as well as a couple of hours and a lot of muscle carrying bucket after bucket of water to and from. If I had actually stopped and THOUGHT about it for a moment, I would have realized that what I was seeing was not possible. Then I would have retested and found out exactly WHAT was happening in that tank.

So : Test your tanks regularly. But apply brains to what the readings are, too! That way you will not be panicking over a situation that is not as it first appears.

I feel a bit like a fool, but, BOY do those little Phoenix have a clean home!

Bless it is very easy to go into panic mode when you think something is not right though. Plus doing all that with a cast on your hand must not have been easy. We could all learn something from this post. alistair

Here are what the tests looked like.... the far left one was the first one I ran!!!!!



The next one was run after changing out 39+ gallons and cleaning everything and refilling....

The final two were run with the new test kit.

Quite a difference, huh?

Hi Daryl,,,
I went through a very similar situation, (without the cast, thank goodness) but it was with nitrates...
My readings were hanging miserably around 30 - 40 and I was changing 40 - 50% of the water daily for about 2 weeks with no success. When I "cracked" open the new test kit, my nitrate reading was under 5. I thought maybe I wasn't shaking well enough in the beginning of the test kit and thought it may have messed up the last bit remaining...sounds like the kits may not be very accurate near the bottom. Wonder how many others have run into this problem?

I have definately messed up nitrate tests by not shaking properly before use. I get going on the tests and forget and then am sooooo mad at myself! But I have never had the ammonia do that before! That is most unusual.....

???????????

That test kit is not that old - I go through a lot of tests with all my tanks and such.

?????????????????

I've not tested my tank & greenwater tub for a loooong time. When you got ur tank for a long time you become familiar with its behaviour and kinda know its limits. So instead I've relied on experience and intuition when it comes to changing water.

That is pretty much how I run my tanks - I know by the look, the smell, the feel....exactly what each needs. I keep a book and write all servicing in it, along with all fish observations. On most well established tanks, I do very little testing.

This is why, when I messed up my books so badly, I tested. The tests were so misleading it was ...... "freaking!"....



Those fish are soooooooooooooooo happy, I reckon I should do that more often!

Nice story Daryl, with a happy ending. Glad it WAS a happy ending! Thank you for the reminders! You can never be too careful.

I don't think there is a person on the planet that could blame you for your instant reaction to the false reading. I mean, we're talking about Phoenix's.......

I keep it simple for myself. I change water in my tanks every Friday. I have live plants in both tanks and I feel it's best for them and the fish to keep this routine. I test once a week unless I detect a problem.

You bring up a good point about the test kit. Mine is almost a year old. Perhaps I should replace it??

I had a similar-ish kind of situation, though the results weren't quite so high as yours an old ammonia test kit nearing the end of it's days gave me false positive's. It was such a relief to see that it wasn't really up at all. In the future I think ill just ditch the bottles when they start running on low.

Not exactly on topic but Practical Fishkeeping did lab comparisons on test kits on the market to check their accuracy:

Nitrate

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...p?article_id=96

And pH
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...?article_id=554

And nitrite

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...?article_id=116

Thanks for sharing Daryl...we always learn so much from you!

I COULD NOT HAVE SAID THIS QUOTE BETTER11111111111111

"Test the water regularly. I had gotten rather lazy with my water testing - for I know my tanks and fish so well (I thought) that a test was not necessrily done each and every change.... I need to get my rear in gear and test more than I do."

Punch started to act funny- sleeping on the bottom- eating and falling into a coma while eating - I was freaking out. But of course I thought I knew my tank so well Yeah right. I was doing 3 gallons of water change a day- but i was drawing one gallon, replacing it and then draWing again and so on - so in actuallity - i was only replacing about 2 on a 55 gal- plus- at the time I was a heavier feeder. And of course with a wet/dry and a chemical I thought I had the tiger by the fish tail- so to speak. But the plants wer the tell tale sign that I ignored. They started to grow extremely fast - why you mat ask- the system was doing the conversion so well the Nitrate buildup was extreme and the plants could not take itr up fast enough - and right- rare but true- not Ammonia poisioning - but a rare case of Nitrate toxicity. AHHH Your word are so to the point and could not have been said better.

thank you for the lesson..I need t get better....only tested whenthings got off wack....used to have a weekly log book..will get back to it

I did the same thing a few weeks ago. The fish looked fine, and I had just tested the water a little bit before and everything was fine, but then I tested and ammonia was at 6ppm I changed 50% of the water, and just in case I added some ammonia nutrifier into the water. Unfortunately, I accidentally broke the glass test tube with the last water change, so I have to find a new one before I can do any more tests. The fish seem healthy though, and I still do my water changes every other week.

Does anybody know the shelf life of the water test kits?

I had something screwy happen once like that too, although it must've been operator error...I actually made a post on here about it totally freaking out!

It wasn't a way off reading, but in a tank that had been cycled for 6 months I was getting a .25 nitrite reading all of a sudden. I was like Whyyyyyyyyyyy meeeeee?!? But then I thought to try the test again again and it was perfect 0, tried a third time and still 0. I even tried adding a few extra drops after those tests to see if more would make the water shouw purple (meaning nitrites), but couldn't get it to do it. So I never figured out what happened.

Just goes to show if you get a totally out of whack reading, always double check. And testing often, of course, is good too! I get complacent with my 20 gallon sometimes, and I need to also "get my rear in gear!" before something bad happens to Bart and Lisa. I am always testing my big tank since it is overstocked, so they are usually pretty safe that way.

Glad everything turned out ok Daryl!

Lolafish, It is wholly advisable to purchase new test kits for ALL parameters once a year.

Ah.... I've become pretty lazy with testing my water too. I usually change my water every two weeks or when and if the fish start to look unhealthy ie: bottom sitting, swimming with clamped fins, etc. Also, according to this http://www.aquabotanic.com/plants_and_biol..._filtration.htm plants love ammonia and will only start taking in nitrate after all the ammonia is gone.

That is why a bio filter or wet dry setup is essential to stabilize the ammonia spikes and expedite the conversion to nitrate- and if your fish are at the point of suffering then warning-

you are slowly burning and killing the gills of the fish and soon labored breathing will be permanmant because of permanant damage.

Punch and Eric