wacky water after losing power for 2 days

[Magoo]

Hello everyone. I am need of great assistance.

Approximately three weeks ago my apartment building flooded and we were evacuated for two days. The power and all else were turned off during this period. luckily I live on the second floor and was able to return quickly with no damage to our apartment.
Anyways, When I was able to return my goldfish were not doing so well. I have a 55 gallon tank and a Penguin 350 power filter. I have two moors, an Oranda, and a Ryukin. They're all approximately a year old.
I got everything up and running again and things were fine for a couple of weeks. The fish bounced right back into life until recently. Now they seem very unhappy and my oranda is alive but upside down in my tank and hardly eating at all. I ran water tests and these are my results:

Amonia: approximately 4.0 - 5.0
Nitrate: 40 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
hardness: 120
Alkalinity: 80 ppm
pH: 6.4

I did a 50% water change initially and have been doing 10 - 20% changes daily but the levels are pretty much staying the same.

What can I do to change the levels in my tank??
Should I put my Oranda out of his misery??

Pleae help

[Slappy*McFish]

Keep doing your water changes as your tank is recycling at this time. What water conditioner are you using? Seachem's Prime should help with the ammonia and nitrite toxicity while the tank recycles. Treat the entire tank when you do your water changes. Get some Biospira in there as well if you can and increase the aeration...you want as much O2 in the tank as possible.

[Magoo]

I am using AuqaSafe water conditioner.
Should I be adding salt also??

[Slappy*McFish]

I wouldn't bother with salt.

[anonapersona]

Ask if they add chloramines or if they use chlorine and the water also contains ammonia. If so, larger water changes are hurting, for your water conditioner is removing chlorine part of chloraine but leaving ammonia.

Switch to something that handles ammonia and says so explicitly. Prime is good, others work also, AmmoLock works but perhaps too well and may impare the filter.

[Magoo]

This morning I went to LFS and purchased Prime. I did my 10 - 20% water change and added a dose of prime to my tank. I also dug out an old air pump and added it to my tank with two additional air stones. I'll test my water tonight and post the results. I also tested my tap water for ammonia and the reading is 0.

Question??? Is ammonia damage to fish permanent?

The oranda has gotten up and swam around a few times but still goes back to the same spot and lays upside down for hours at a time.

THANK YOU ALL for your help.

[Magoo]

8 pm reading

amonia 5.0
nitrate 20
nitrite 120
hardness 120
alkalinity 80
pH 6.4

[anonapersona]

After using Prime the ammonia is bound and not harming the fish. Same for the nitrite. And the pH less than 7 is good for this situation.

How does the fish look? Give it a few days more before you do anything drastic.

Good work on testing the tank and the tap water, now...Tap water has no ammonia, but test for chloramines by taking a gallon (measure it) and add the correct amount of the old water conditioner to treat it. Use the dropper to count out the correct number of drops, first measure with water how many drops in 1 ml, then figure out what you need to treat one gallon. Anyhow, after you treat the tap water, test it for ammonia. If there was chloramine in the water, you should see ammonia after treatment, when there was not any before. Actually you could use the Prime but it is so concentrated it is harder to measure small amounts correctly, but you can.

Nitrate is down to 20 ppm, that is good, do another 20% water change tomorrow, maybe 30% even. Now that you have the Prime, you can go with larger water changes with no worries.

[anonapersona]

Note that the directions say that when doing water changes with Prime, you should dose for the tank volume, not just the volume of water changed. So a 55 gallon tank has about 50 gallons of water, so use one capful of Prime if that is what the directions say for 50 gallons. This assures you that all the ammonia and nitrite in the tank is treated, not just the 20% you added.

[Magoo]

5 pm reading

amonia 3.0 - 4.0
Nitrate 20
Nitrite 0
hardness 50
Alkalinity 80
pH 6.4

I did a 30 - 40% water change this morning. Amonia seems slightly decreased. Water hardness has dropped. I don't know if that has any real effect on the fish or if it is just because of the chemicals.

I cannot test my tap water yet because I do not have a milliliter dropper. I did figure out that one gallon of water will need a 1/2 ml of the other conditioner in order for me to test. I will pick up a dropper tomorrow after work and post the results.

My Oranda (Bubbles) looks ok. The only noticeable difference is the fact that he lost a single scale (near his butt) and is upside down most of the time. :sick:

Once again Thank You