Ammonia levels still very high! I am about to give up

J

Jeffd1979

AC Members
Nov 18, 2003
228
0
0
46
charlotte nc
Visit site
I have had my 40 gallon tank now for 4 months... the first 3 months my levels were all fine... no ammonia, no nitrite and very little nitrate...4 weeks ago my nitrate and nitrite levels spiked... ammonia was about .2ppm... well 3 weeks ago they went back to normal but the ammonia levels spiked to about .6ppm.... water is so yellow in the test kit you cannot see though it... has been like this for the last 3 weeks.. have been doing about 30% water changes 2 times a week.. today i did a 70% water change and tested the water 2 hrs later and the ammonia level is still at about .5ppm... I have a emperor 280... what would cause this to happen??? It will not go away for some reason...

i tested the kit on the tap water and it comes up 0ppm
i vaccum the gravel when i do water changes
I have 3 baby angels and 2 albino corries..
 
Do you have chlorine or chloramines in your water? If you have chloramines, how do you treat them?
 
Did you use any Ammo-lock or ammo chips or anything like that? They can give false positives sometimes. With your tank size and load, you shouldn't be having any trouble... Maybe your test kit is bad, have you tried taking a water sample to a LFS and having them test it? What are your current nitrIte and nitrAte levels?
 
Originally posted by Ryoken
Did you use any Ammo-lock or ammo chips or anything like that? They can give false positives sometimes. With your tank size and load, you shouldn't be having any trouble... Maybe your test kit is bad, have you tried taking a water sample to a LFS and having them test it? What are your current nitrIte and nitrAte levels?
Click to expand...

I used ammo-lock about a week and a half ago... I tested the kit on some tap water and it came up 0ppm.... Nitrate and nitrite levels are fine... The fish seem fine so i am guessing that something is going wrong here.., :(
 
If you can get it, put some BioSpira in there ... it really works.

Questions:

1) Are you siphoning the gravel? Maybe something is decaying in there?

2) Have you tried pulling the filter and inspecting it to see if anything is decaying there? What kind of filter media are you using?

3) What test kit are you using? You might try getting another test kit (different manufacturer) and seeing if you can duplicate your test results. I use the Hagen Nutrafin Ammonia test kit and so far haven't had any problems with it.
 
Contact your water utility and ask them what they treat your water with (unless you are on a well). Both chlorine and chloramines, entreated, will kill bacteria in your system and may be preventing the colonies from establishing themselves at a size able to process the waste from your tank.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom