I tested for ammonia last night and the reading was .6. i put an extra dose of cycle in the tank and this morning i checked again and was lower. I also changed 6 gallons of water(not adding the seachem malawi/cichlid buffer so it didn't raise the ph any higher). It's my understanding from all that I've read that a higher ph makes ammonia more lethal to fish at lower ammonia levels, than if the ph was neutral. I'll check again this evening. I haven't lost any fish yet, that I can see. They are still hanging out seemingly just fine and they ate their breakfast. (although they are probably not fine). We'll see how it goes.

PLEASE ADD ANY ADVICE ABOUT THIS IF YOU CAN. I was expecting the levels to go up a bit b/c of adding so many fish, I am wondering if I'm coping with it fine or not. I've never dealt with it like this before. Thank you!!

---edit---
I just did another ammonia test with a different kit. The other one measures like this: 0, .6, 1.2, 2.4, 4.9, 7.3. I did one that goes 0, .25, .5, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0, 8.0. This test showed it was .25ppm. Lower than it was showing on the other one(.6).

This post has been edited by kj23502: Feb 28 2008, 08:22 PM

i have never heard of ph affecting how leathal ammonia is to fish. i use the nutrafin tesk kits, they have worked excellent for me, and those fish are going to be stunners!

alex

Dosn't your nutrafin test kit have a table at the back off the instructions booklet for ammonia that tells you the amount of lethal ammonia in your water - mine does if I remember rightly. On the table you can see as the pH increases so does the level of lethal ammonia. It has something to do with how ammonia in ammonium becomes more soluble at higher a pH or something like that - I don't remember the exact science behind it.

Here's something I read out of a booklet.

Ammonia is produced by fish respiration and the decay of waste products in the aquarium. The decomposition of organic matter such as excess food, dead leaves, and fish also produce ammonia. Ammonia can be present in 2 forms. Ammonia NH3, which is a toxic gas, and ionic ammonium NH4, which is much less deadly. The ph of the water is the major factor that determines the ratio of the two ammoniums. When the ph is high, the ammonia is in its toxic form. Toxic ammonia will increase exponentially with increasing ph levels and temperature. a ph value of over 8 causes a corresponding rapid incread in the toxic ammonia component.

I didn't know all this until I just started reading about it! There's a lot of stuff to learn about fish keeping! I love reading about it

I still can't beleive they swim their own poo(waste products)! That's why i didn't eat fish for a long time.

This post has been edited by kj23502: Feb 29 2008, 02:47 PM

i guess you learn something new every day i never knew that

I sent a pm to Ferris and this is his reply:



Thank you, ferris. Yes I plan on moving the eheim and the sponge filter to the 125 gallon tank.I just did a 40% water change. That's all I could do because Ian (my 7 mo. old) started crying so I had to wrap it up and get it filled again. The ammonia was probably between 0 and .25 this morning. My husband says I'm color blind and he wasn't here to help compare! I had to compare between a yellow (0) and yellow green (.25). It wasn't completely yellow green, but not plain yellow either. So there was just a touch in it. The fish are still actively swimming and chasing eachother. They seem as though they are "handling" it ok.

Thanks again, Korrine

I just saw that two of my tiny fish have red gills. They are the tiniest in there!

---edit---

I also read to not keep the regular feeding schedule when there are spikes in ammonia. Then they won't create as much waste and there should be a lot less leftover food. I doubt there's very much leftover food. What the fish toward the top don't eat, the ones hiding in the rocks will zoom out and get them! I'm feeding once a day for right now.

This post has been edited by kj23502: Feb 29 2008, 03:08 PM

I think you could probably cut back to feeding once everyother day, and do at least a 25% water change a day. Try and keep NH3 and NO2 as low as possible.

Thank you! Will try! Hopefully it all works out. I should've listened to Ferris when he said only to keep 8 in the 29. Then I would've only added 4 fish and it probably would've been ok.

TO EVERYONE READING: seriously....when mods and experienced ppl give advice...listen. I didn't and ordered extra fish b/c there was no extra shipping charges when you order more(trying to get more bang for the buck) and now I could lose some or ALL of them anyway!!! Newbee's like I was..... TAKE NOTE!!

Ok, I'm spazo paranoid . I checked for ammonia again. I think it's really close to 0. i couldn't tell for sure if there was any in it. I tried both the tests. One that goes from yellow(0) to blue(8.0). and the other is clear(0) to orange shades(highest being 7.3). I can't tell for sure if the water in the first test is pure yellow or has a tiny tinge to it. Same with the second kit. Can't tell if water is clear or has a tiny tinge??!! I held the tube against the white paper like your supposed to. I even walked to a sun shiny spot in our house to try and get better lighting!

Color blind....MAYBE ! I'll check again in a few hours, when my hubby gets home from work and see what he thinks.

-edit--

my nitrites are 0 and nitrates are about 15-20ppm. if ammonia's going up nitrites should be going up and then down after the tank can handle it again????

This post has been edited by kj23502: Feb 29 2008, 09:20 PM

I pm'd ferris again.....

I walked up to the tank and they all swam out from the coral rocks. They just sat there at the front of the glass staring at me. I grabbed ahold of that opportunity to do a quick head count. It appears that all of them were there. My pleco and snail are still alive also. I'm still lucky for now. We'll see!!

My readings earlier were similar to now. Hubby said that there was tinge of color. Just barely. So it's pretty close to 0, but not quite. That's good. I'll see what it is in the morning. I want everything to stabalize in my little 29 gallon so I can swap two of the filters and the fish over to my 125 gallon....patience....I tell myself!!! I'm not to good at patience!

Not sure how you are trying to judge color, the best way I have found is to use the whitest light I have and hold the tube against something white, this will give you the best chance of seeing the difference in colors.

I have the same problem with patience, especially right now since I have to have the lights on for the plants, it was ok when I could leave them off. You and I seem to be about the same place right now, in the next few weeks we both should be able to add fish, Good Luck Waiting!!!

This morning ammonia was around .50 so I changed 30% of the water. The fish followed and chased around my siphon hose! It's great. I love them. It's almost like I added a whole bunch of kids to my family . They're also starting to pick at my jave fern and java moss! I was wondering how long those would last!

The rest of the readings are:

Nitrate (n03) 20ppm
Nitrite (n02) 0
Total hardness 300 ppm
Alkalinity 300 ppm
ph 8

I was wondering???....should I get some ammo Lock or Prime
Or would that mess up my test results too much? And since i have soo many fish in there, will there always be some ammonia present? I was wondering also. The eheim and sponge filter should be bacteria ridden after a couple weeks, right? The only other filter in the 29 is a Whisper Power filter 30 (hob). Thinking about moving fish over to 125 with the eheim and sponge filter....

This post has been edited by kj23502: Mar 1 2008, 07:16 PM

From what I know - and that's not very much - Ammo lock = bad and Prime = good. I think ammo lock starves your filter of ammonia so the bacteria has nothing to feed on. As a result your tank never cycles. Prime on the other hand does not do this so it is fine. I might be wrong about all of that though so perhaps someone could clarify.