Ammonia staying high...

[Mollybreeder]

Hello,

My Ammonia in my community 10 gallon tank has been staying at 2.0 for about a week and ive been doing 15% water changes to it. Finally after testing and see it not go down even a little bit, I did a 50% water change on it. I havent tested it yet, as i am going to give it some time to cirrculate but hopefully this will do the trick. My fish seem to be doing great now too, they used to just slowly move around the tank but now they are out and about, swimming around and having fun in the filter current. I think this might have done the trick....

Was doing a big water change like this good or should i only do small changes???

Thanks for the help.

 

[pahansen]

How long has the tank been up and running, and how many/what kind of fish are in there? As I'm sure you've read already, it's harder to keep a smaller aquarium in balance than it is with a larger one. Were you doing the 15% changes daily, weekly, or on some other schedule?

I think that generally we are advised against doing large water changes because they can get rid of too many of the beneficial bacteria and upset the balance of our tanks. But if your tank was already full of ammonia, daily 15% water changes weren't making any difference, and your fish were suffering, then I guess it was worth a shot. I hope it helped.

In the near future you could also do 20-25% partial water changes every few days -- about twice a week. That might help you to keep the ammonia-related levels in check as well while your bacteria colony whips itself into shape.

-- Pamela

 

[Mollybreeder]

Yes i did do 15% water changes daily and the tank has been up and running for a little over a month. I have 4 mollies and 3 glo lite tetra in the tank now. Im going to go test the ammonia in a few minutes and i hope its down a little bit.

 

[pahansen]

Hi again. I hope your ammonia levels are down this morning.

I'm no expert on tetras and mollies -- I have barbs and swordtails instead! -- but you might want to make a separate post about this and find out if your tank is overstocked. Depending on the type of mollies, it seems to me that all of your fish will reach close to or over 2 inches. That will eventually be 14 inches worth of fish in a 10 gallon aquarium, and the bio load may just be too much for an aquarium that size -- in other words, you'd be continually fighting this problem, and the fish could suffer from it, neither of which you'd want.

I know that it's a much larger expense to move from a 10 gallon to a 20 gallon (although like I said before, it's easier to keep the tank balanced), but if cost is the problem perhaps you could swing another 10 gallon tank? You could keep the tetras in one and the mollies in the other.

If you're hoping to breed the mollies, I definitely think there's not enough room for everyone in that tank. Try making a separate post. You'll get answers from people with more experience with these fish than I have.

Good luck!
-- Pamela

 

[Mollybreeder]

Hello,

Im going to test the ammonia this afternoon when i get home. And my mollies only get and inch to 1.5 inches long. The tetras only get an inch long. so thats around 8 inches of fish and i have a seperate 1 gallon tank for my fry. There is plenty of room in the tank, buy yeah i wish i could get a bigger tank. My parents dont understand though why i all of a sudden need another tank when the ten gallon is only 2 months old... Ill make another topic to see if my tank is too crowded to get other peoples advice too. Thanks for all your help Pamela!