Ammo-Lock?

[laxzilla123]

So my tank has been experiencing some high ammonia levels so first the background info before the question.
It is a ten gallon tank. The current residents are 1 black Molly, 1 guppy, 9 flame tetras(all under 1 inch) and 4 Cory cats. I do weekly water changes but as of late I've been doing daily to keep the ammonia down. The ammonia levels are usually between .5ppm (pre water change) and .25 ppm (post water change). Lastly the flame tetras were recently added(about 5 days).
So now for the question: I'm considering ammo-lock as a temporary solution to bind the ammonia while the proper bacteria can grow but will this work? I'm still new to this hobby (2 months or so) and I don't have much experience with this sort of chemical alterations.
Thanks for the help.

 

[KISSfn]

Ammo Lock will keep your fish alive but it is definitely a temporary solution. Seachem's Ammonia Alert Monitor is the only tester I'm aware of that shows free ammonia levels. As far as I know all other ammonia testers show ammonia plus ammonium levels.

 

[waterdrop]

I can understand your stress but usually ammo-lock is not a good solution in these cases. What happens is it leaves you wondering what's going to happen next. Sometimes the ammo-lock fills up (reaches it's maximum ammonia capacity) and suddenly and unexpectedly you get a bad spike. Sometimes you stop the ammo-lock and don't know what's going to happen next, whether your bacteria are now ready. Sometimes there is too much ammo-lock and the bacteria are starved for ammonia.

You say that you've had to resort to daily water changes but what percentage are those changes? Perhaps they could be larger and thereby buy you more time between changes and lower readings. In general, ammonia and nitrite poisoning is more stressful than water changing from the fish standpoint. But it is also true that as you work your way above 50% for the water change it is good to be increasingly careful are temperature matching and proper conditioning.

~~waterdrop~~