Crazy High Ammonia in New 5g!

[tomm10]

Okay, my tank is doing fine but my boss has a 5 gal tank he started for his kids just about three weeks ago that is hurting.

He has been getting ammonia levels over 4 for the past two weeks. At a couple of points it was at 8! Believe it or not the two leopard fin danios are still alive and seem to be doing fine.

Just as alarming as the high ammonia is that after three weeks there isn't a hint of nitrites in the tank.

He has been doing regular water changes to try to relieve the fish but with levels that high it still leaves the water pretty nasty.

Its possible that the fish were overfed a bit and he is being careful now to not overfeed but I think you would have to feed them a half a pound of raw hamburger to get the ammonia up to 8.

Any thoughts on what could cause this? I would think that his cycle should at least be starting to show nitrites now. He is going to bring some water to the lfs to have them test it and confirm that his kit works but he did test his tap water for ammonia and it read zero.

[OrionGirl]

Small tanks go bad very quickly--overfeeding would just compound the problem. If your tank is cycled, take some of the media and scrub it in his tank, or give him some of your surface substrate or filter media. This will seed the tank with more bacteria. The truth is, it takes time for these things to develop. As one member says, "Nothing good ever happens fast!"

[tomm10]

Okay, OG. I thought this was really strange but apparently just one of the pitfalls of a small tank.

He's been on the hunt for bio-spira (lfs is out at the moment) but maybe I'll just bag some wet gravel from my tank for him.

Thanks.

[JSchmidt]

With a small tank, there's really no good excuse not to do sufficient water changes to keep ammonia below 1 or 1.5 ppm. BioSpira would help, but water changes are almost free...

Jim

[tomm10]

He's been doing water changes but with ammonia that high there's only so much that helps. I was more concerend by the fact that nitrites haven't appeared after three weeks.

[JSchmidt]

If ammonia is getting above 1.5 ppm, then he
(a) isn't changing enough water (amount and/or frequency);
(b) is feeding too much and/or too often;
(c) is tremendously overstocked; or
(d) more than one of the above.

There's no reason ammonia levels during a fishy cycle can't be managed by water changes alone, regardless of tank size.

Jim

[tomm10]

Well, I know he's not overstocked so my guess is its a combination of overfeeding and not enough water changes. Most likely he's not changing enough water when he does and his kids might be snealing in feedings.

He's hidden the food now ;)