Agh.

[Phaedra]

Like ICEEGRL said, the ammonia spikes are a lot more damaging in the long run than water changes are as long as your treating for chlorine and chloramines and the water temp doesn't flux drastically during the changes. I'd go with good old fashioned water changes instead of mucking around with more chemicals in the water to treat the ammonia spikes. Since your medicating all ready, that's a lot for any critter to go through.

One option which may be easier and less stressful for you and Larry is to use a Quarantine Tank. Just something you can keep him in for a while while he's being medicated that's easy to clean. I just bought a 1g filtered, lighted hex tank from the pet store for $16 that I'm going to be keeping in the closet just in case. If you decide to go that route, you could even start cycling his larger tank with media from your other established tank while he's healing since you wouldn't be medicating in there. You probably wont get the radical ammonia spikes in a fresh tank either, you can even leave it with no gravel to make cleaning up old food and debris a snap.

Here's hoping that your readings are a bit more manageable today! *fingers crossed*

 

[K.J.]

The ammonia tonight at 8:00 was .25, which is better than the .50 - 1 that I've been getting. I've diagnosed the problem: in a normal tank, beneficial bacteria would grow at a normal rate and handle ammonia, but since I've been dosing with Maracyn it kills it, and so it can't grow, so it has ammonia. I'm stopping the round of Maracyn on Tuesday and starting on heavy salt, so hopefully the levels will be handled then.

 

[Phaedra]

Glad to hear you've got thing sorted out then. I'm still quite surprised at rate of the ammonia spikes, but it's all part of the learning process. I did read yesterday that fish urinate constantly to moderate the amount of salt in their body, so I guess it shouldn't be too surprising.