Extreemly High ammonia in my 45 gallon tank

[WolfGangFox64]

I have a 45 gallon tank with 3 oto's 3 chary barbs 3 dwarf graumys 2 fancy tail guppys 2 tetras 4 mikys and a catfish that i don't know the name of and haven't been able to find on the internet its about 2 and a half inches long and has been that size for a long time. about a month ago my ammonia in the tank started to spike. Before the ammonia started to spike i was doing weekly water changes of 20%. The ammonia has continued to spike and now as soon as i test the ammonia lvls it instantly goes off the charts and proceeds to get darker than what is on my color list. i have used two different types of test one being the test strips and those go to a metallic blue color now and the liquid tests go to an extremely dark green color. About half way into the spike so far i started having a brown algae problem. I don't want to use chemicals but i know my fish cant survive much longer with these levels of ammonia. I have a second 30 gallon tank that is stable. and tried moving my tiger barbs over to the 30 but when i did the barbs died within an hour after i acclimated them. i acclimated them by using a 1 gallon container and putting about 4 inches of the 45 into it and then put the tiger barbs into that watter. i then added 2 more inches of watter from the 30 gallon tank waited about 15 min and added another 2 inches waited another 15 min and added another 2 in waited 15 min and then netted them into the 30 gallon tank. the fish in the 45 appear to be doing fine they look healthy and are feeding well and swimming normally so i am afraid to try moving the rest. I am at my wits end trying to figure out how to get the ammonia to drop to at least a safe level. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[torque6]

wgf,
welcome to AQ.

Would appreciate if you could list water parameters for the tank. There is a format we use here
http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...ad.php?t=15348

Btw, i usually acclimate my fishes for more than 10 hours before releasing them into the tank. During this process, i inject 20ml of the new home tank water into the bag at intervals of 30mins. Upon releasing, they are usually frantic but they have always survive for me. Just feed them the following morning and they will do well.

[RHX]

Do you have plants in your tank? Plants will help absorb ammonia in the tank, especially fast growing plants and floating plants.

[WolfGangFox64]

No live plants

Tank Dimensions (L35xW12xH18, in):the tank has a bowed front

Lighting Intensity(50W total) : two bulbs each 25 wats made by GLO
Number and type of Lighting (FL) :
Age of light bulbs : 3 months
No. of hours your lights are on : 8 hours

CO2 Injection Rate (bps) : None
Type of CO2 (DIY/Cylinder) : None
Method of Injection (e.g. Diffusor/Reactor) : None

Liquid fertilisers Used (None) :
Fertilization regime (None) :

Other fertilisers (None) :

Other additives (Stress Zyme - API) :

Type of Filter (canister, Flubal/205) :
When was the filter last washed : 1 month
Filter media used : Sponge/Clearmax/AMMO-Carb/Polishing pad/Bio-Max
When was the media last changed : last week
What was changed : the carbon

Age of setup (4 months) :

Water change frequency : every Sunday
Amount changed : 20%

Water surface movement (gentle) :
Circulation (gentle) :

Tank Temperature : 79 to 80

Chemical Properties (Fill what you can)
-------------------------------------
KH (dKH): 100ppm
GH (dGH): 300ppm
pH : 6.8
NH4 (ppm):
NO2 (ppm):0
NO3 (ppm):0
PO4 (ppm):
Fe (ppm):

[RHX]

If you do not intend to have live plants, I would suggest that you add zeolite into your canister filter.

[Quixotic]

I don't see any de-chlorinators mentioned being used. Are you using any kinds of de-chlorinators when performing water changes?

How are the water changes being made, straight from the pipe, or aged in a bucket etc? I would suggest to do some tests on the water parameters of the water that is being used for water changes.

The other thing that may lead to high ammonia levels is excess food. What do you feed your fishes, how often and how much?

The easiest way out is to add zeolite as they adsorb ammonia, or plants as they remove ammonia, but you may not be able to find out the source that way though.

[torque6]

wfg,
you have no plants, nothing to uptake ammonia. Besides that you may have eliminated some existing nitrifying bacterias when you changed the filter media last week. KH/GH >100ppm... typo error? Just post a few shots to see if its overcrowded, eventhough you have already listed them in your first post.