Ammonia!! Help!!!

[opie6701]

In my 5, 10 gallon breeding tanks i am having a problem with ammonia on 2/20 i tested for ammonia and it tested between 2-3. i did 25% water change and cleaned the gravel and didn't feed that night. I fed again the evening of 2/22. When went down and checked the ammonia on 2/23 it had went up to between 4-5. so i did a 25% water change and went to my LFS . They recommended Amquel. So I came home and put it in my tanks. on the evening of 2/23 i tested again it had went up to between 6-7. I don't understand why it is going up??? my ph is between 7.0 and 7.4 in all the tanks , the tanks are set at 74 degrees.. What can i do to get the ammonia down? I feed ever other day frozen brine. i am switching to flake food once a day to see if that helps. but i am really just winging it. What should I do??

[opie6701]

Water has also been very cloudy

[wetmanNY]

Your newly-set up tanks haven't cycled.

Better read the AmQuel material on false positive results when testing for ammonia. You need to switch to a salicylate NH3 test.

[opie6701]

They have been running for over a month and i did cycle them with white clouds..

[superstein61]

Yes, as Wetman said - check your test kit. Both AmQueal and Ammolock will give false positive test results with certain Ammonia tests. If you have one using Nessler reagents, it won't work right

[opie6701]

Ok I checked my test kit and it was testing for Nessler reagents. So I went to LFS to buy a kit that would test for salyciade (spelling?) They didn't seem to know what i was talking about. So I showed them a bottle of Amquel and they still didn't know. They asked me to bring in water from my tanks and they would test it for me with what they use to test there tanks with. I did that and ammonia was 0 !!!! I guess I will just have to read more carefully next time. Thanks for your help..

Opie

[superstein61]

Glad to hear Opie. For the future, if you need a test kit, I know Seachem's Ammonia test kit - or their hanging Ammonia Alert that stays in your tank will not read false positives when using Ammolock or Amquel, etc. I am sure there are some others as well

[wetmanNY]

I'm disappointed that you didn't find out what they were using to test for ammonia.

[opie6701]

They used DRY-TAB Ammonia NH3/NH4+ tests.