Reply With QuoteWhat kind of filter are you using and how mature is the media?
ok noob here and I only have API test kit for ammonia. I have a 2ft tank and recently one of my platy fish died and tested for ammonia and shows 4ppm. Have changed approx 20litres of water every 2 days and after 3 water changes no sign of improvement. Tried putting AquaSafe and also no improvement. Tank has about 15 tiger barbs and 12 platy in the 100litre tank with 1 pot of fanwort and some frogbit. any idea how to bring down the ammonia level? Previously the ammonia level was about 0.5 -1ppm (can't really differentiate as the colors are pretty close).
TIA
What kind of filter are you using and how mature is the media?
I'm using overhead filter with sponge, ceramic rings and bio balls. The previous sponge filter I've been using it for about 3 weeks before the fish died. after which I replaced the sponge filter. Was thinking of getting Azoo bio-bacteria to "boost" the bacteria level, advisable?
Did your tank filtration fully cycled?
One of the possibility is that the filter media is not mature enough to breakdown ammonia in the tank, in another words the tank may not be fully cycled yet. Did you test the water parameters before adding the fishes?
For now, do frequent water change with de-chlorinated water to bring ammonia level down. As for the bacteria boost, never tried before as I prefer to let the media gets mature the natural way.
I guess not...pardon for being a n00bOriginally Posted by Shadow
All started out from a field trip for my son to Pasir Ris kids kampong and a few donation of tank, pumps, OHF with bio balls and ceramic rings from friend and colleague
Its alright, every hobbyist went through this stage.
You may wish to read up on this article to give you an idea of cycling your tank.
http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm
No I didn't test the water parameters before adding the fish because my son had the fish before we had the tank and it's a small bucket to house so many fish and all died one by one. Hence, I got a tank from my colleague and dump everything in. 2 weeks after putting the fish into the tank the ammonia level was 0.5ppm - 1ppm.. So I thought of putting in some plants to help reduce the level lower. But now slightly more than 1 month the ammonia level spiked and 3 water changes doesn't seem to help dilute. Alternatively is to try Prime and see if that helps..
Noted. Thanks!
Re: High Ammonia/Ammonium Levels
I also went though the same issues when i started in the hobby... i guess everyone goes though this stage too.
Water changes are the best and fastest method to reduce the toxic levels in a tank (do treat the water with anti-chlorine to protect the good bacteria in the tank too), but note that when you do a 20% water change, it only reduces the toxic levels by 20%... so if you do a 20% water change every 3 days (say reduce ammonia 4ppm to 3.2ppm, which is still very high), it doesn't really help much because the toxic levels rise again back to 4ppm (or more) after a few days, so the water stays toxic. With high ammonia, your pH is probably getting quite acidic too (which are not too suitable for platy fishes).
When very high ammonia levels are encountered, the common recommendation is to do a massive 80-90% water change to immediately reduce the ammonia levels at one shot... but that can affect weaker fishes who cannot take sudden changes in water parameters, so the better method is to do frequent small water changes.
Frequent small water changes means you change 20% water every day (not every few days), if ammonia is very high like in your case, do 20% water change every 12 hours (so that the fishes can acclimatize to the water parameters), until the ammonia levels are 0.
Its tedious, but if you have added fishes into an uncycled tank and you want them to live, that's what you need to do.
If you did "fishless" cycling then all this frequent water changing work isn't as necessary (but you have to be patient and wait for a few weeks for the tank to finish cycling before adding fishes).
Btw, ammonia is only one toxic parameter... the other parameters in the cycling process like nitrite and nitrate will also kill fishes when they rise too (most likely your nitrite levels are also currently spiking really high too). At this point, you should get nitrite and nitrate test kits to monitor those parameters or else you'll constantly be wondering whats happening in your tank.
The bacteria "boosters" can help to a certain extent (i've tested Seachem Stability before) but they are temporary measures and frequent small water changes still need to be done to reduce the toxic levels. Try not to totally rely on the "bacteria in a bottle" to solve everything as they are only a very temporary solution to aid in cycling the tank.
Toxic levels can still come back if you stop using those bacteria solutions and the tank has not completed the cycling process.
Yeah, the ammonia built up from the fishes over the few weeks while your tank is still cycling, so the high ammonia levels are expected.Hence, I got a tank from my colleague and dump everything in. 2 weeks after putting the fish into the tank the ammonia level was 0.5ppm - 1ppm.. So I thought of putting in some plants to help reduce the level lower. But now slightly more than 1 month the ammonia level spiked and 3 water changes doesn't seem to help dilute
Putting just a pot of plants and some floating ones in the tank would not really absorb the levels much... you'll usually need like a whole tank full of established fast growing plants (like dense jungle of plants until cannot even see the fishes) to get the "eco-balance" effect.
Prime does help in converting the toxic ammonia to less toxic ammonium, but it mainly does so at lower levels, so you still need to do water changes to reduce it to more manageable levels. Note that prime only works for a short period of time so its possible for the levels to spike up again if your tank isn't properly cycled yet.
The good news is... after going through all this, your tank will eventually be cycled over the next few weeks, so its just a process to persevere through.
Once you have fully cycled a tank, subsequent tanks will become much quicker to start up as you would have well established bio-media to transfer over and help "seed" those other tanks.
Last edited by Urban Aquaria; 23rd Apr 2013 at 13:53.
Just to add my 2 cents. As suggested above, frequent small water changes is one way.
Another way is to find someone with a cycled and mature tank, and take some of the dirty sponge and media to "seed" your filter. Its free and probably better than buying bacteria in a bottle.
Lastly, Seachem Prime does work but not by just converting the ammonia to ammonium (that's what low temperature and pH do). Without boring you with the chemical equation, lets just say its a chemical reaction that converts the ammonia into a very large molecule, aminomethanesulfonate (that can no longer get into the gills of fishes to do any damage), that is then also removed by the biological filter eventually, with nitrate likely one of the end product.
I've tested it personally and found that once Prime is added, the ammonia is no longer detectable by test kits, so its worth a shot. Just overdose abit more than needed each small water change and hopefully Prime can buy you abit more time. I'm not sure about any potential harmful effects of simply just dumping Prime into the water in large overdose amounts...I shall suggest that you don't do that.
Thanks Urban Aquaria for the in-depth advise and greatly appreciate addressing each point of my queryGuess later I've got a few more things to get from the LFS shop on the way back home for my "night-shift" job of draining and pouring of water. Doubt I'll go for any "subsequent tanks" as I didn't expect that having a "simple" tank require such tremendous work, water, electricity to up keep...lol...
Thanks to all who have contributed on this thread as well, just pray and hope all goes well! Cheers!
Re: High Ammonia/Ammonium Levels
Ah yes, navanod is correct, Prime converts the ammonia into a more harmless form like in his explanation (i also remember reading that somewhere on the Seachem forums too)... i mentioned the wrong process of ammonia to ammonium, which is instead rather an effect of lower pH.
Thanks for the correction!
Just out of curiosity...previously I've also thrown in some spinach leaves and noticed that quite a bit of left overs ended up on the sponge filter. Will they contribute to ammonia spike since it's likely to "decay" on the filter?
Do pardon my ignorance, I've read on forums that Prime is similar to AquaSafe (which I'm currently using it and I believe I'm getting reading of ammonium instead of ammonia?) or do they react differently? (the more I read, the more mixed opinions I get) -_-"""
Not too sure about AquaSafe, the info i've read on it doesn't specifically mention anything about converting/removing ammonia (though it does mention the common general features like declorination, making water safe etc).
On the other-hand, the label on Prime bottles specifically mention "removing chlorine, chloramine and ammonia" and "detoxifies nitrite and nitrate". I guess different brands promote different features.
Most test kits usually measure total ammonia, which is a combination of ammonia and ammonium, so its abit tough to know for sure which is exactly at what level (and ammonium can easily swing back to ammonia when the pH changes too)... so to be safe, best is always 0 for total ammonia measurements.
Last edited by Urban Aquaria; 23rd Apr 2013 at 16:26.
I found some info on AquaSafe from a post at another forum, apparently it mentions on the bottle:
"AquaSafe also neutralizes chloramine by breaking down the bond between chlorine and ammonia while reducing both the fish-toxic chlorine and ammonia components....AquaSafe will not remove ammonia from an uncycled, overstocked or under-filtered aquarium."
Seems it only removes "ammonia components" released during the breakdown of the chloramine (due to the chemical reaction), but doesn't remove or reduce existing ammonia levels in the tank.
Last edited by Urban Aquaria; 23rd Apr 2013 at 16:41.
Hmm.. sorry.. didn't realize that Tetra had quite a range of AquaSafe...but the one particularly I'm using is the NH/CL "Removes chlorine and chloramine and neutralizes toxic ammonia".
and based on Prime "Prime® removes chlorine, chloramine and ammonia. Prime® converts ammonia into a safe, non-toxic form that is readily removed by the tanks biofilter". Of which I see is pretty much similar. Anyways, shall give it a try with a small bottle and see how it goes...
Yeah, i now see that there are 2 versions on the Tetra website, the standard AquaSafe and the AquaSafe NH/CL. The NH/CL one you got has the ammonia reduction feature.Hmm.. sorry.. didn't realize that Tetra had quite a range of AquaSafe...but the one particularly I'm using is the NH/CL "Removes chlorine and chloramine and neutralizes toxic ammonia".
and based on Prime "Prime® removes chlorine, chloramine and ammonia. Prime® converts ammonia into a safe, non-toxic form that is readily removed by the tanks biofilter". Of which I see is pretty much similar. Anyways, shall give it a try with a small bottle and see how it goes...
I read up abit further and it seems both the standard and NH/CL versions have separate features and both are apparently designed to be used together... interesting stuff.
Oh, are there any plants in the tank?
Try frogbit and hornwort. They'll help to soak up some ammonia too, but the water cannot be too warm (more than 30 degrees C) or plants cannot survive.
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