New Tank & Ammonia Problems

[carpguy]

If you need to do multiple water changes a day to keep the fish alive, that's OK. Water changes aren't bad for the cycle. You could do water changes perpetually if you wanted to. If there is detectable ammonia, there is more ammonia than the bacteria can handle. If you manage to remove it all, the fish will make more.

The cloudiness is a separate issue. Its fairly common in new tanks. The chemistry is all out of whack. Some bacteria are finding a happy niche and are blooming. It happens. These aren't the ammonia and nitrite eaters, and they're not harmful. When everything settles down they'll go away.

The ammolock may be screwing up your ammonia tests.

 

[Red K]

Since my bio-bag has been through all kinds of nasty ammonia conditions and taken 2 doses of 'cycle' which lead up to the huge ammonia spike... Should I consider putting in a new bio-bag with the next water change?

Personally, I think you should leave it. You will be removing "good" bacteria with it.

The ammolock may be screwing up your ammonia tests.

That's a good point, and I didn't even think of it. But I would still keep doing big water changes.

 

[Dan06]

If you need to do multiple water changes a day to keep the fish alive, that's OK. Water changes aren't bad for the cycle. You could do water changes perpetually if you wanted to. If there is detectable ammonia, there is more ammonia than the bacteria can handle. If you manage to remove it all, the fish will make more.

The cloudiness is a separate issue. Its fairly common in new tanks. The chemistry is all out of whack. Some bacteria are finding a happy niche and are blooming. It happens. These aren't the ammonia and nitrite eaters, and they're not harmful. When everything settles down they'll go away.

The ammolock may be screwing up your ammonia tests.

Thanks for your response again.

The ammo-lock says it treats Chloramine & ammonia issues. Since I have to use tap water for the water changes (I distill it in buckets to help cut down on the bubbles released into the tank as I'm not sure if this stresses the fish or not), I use the ammo-lock to treat the Chloramine too. Should I take a trip to the local shop and purchase a Chloramine treatment product ONLY?

 

[Dan06]

Personally, I think you should leave it. You will be removing "good" bacteria with it.

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.

If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free. I'm open to all the help I can get!

 

[Red K]

Thanks for your response again.

The ammo-lock says it treats Chloramine & ammonia issues. Since I have to use tap water for the water changes (I distill it in buckets to help cut down on the bubbles released into the tank as I'm not sure if this stresses the fish or not), I use the ammo-lock to treat the Chloramine too. Should I take a trip to the local shop and purchase a Chloramine treatment product ONLY?

I would throw that ammo-lock in the trash. Get a water conditioner like Prime or Stress Coat to deal with Chlorine and Chloramines.

 

[Dan06]

Thanks Red!!

I will stop using the ammo-lock and pick up some stress coat. I saw the stress coat yesterday at the store.

Should I use anything to de-toxify the ammonia or should I just keep doing the water changes until it's gone??

 

[rrkss]

The best would be to remove the ammonia via waterchanges. Even though the ammonia is detoxified, high amounts of ammonia in the water column make it hard for the fish to excrete ammonia due to osmotic pressure against the fish. Therefore the ammonia builds up inside the fish and could cause internal organ damage. Detoxification is still good because it will reduce the possibility of gill damage due to NH3 ammonia in the water. The biowheel filter cost me $30 if i remember correctly.

 

[carpguy]

A great place to do a little research is at the Skeptical Aquarist.

They have this to say about Ammonia test kits:

Ammonia tests. There are two basic types of ammonia test kits. Nessler kits have one reagent, that is, a single bottle of liquid or one tablet to dissolve in your water sample. If your ammonia test kit registers in shades of amber, it's Nessler. They generally are quicker to use, but ammonia-locking products (e.g., AmQuel) will cause Nessler kits to give false positive readings.

The other type of kit is salicylate based, with two sets of reagents. If your ammonia test kit registers in shades of yellow to green to blue, it's salicylate. Salicylate test kits are unaffected by AmQuel and similar products, but they do take longer to develop a reading. If your water has chloramines and you're using AmQuel or somesuch, you'll need a salicylate NH3 test.

Don't test for ammonia right after a water change. If you're too liberal with the dechlorinator, you could be getting some false-positive ammonia test results that way, too. According to Seachem at their website, harmless sodium thiosulfate, such as found in Seachem's Prime conditioner, will give false positive readings for ammonia, whether the tests are based on Nessler's Reagent or on salicylate. What happens is this: the sodium thiosulfate, Na2S2O3, is reacting with the chloride ion that is part of the test reagents. After 24 hours, though, according to Seachem, the Na2S2O3 will have have reacted with chloride ions naturally found in water, and will no longer give such false-positive readings.

You might want to make sure you have a Salicylate kit, or you might just want to be aware that the Nessler is unreliable while your tossing the ammolock around so freely. At some point you may have to lay off a little and get reliable results. If that's going to mean dead fish, maybe stick with water changes and the ammonia neutralizer and worry about the tests in a week or so.

 

[Red K]

Should I use anything to de-toxify the ammonia or should I just keep doing the water changes until it's gone??

I would just do water changes.

A great place to do a little research is at the Skeptical Aquarist.

They have this to say about Ammonia test kits:

You might want to make sure you have a Salicylate kit, or you might just want to be aware that the Nessler is unreliable while your tossing the ammolock around so freely. At some point you may have to lay off a little and get reliable results. If that's going to mean dead fish, maybe stick with water changes and the ammonia neutralizer and worry about the tests in a week or so.

Very, very interesting. I've never used a product like ammolock, so this never even occured to me. I guess that's my thing I learned today, thanks.

 

[Dan06]

Man, You guys are awesome!

I'm registered on another forum and I made this exact same post and I got one response in broken english that provided no help!! I love this place!!

Carp, thanks for the information about the false readings. I knew even after using the ammo-lock that it would still test positive for ammonia, but I did not know that it will actually test higher! Thanks for that information!

I guess for now, I will go pick up some stress coat and just continue to do the water changes and hope the fish survive.