HELP!! I CANNOT get my ammonia levels down!

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jessikaye01
 
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2012 1:21 pm

HELP!! I CANNOT get my ammonia levels down!

by jessikaye01

I do know a little about my aquarium, but for some reason I have been battling high ammonia levels for a month!

My tank has been setup for about 2 months. I thought it had cycled, as the ammonia levels dropped off to 0 for a week straight.
I have a 75 gallon tank, two top filters (not sure of the makes but they were appropriate for the tank) and 6 days ago added an underground filter. My temperature WAS aroun 74 but read on about that...
I HAD about 30 ish small fish (The biggest one is my peacock eel) but read on...

Then the ammonia spiked. I performed DAILY water changes and resorted to ammonia reducer.
Then the fish contracted Ick so I treated. Went away.
Ammonia never came down. 6 days ago, my fish contracted a fungal infection and I lost 12 fish.
SO. I split the fish into two small tanks (treated the fish) and completely cleaned out the 75 gallon tank. (treated this tank also)
I removed my watersprite (thought maybe it was decaying too much or something)
I added the undergravel filter at this time in addition to the two top filters. Let the tank run for 24 hours, released one set of fish into the 75 gallon tank. There are gouramis, angel fish, neons and clear cats. Two frogs and a snail.
I feed once per day (very small amount at this time) to try to reduce ammonia levels.
My temp is at 78 at this point.
I added API Quick Start, dechlorinated the water-ect.
For 6 days I ran the tank with NO carbon or ammonia chips in the filter bags.
Today (April 16, 2012) I performed a 15 gallon water change and added the carbon and ammonia reducer chips to the filter bags.
I have not lost anymore fish to the disease BUT I cannot get that ammonia down!!!

I realize that I need to start the Nitrogen cycle over again (thus the addition of Quick Start) but shouldn't the ammonia be greatly reduced with a water change??
I have NEVER been able to reduce the ammonia with the water change EVEN when I cleaned the tank.

Any suggestions???
I've been keeping a record over the past 6 days ofwith the 5 in 1 test strips and a seperate ammonia tester by API.
Here is a sample of the results:

April 12 (After complete cleanout)
ph-6.8
alkilinity-40
hardness-150
nitrite-0
nitrate-20
ammonia-2.0

April 13
ph 7.8
alkilinity-40
hardness-150
nitrite-0
nitrate-20
ammonia-.50 (getting better, gave me hope)

**all but ammonia stayed relitively the same-April 14 the ammonia shot to 2.0-April 15 4.0 and today 4.0

Today (april 16) right after water change and another shot of Quick Start, carbon and ammonia chips in filters
ph-7.2
alkilinity-40
hardness-150
nitrite-.5 (CHANGE)
nitrate between 0-20
ammonia-4.0

I will check again later this evening to see if the ammonia chips have reduced it-but I'm at a loss.
I need some professional advice!!! :(


yasherkoach
 
Posts: 1306
Joined: Sat Jul 26, 2008 1:24 pm

Re: HELP!! I CANNOT get my ammonia levels down!

by yasherkoach

first thing to do, is immediately STOP adding chemicals to the tank - NOW!

second, cut back on the feeding...actually feed every other day...only feed what the fish will devour within 5 minutes

third, leave the filters alone...stop adding any chemicals to the filters including chips

fourth, perform 25% water changes every three days

fifth, sometimes tanks go through mini-cycles even after a tank has fully cycled, this is normal especially with a new tank, so do not be alarmed

hardness is way out of proportion

do you have any live plants, if not, you should plant some...anubias is a good beginner plant (get various anubias plants)

sixth, you may want to siphon the gravel

seventh, bring the temperature up to about 82 (do it gradually...set the heater in gradual steps, so by the end of the week, it is 82...this will help slow down an ich that may be in the tank...leave it at 82 for about two weeks, then slowly bring it back down to about 78 (78 is a good temperature for a heater to be at at all times)...also if your fish can handle it, buy some aquarium salt (ONLY FRESHWATER AQUARIUM SALT) add as recommended, this will help their immune systems very much

eighth, only chemical that I recommend for every water change is Prime (a little expensive, but Prime will eliminate all the ammonia in all the water you add to the tank - you can even add Prime directly to the tank in between water changes - I promise, Prime will eliminate ammonia to absolute 0)...but you must take other measures like stated-above to keep ammonia down to 0 as well

ninth, could you list the fish you have, as to make sure there is no incompatibility

and tenth, observe the tank every day: look for fish that may be gasping at the water surface, at the filter outputs...if this is the case, it usually means there is not enough oxygen in the water column, so my advice is, you need to create more water agitation, either by a water pump or air-stones , direct the bubbles to the surface so the bubbles break at the surface, in that gas exchange, oxygen will be created

let us know how it goes - I am sure others will have more advice for you


jessikaye01
 
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2012 1:21 pm

Re: HELP!! I CANNOT get my ammonia levels down!

by jessikaye01

Thank you! I've pretty much done everything that you suggested EXCEPT for the aquarium salt. I just added the ammonia chemicals today-so I'm hoping that may help.

I have a very large bubble stone, two top filters and the undergravel filter that creates more than ample agitation (at least I thought so.. :( ...)

The fish are not gasping for air, they actually seem very healthy! (After this fungus thing was treated)

My temp is 78/80-so I will raise it a notch or two.

I did list the fish in the 75 gallon tank up top-took all live plants out. I do have other fish that were in the same tank, but they are in a seperate tank now so that I could cut down on the ammonia and try to cycle the big tank again.

Only feed once daily (in small dose to cut down on ammonia levels)


natalie265
Site Admin
 
Posts: 746
Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2008 9:48 pm

Re: HELP!! I CANNOT get my ammonia levels down!

by natalie265

I agree with most of yasher's suggestions, except i would not raise the temperature and i would not add aquarium salts. Fungus and ick are both very treatable with medication and that is how i would approach it. As for adding salt to the tank, i've never used it, and my fish thrive. I'm not sure the point. Some fish keepers swear by it, some, like me, get by just fine without it.


Okiimiru
 
Posts: 275
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 10:19 pm

Re: HELP!! I CANNOT get my ammonia levels down!

by Okiimiru

Just to clarify, my post is unrelated to the posts above mine and I'm responding directly to the first, original question of there being too much ammonia in the tank.

There are two ways to remove nitrogenous fish waste from an aquarium:

1. Nitrosomonas bacteria convert ammonia to nitrite, nitrospira bacteria convert nitrite to nitrate, water changes dilute nitrate in the aquarium.
2. Plants eat ammonium to grow new tissues, plants are trimmed and nitrogen in the tissues is removed from the aquarium.

For method 1 the beneficial bacteria live on surface areas, for example on the spongey material in your filter (the 'filter media'). Beneficial bacteria do not live floating in the water column. They need something to attach themselves to. Method 1 would be interrupted by you removing that spongey filter media from the filter box. That is why many filters have multiple bags of things in the box and they tell you in the instructions for the filter to only remove one of those three things every month. It ends up that all three (sponge, bioballs, activated carbon) are all fully new every three months, so the filter company keeps making money from making you buy new things and you keep your cycle intact because there's always a part of the old filter media left to seed the new part. If you put in new bioballs, the bacteria from the sponge will colonize it. If you put in a new sponge, the bacteria living on the surfaces of the bioballs will colonize the sponge. So it's win-win for the filter company to keep making money and for you to maintain a significant population of beneficial bacteria to convert ammonia to nitrite to nitrate.

For method 2 the plants can't just be sitting rotting in the tank, they actually have to be actively growing. This means they need a finely grained, nutritional substrate and light that emits energy in the wavelengths that the chlorophyll in the plant absorbs. Here is a picture of chlorophyll's absorption spectrum: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ectra2.PNG
As you can see there are peaks around 400-500 nanometers and 600-700 nanometers. These are the numbers that chlorophyll can absorb. Light that is shining on the plant that is 500-600 nanometers is reflected, not absorbed, so the plant can't eat it. So buy a bulb that is either "full spectrum" (has energy values at all of the visible wavelengths) or specifically made to grow plants (has peaks in the blue and red section of the spectrum). Also use a substrate that will give the plant the nutrients it needs to grow. I use kitty litter (pure baked clay) because of this article: http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Fertilize ... jamie.html but you can use Seachem Co.'s Fluorite(R), EcoComplete(R), soil capped with a few inches of gravel, soil capped with a few inches of sand... basically anything you want as long as it's not pure silicon dioxide like new pea gravel and sand are. Plants need things like iron, calcium, magnesium to grow. Brand new pea gravel or sand don't have that. There's a way around that if you really want to use gravel/sand; just use fertilizer sticks or allow the fish poop to build up in the substrate. But I don't like the idea of having to regularly fertilize the tank and kitty litter is $4 for 25 pounds and needs no capping layer, so, yeah, it works. My point is that there are a lot of different substrates that work; you don't just have to use kitty litter because I do. *nods* So, growing plants. That's one way to get rid of ammonia.
More info can be found here: http://theaquariumwiki.com/Plants_and_B ... Filtration

Also, use dechlorinated water to fill up your tank during water changes, not chlorinated water. The chlorine we add to our tap water at water treatment plants is specifically added to kill bacteria. Our beneficial bacteria in our filters are bacteria, too, and chlorine can kill them. So can drying out. They really like to stay wet, so any time you're moving stuff around or moving your tank, make sure the sponge in your filter stays submerged in dechlorinated water. As long as you use dechlorinated water you can do as many water changes as you like, and it's going to be necessary to do a lot of them to keep ammonia less than 1 ppm, which can kill your fish and make them sick.

If after all of this you still find that there is ammonia in the tank, perhaps it's time to add another sponge for the bacteria to colonize. You say that you have filters appropriate to the size of the tank. It takes approximately 40 days for any sponge to be as colonized as it is going to get. If it's been 40 days since that filter was added to the tank and you're still seeing ammonia, then the number of 'homes' available for the bacteria to move into (surface area available for them to colonize) is not sufficient and your tank would benefit from the addition of more surface area. May I recommend a fluidized bed filter? If you read this http://www.bioconlabs.com/abtqs.html you'll see they have 6,000 square feet of surface area per cubic foot of media as opposed to trickle filters' 200 square feet of surface area per cubic foot of media. They're also cheap to make; you just need a container, some sand, a pump, and some tubing. Here's an example of a home made one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xutRnqYtPdw Or you could skip the hassle of making one and buy one for about $75, but to me that's worth my time to make one because powerheads are like $20 and I have containers laying around for free. *shrugs* I'm sure you'll figure it out.

If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask :)


jessikaye01
 
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2012 1:21 pm

Re: HELP!! I CANNOT get my ammonia levels down!

by jessikaye01

Ok, so what your saying is I should've kept my plants in there, lol!!

I took them out on advice from the pet store guy that they may be dying. :( Thus creating ammonia.
I do have a full spectrum light.

I have regular gravel from Walmart (just the good ole' multi colored gravel) BUT it has been in there the entire time I've had the tank and also for several months when my friend had it so it is nowhere near new.

With my filters, I have 1 sponge in the back of each bio bag. (4 sponges altogether)-is this going to be a problem or is this a good thing? I had them in for about a month-then when they contracted the infections I took the sponge out like the instructions said.
Also with the sponge-I could not remember if they are supposed to go in front of the actual carbon containing bag or behind...could someone clairify that for me????

Thank you for all of the suggestions!! I am very interested in replanting plants-can I do so with the ammonia levels so high??

I've also noticed all of the other levels are rising as well which is starting to alarm me...
Fish look happy and healthy though..no funky actions or growths (lol) YET...


jessikaye01
 
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2012 1:21 pm

Re: HELP!! I CANNOT get my ammonia levels down!

by jessikaye01

Also, I do have the undergravel filter in addition to the two top filters.


Okiimiru
 
Posts: 275
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 10:19 pm

Re: HELP!! I CANNOT get my ammonia levels down!

by Okiimiru

"I had them in for about a month-then when they contracted the infections I took the sponge out like the instructions said."
Removing the sponges from the filters and letting them dry out is what 'uncycled' your tank, making it unable to process ammonia. Whenever you remove the filter from your tank during a time of medication, you want to set the sponges in dechlorinated water so the bacteria on them doesn't die. It takes approximately 40 days for a new population of beneficial bacteria to reach a high enough number to process the fish waste immediately into nitrate. Check out slide 8 of this powerpoint for a graph: http://www.ag.auburn.edu/~davisda/class ... Design.pdf
It's going to take time for the population of bacteria on your sponges to grow up. As long as there is water flow through the sponges they will be colonized by bacteria, so placement really isn't that big of an issue. If the sponges get clogged up with detritus over time and water does not flow through them, squeeze them out over a sink and then put them back where they were. You don't want to wash them with soap or chlorinated water.

"Ok, so what your saying is I should've kept my plants in there, lol!!
I took them out on advice from the pet store guy that they may be dying. :( Thus creating ammonia."
The way to tell if a plant is taking in or releasing ammonia is to pinch it with your fingernail. If the plant is mushy, it's rotting. If the plant is crunchy, it's growing.
The way to tell if the plant enjoys your substrate is to give it a few weeks and then tug on the stalk. If there are fine, threadlike roots coming from it then it enjoys your substrate. If the base of the plant is rotting and does not have roots coming out of it then you might want to change substrates. A simple tug will tell you whether or not it likes your substrate. If it stays in, it's got lots of roots. If it comes out easily and has no roots on it and is rotting, well, it didn't like it there. That's not to say that no plant will like it there, but that this species definitely doesn't.

"I am very interested in replanting plants-can I do so with the ammonia levels so high??"
Yes. It's food for them.

By the way, I know you didn't ask, but ich is an opportunistic infection. I've never heard of it striking a tank with 0 ppm ammonia, 0 ppm nitrite, and less than 30 ppm nitrate. A pathogen can be present without infection occurring. Only when the immune system is compromised does infection occur. Dirty water makes fish susceptible to ich. Ich's always there and it's an unrealistic goal to completely remove it from your system. Usually when you clean the water it removes the stress and the fish's immune system makes it no longer susceptible to infection.


yasherkoach
 
Posts: 1306
Joined: Sat Jul 26, 2008 1:24 pm

Re: HELP!! I CANNOT get my ammonia levels down!

by yasherkoach

Natalie - in cases of ich ONLY...to incrementally raise the temperature, what it does is it slows down the process of ich's reproduction cycle

ich is a process: ich forms inside the fish...it slowly eats away the inner scales so that a cyst protrudes from the scale, when it bursts, it falls to the gravel, but in order for it to find another host (a fish) it must attach to a new fish, and the cycle repeats itself

what higher temperature does is, it slows down the process - does not eradicate the problem - only slows it down, so that there will be more time between the ich finding a new host

what salt does, is it protects the fish's immune system in order to help fight off the ich process - it does not completely do away with ich, but it does help the fish better combat any ich

as for medication - which I completely frown upon, as you must know by now, I do not use any chemicals in the tank - though as stated above, I do recommend Prime (it will completely bring even high levels of ammonia down to 0 in an instant...it's a little expensive, but well worth the investment if there is an ammonia problem) - but you are correct Natalie, that as long as the carbon is not in the filters - for as we know, carbon will literally minimize the effect any medication may have - then yes, one could use medication to eradicate the ich problem (or any other bacterium, disease, etc)

Okiimiru made an excellent point, by taking out the live plants as well as the filters - word of advice: most fish salesmen have very little idea of science or even the basics of the fish hobby, so please please never listen to a salesman - the good bacteria was unable to keep up with the ammonia which is from the fish feces, thereby causing the rise in the ammonia and nitrite level - or a complete new cycle or mini-cycle

so absolutely, you need to replant the tank and the best way to handle filters - you should have a filter box that allows two filter pads, that way, when you rinse - ONLY RINSE IN COOL WATER - one pad, the other pad remains in the filter box or there is a good amount of good bacteria or nitro-bacteria left in the filter box, and that way, it will certainly help the tank from going into a cycle or mini-cycle

let us know how it goes...what decisions you made since all of these replies - I look forward to your response(s)


Alasse
 
Posts: 993
Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 5:35 am
Location: QLD Australia

Re: HELP!! I CANNOT get my ammonia levels down!

by Alasse

Raising the temperature SPEEDS UP the life cycle of ich. You raise the temp so you can get rid off it from your tank faster.

Salt irritates the fish, the fish then produces a thicker slime coating to protect itself.

Irritating a fish that is already stressed seem beyond stupid to me *L* Go and buy the proper medication and use as directed!

Nature knows best!
Freshwater fish are just that (no salt)
Brackish fish are just that (traces of salt)
Saltwater fish are just that (salt required)

HELP!! I CANNOT get my ammonia levels down!

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