New Tank & Ammonia Problems

[budrecki]

Thanks again. So for now I will continute doing 50% changes twice daily and I will replace my Ammonia Filter every other day until I can get the ammonia to be undetectable

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PLease explain. What do you mean by change you ammonia filter? Are you using zeolite?

What is your ammonia reading straight from the tap?

 

[carpguy]

The main goal at the moment, since this is a fishy cycle, is keeping the fish alive. Water changes will help with this. Ammonia neutralizer will also help with this. pH levels and temperature also have a lot to do with ammonia toxicity (higher is worse in either case). Leave the pH alone, maybe turn the heater down to 70 or 72.

Ammonia neutralizers neutralize ammonia, they don't 'remove' it. It doesn't go anywhere: its still in the water. You will continue to get true readings for neutralized ammonia. They may also react with other chemicals or with the test kits and produce false positives. The bit about sodium thiosulfate in Prime reacting with chloride ions in the test kit is in this second case. Amquel uses a different chemical: I think it'll read true with the salicylate kits, but I'm not 100% on that. I couldn't find the active ingredient for Ammo-lock.

When the ammonia-eaters get established they'll start producing nitrites. When you start seeing nitrite levels rising, ammonia levels should be falling. That might be a good time to lay off the neutralizer and see if you can get a true read on your ammonia.

Personally I like Amquel, have heard good things about Prime, have no experience with Ammo-lock.

 

[carpguy]

Just another thought for when you hit the Nitrite stage and you want to back off on all the water changes and the ammonia neutralizers…

(Also from the SkepticalAquarist ):

Salt and nitrite uptake. The chloride ion of salt has the desirable ability to inhibit the uptake of nitrite into fishes' blood.…

How much salt should you be adding to counteract nitrite?… In order to be effective, the chloride-to-nitrite ratio should be five to one. So if nitrite tests at 1 ppm, you should add enough salt (as a temporary measure) to give a chloride level of 5 ppm. This corresponds to about 8.5 ppm of NaCl (table salt); very little — a fifteenth of a teaspoon or just a pinch — in ten gallons. In fact, your water quite likely already carries this much salt, without any extra dosing at all; at any rate, your normal partial water changes will dilute out additional salt after the crisis has passed.

There's a lot of good stuff at the link that I replaced with three dots…

Hope That Helps

 

[Dan06]

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PLease explain. What do you mean by change you ammonia filter? Are you using zeolite?

What is your ammonia reading straight from the tap?

It's called an Aqua Pure Filter Pad Ammonia remover.

As for my ammonia reading straight from the tap, I just did a test and the readings were 0ppm.

 

[Dan06]

Carp, Red, RRKSS:

I have picked up stress coat and chloramine treatments.

I have just done ANOTHER 50% water change. While I began to pour the new water in, I noticed a thick, gooey white substance floating around in various parts of the tank, what is this?

The good news, the water has cleared significantly, it's still cloudy but no where near as bad. Also the Ammonia has dropped from 4ppm to about 1.5ppm.

I think I will do another 50% water change before midnight tonight.

 

[maxwell1295]

Carp, Red, RRKSS:

I have picked up stress coat and chloramine treatments.

I have just done ANOTHER 50% water change. While I began to pour the new water in, I noticed a thick, gooey white substance floating around in various parts of the tank, what is this?

The good news, the water has cleared significantly, it's still cloudy but no where near as bad. Also the Ammonia has dropped from 4ppm to about 1.5ppm.

I think I will do another 50% water change before midnight tonight.

Good to see your ammonia level dropping. I'm surprised you didn't lose any fish at 4ppm. I would do a water change tonight and then another in the A.M. Try to get it down to the .25ppm range. I'm also fishy cycling a tank and usually do a water change when it hits .50ppm. My fish are doing very well.

 

[Dan06]

Good to see your ammonia level dropping. I'm surprised you didn't lose any fish at 4ppm. I would do a water change tonight and then another in the A.M. Try to get it down to the .25ppm range. I'm also fishy cycling a tank and usually do a water change when it hits .50ppm. My fish are doing very well.

Actually, when the ammonia spiked to 4ppm I lost the 2 translucent fish (can anyone tell me the name? In the 'clear' photo I posted, you can see the fish) and I lost one Bala Shark.

Now I have my 2 Gourami's and 1 Bala Shark left. As of right now, the Gourami's appear to be extremely stressed, one is at the top of the tank gulping and the other is at the bottom. The Bala Shark isn't showing much signs of stress.

 

[budrecki]

Hard to tell from the photo what the fish are, too far away.

As for the other fish left...Ammonia causes burning of the gills, thereby the fish cannot exchange o2 and will suffocate.

Signs of ammonia poisoning are gasping for air, crashing on the bottom, lethargy, loss of appetite, to name a few.

As ph increses above7.0, affects of ammonia increase as well.

Bottom line is, if you want your fish to make it, you have to get that ammonia down.

 

[Dan06]

I have everything I need to drop the PH a little, but after all the trouble I've had with ammolock and such, I think I'd like to keep doing water changes and try to end the ammonia problem just by doing that.

The water is about 85% clear now and one Gourami and the Bala are now behaving normally. The 2nd Gourami has been at the surface in a corner since my last post.

I will test the ammonia again around 8-9pm and decide if I need to do another water change before I head to bed.

 

[budrecki]

Good luck Dan06. Let us know how it turns out.