ammonia won't go down!

This was why I asked if you were using prime, my bad for not reading far enough to see that you were using the Big Al's stuff. That is probably your issue I think.

This is the "Multi-purpose" stuff correct? If you read the label it will say "neutralizes chloramines". Now I am only going on the assumption that you are using city water. If you are there is a great chance that you have chloramines. Products that say "neutralize" rather than "removes" in reference to chloramines are only breaking the chloramine bond, which is made up of chlorine, and ammonia. Breaking this bond releases free ammonia into your aquarium, and this is where you start to have issues like you are having now. One of the major things that has me suspect of your conditioner, is that you do large water changes and the level of ammonia doesn't change.

You need a product that says "removes" chloramines and ammonia, and then you are on the right track. In my experience, prime gives a false ammonia reading. I have been using a powder called ClorAm-X, and it has worked beautifully. I too use the method you do for water changing but I put the product in before re-filling.

I only know this because I spent several weeks banging my head against the wall like you are doing now, and I have been raising fish for over 30 years now. The folks at Jemco are the ones that figured it out for me. As an old-school fish keeper, I tend to stick to a product once I am happy with it, and the one I was using wasn't helping with the chloramines.

You are likely to get some folks dis-agreeing with me and saying I don't know what i am talking about but believe me the product I am usuing now is one of two that have gotten rid of the very issue you describe here.

If you are not using city water, and chloramines are not present, then I'd say your tank is cycling. Hope this helps!

Rich
 
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From what i know there aren't any products that will make ammonia and chlorine magically disappear. What the vast majority of them do is 'neutralize' them into a harmless state so that they can off-gass (chlorine) or be converted (ammonia) to nitrite then nitrate via the beneficial bacteria.

Andrew - I think that a lot of confusion comes in because your tank is still cycling. During this process you will have ammonia in your tank, and you will be constantly converting it to ammonium during your water changes. I believe your beneficial bacteria can and will still form out of the ammonium. Eventually you will not have any ammonia readings in your tank.

How you know when you have an ammonia problem? After your tank is cycled and you notice ammonia in your tank you may have a problem. What you want to do when you notice ammonia in your tank is to test your tap water for ammonia, if you notice ammonia in your source your are most likely not having a BB problem. After you put this water into your tank with water conditioner your tank will test positive for ammonia. Twenty four hours later test again and all ammonia should be gone. If you are still testing positive for ammonia at the same levels, you may have a BB problem. If it is significantly lower, but not gone, you might have a slight BB problem.

Does this help clear some things up?
 
It's not that confusing.

If you add prime to "neutralize" the ammonia it will still read on the test because it converts the ammonia to a less toxic form, it doesn't remove it.

If you do a large water change and immediately test and your ammonia still reads the same, even though your tapwater has no ammonia, then I think there is something wrong with your test. A 50% water change should noticeably make the ammonia read lower.

Once you establish biological bacteria (which takes a month or two) then your ammonia and nitrites should read 0 at all times (there will still be a negligible amount since the bacteria don't convert it immediately, but it will be too low to read on a normal test). As of right now your tank is not fully cycled so the ammonia your fish produce is not being converted to nitrite because your first set of bacteria is not yet present. After it IS converted to nitrite it will take awhile for the nitrifying bacteria that convert that to nitrAtes to show up. After both sets of bacteria have established you will have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and readable nitrAtes.
 
RiVerfishgirl said:
It's not that confusing.

If you add prime to "neutralize" the ammonia it will still read on the test because it converts the ammonia to a less toxic form, it doesn't remove it.

If you do a large water change and immediately test and your ammonia still reads the same, even though your tapwater has no ammonia, then I think there is something wrong with your test. A 50% water change should noticeably make the ammonia read lower.

Once you establish biological bacteria (which takes a month or two) then your ammonia and nitrites should read 0 at all times (there will still be a negligible amount since the bacteria don't convert it immediately, but it will be too low to read on a normal test). As of right now your tank is not fully cycled so the ammonia your fish produce is not being converted to nitrite because your first set of bacteria is not yet present. After it IS converted to nitrite it will take awhile for the nitrifying bacteria that convert that to nitrAtes to show up. After both sets of bacteria have established you will have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and readable nitrAtes.
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Just for the record I do agree that this could be a cycling issue. The level not going down after large water-changes was what got me going on the conditioner.
 
If adding water conditioner to the water (to deal with the chlorine) increases your ammonia levels, doesnt EVERYONE have elevated ammonia levels on the test kit? We all have to add this when we change water right ?

I will change 50% of the water tonight, replace the water, THEN test for ammonia. Then I will add the water conditioner.

how about that...... i will report back asap

thanks
 
Sorry to jump in here but way back in the early parts of this thread there was mention on cleaning the filter. This is probably not needed in a one month old tank with a few 'baby' fish in it. Also how is this being done? If the cleaning is under a tap using city water you will kill most of the bb. I will assume that this is the case since you are using a python to pull out water so you will not have any aquarium water to clean the filter in. The water going down the sink from your python is a mix of tap water (chlorinated) and aquarium water. Bad for the bb trying to grow in your fitler if that is what you are using. Only clean with 100% aquarium water, it is safe for your bb.
Keep up with the partial water changes to keep ammonia down. To keep your bb safe in the filter when doing the changes you need to shut it off until you have replaced all the water and the Prime has been added and given a few minutes to work. This will be a huge help to cycle the tank. Later when all is well you can start looking at a maintenance program on your filter. I do partial media changes every couple of months and clean the filters every few months depending on fish bioload. Fewer fishies means fewer cleanings.
 
Michel said:
If the cleaning is under a tap using city water you will kill most of the bb. I will assume that this is the case since you are using a python to pull out water so you will not have any aquarium water to clean the filter in. The water going down the sink from your python is a mix of tap water (chlorinated) and aquarium water. Bad for the bb trying to grow in your fitler if that is what you are using. Only clean with 100% aquarium water, it is safe for your bb..
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Hey again... No I have not yet cleaned the filter... but when I do, I do know to use aquarium water, not tap water... thanks for the reminder though.

I picked up some prime today and will start using it tonight when i change 50% of the water.

I just got back from Big Al's here in Toronto, and I bought a Emperor 400 filter to assist my Eheim G160... futureproofing I guess :)

I spoke to one of the sales guys in the fish area and he said that I should not change the water in the tank at all as it prolongs the cycle from completing. I then said that the Ammonia is 1.5 now and what it it rises to 2 or 3 even ? he said that it HAS to peak and then it will come down again, and If i keep changing the water, it will take forever. I explained that I don't really wish to see all of my fish perish due to the ammonia levels, but he said not to worry as its the way to do it. The bacteria will grow and take care of the ammonia.

YIKES!
Not sure I trust this opinion, but sound kinda dangerous, and CONTRARY to all of the advise I have been getting here.

I told him that i read (here on this forum) that the bacteria is located in the filter, not the water, and changing the water just keeps it at safe levels until the bacteria can catch up... he disagreed and said just leave it alone and it will take care of itself.
 
Michel said:
Keep up with the partial water changes to keep ammonia down. To keep your bb safe in the filter when doing the changes you need to shut it off until you have replaced all the water and the Prime has been added and given a few minutes to work. .
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When you use the PRIME, and it raises the Ammonia readings for your test kit... (As it "converts" the ammonia to a safer by product) how long would this "false" reading last. When can I do another reading and get more realistic results?



thanks
 
andrewturk1970 said:
When you use the PRIME, and it raises the Ammonia readings for your test kit... (As it "converts" the ammonia to a safer by product) how long would this "false" reading last. When can I do another reading and get more realistic results?



thanks
Click to expand...

I think you're confusing yourself because you're misreading.

Prime does NOT raise ammonia levels. It converts ammonia that's already present in the tank to a less toxic form which will still read on tests. So say you have 1ppm ammonia in your tank. If you add prime, even though it detoxifies ammonia, you will still see 1ppm ammonia on your test. The biological bacteria will still consume the ammonia in the non-toxic form, so until you get biological bacteria built up you can only remove ammonia through water changes. Prime detoxifies it (makes it less harmful to your fish) but does NOT remove it from the tank.
 
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