Ammonia...i'm At A Total Loss For Words (almost)

[trickyspark]

Here's the background.

I had a 30gallon tank with 8 harlequin rasbora, 1 platy, 2 cory (agassai, *spelling?*), 1 tiger pleco (about 3 inch atm). The water was perfect.

I added 3 emerald cory and within a day the ammonia had hit 3.0ppm and was still climbing. It was previously 0ppm. I did water changes, but nothing decreased the ammonia. For example, at one point I tried a 50% water change when the ammonia was 3.0ppm. I then retested the water...and it still read 3.0ppm.

Shouldn't it have been 1.5ppm, or at least 2.0 ppm? I would think some decrease. I tested my tap water, before and after the dechlorinator and it was 0ppm. I tested the water in the other tanks I have. They were 0ppm.

I tried many things:daily water changes of 20-50%, reduced feeding to every other day (during second month of ammonia trouble), and adding Ammo Lock. None of this worked.

After nearly 3 months of daily cleaning and treating (yes I even tried letting it go on it's own for a while) I finally gave up, moved all the fish to ANOTHER 30 gallon tank that had 6 sword tails, 5 ballon mollies, 8 ghost shrimp, 3 emeraly corys and 4 dwarf gourami. The ammonia and other water parameters stayed the same.

I took everything out of the problem tank and washed it in fresh tap water that I had dechlorinated. This included the gravel and ornaments. I washed the biofilter in the tank water I had drained. I put everything back in after scrubbing the glass and refilled the tank with 100% fresh water. I put 4 fish back in the tank (gourami) to help cycle it, and began adding the Cycle brand bacterial agent to seed and cycle my tank. It has been a month (month 4 since trouble started) and the tank is once again around 2.0 - 3ppm with only one fish in it ( i took the others out after a week).

The tank I added all the fish tohad no problem.

Is there anything I can do to fix this tank? What could be causing this?

 

[Curiosity101]

I don't know what could be causing it, but a common denominator would be the media in the filter of that tank?
Perhaps it picked up something nasty from the water and now wont sustain enough bacteria.

This isn't an expert opinion, but after doing as much as it sounds like you have. Have you tried brand new filter media? I know it means a full new cycle, but by the sounds of it, it's not cycling at all.

 

[fatheadminnow]

Do you add ammolock to all of your tanks?

What type of "Cycle brand bacterial agent" did you add?

-FHM

 

[trickyspark]

Do you add ammolock to all of your tanks?

What type of "Cycle brand bacterial agent" did you add?

-FHM

I didn't add Ammo Lock to any tank but the troublesome one.

I used "Cycle" brand. There is a brand called "Cycle", Wal-Mart carries it, I've seen it in Petco or Petsmart too forgot which store.

I"ve always used it in the past, I don't know that it's been a help or not.

I have some spare media, I'll try replacing that too.

 

[fatheadminnow]

Do you add ammolock to all of your tanks?

What type of "Cycle brand bacterial agent" did you add?

-FHM

I didn't add Ammo Lock to any tank but the troublesome one.

I used "Cycle" brand. There is a brand called "Cycle", Wal-Mart carries it, I've seen it in Petco or Petsmart too forgot which store.

I"ve always used it in the past, I don't know that it's been a help or not.

I have some spare media, I'll try replacing that too.

Okay, I would stop using ammolock, as it might turn ammonia into an unusable food source for your bacteria colony, and could then kill them off.

Also, any product that claims that it can cycle a tank is a gimmick. The only known product to do this was Bio Spira, but unfortunately that product has been taken off of the market.

Yes, add mature filter media into your filter, that should solve the problem.

-FHM

 

[JustKia]

Liquid Ammo-Lock by API is perfectly safe to use. I believe there is another product by the same name (but not api) which actually locks up the ammonia and does not leave it available to your bacs (simialr to zeo lite).
Most liquid test kits test for all ammonia, not just free ammonia - that means they pick up ammonium also which is much less toxic to your fish than ammonia but is still available to your bacs.
However, it also means that your test kit will tell you that you have high levels of ammonia - which you probably don't.
Next thing is to look at why you are having an ammonia spike.
Is there a dead fish, rotting plant matter, lots of fish waste... in there?
Give your gravel a good vaccing - you'll be suprised how much crud accumulates in the gravel and that can cause ammonia spikes.

 

[trickyspark]

It was indeed liquid Ammo Lock from API. I tried gravel vaccing, but there's absolutely nothing in the gravel, under the ornaments, or anywhere.

The funny thing is, during this whole time, the fish have not acted like fish I've seen in tanks with this much ammonia (gasping, not eating, acting sluggish).
There was only one little fish turd on the bottom. I feed the one fish that I'm keeping in there 2 times a day. I feed bloodworms and fish flakes (Tetra brand) to him.
I feed him slowly and only add more if he's eaten it all. I did add one ghost shrimp back to the tank to help clean anything on the bottom .

I'll try new media like you all suggested and post back in a month or so if it's still crazy.

*edit* Forgot to mention, there are 0 live plants. I did have 2 a few months back, they've been out for around 5 months. I forget
what kind they were, light green, long broad leaves, not very tall. They were removed long before I gave the tank a total cleaning(or what I thought was a cleaning, guess I missed something.

 

[fatheadminnow]

Ammolock will turn ammonia into a harmless source, but it will still register on our test kits as ammonia.

So you could be getting a 2 ppm ammonia reading, but it really is not the harmless kind.

-FHM

 

[Syphoniera]

Hi, trickyspark,
as JustKia stated, ammonia converts to ammonium at a lower ph level which would explain a high reading without distress among your fish, but I vaguely recalled also having heard of other potential causes of high (false) readings, so I Googled.

Just in case this might be useful - and these may, obviously, apply to other tests/products/situations than specified:

http/www.cheappetproducts.net/shopexd.asp?id=70479

... AmGuardª reacts with free ammonia within minutes and does not alter pH. Ammonia can exist in two forms: free and ionized. It is only the free form that is toxic. Traditional ammonia test kits convert all ammonia to free ammonia by raising pH to 12Ð14; at this pH AmGuardª cannot function and thus a false positive reading will result. ...

http/www.bestfish.com/testpa.html

... For example, some ammonia kits give false positive readings when certain common aquarium additives are used in the tank. ...

http/www.algone.com/test_kits.php

... Ammonia neutralizing agents will result in false readings using the Nessler method. Tests will come out positive, while in fact the ammonia can be 0. A Salicylate based kit should give an accurate reading.

The Nessler method has an amber color chart, while the Salicylate has a yellow/green sometimes blue color chart. ...

... Liquid test kit results can also be influenced by the appearance of the water. Any discoloration of the water, brown, green, or white, will darken or lighten the test water in the vial and result in inaccurate readings when compared to a color chart.

... Other water parameters such as pH or ammonia should be tested directly on site as the levels will change within a short period of time after the sample has been taken.

Most mistakes occur while using the liquid test kits. The test tube must contain the correct amount of water. The amount of water needed for testing must be accurate in order to avoid false readings. Since all of these test kits rely on a very small amount of water, the margin of error is quite high.

The elapsed time in-between applications of solutions and/or readings is also a common cause for bad test outputs. Be sure to watch the time closely as recommended by the individual test kit.

Powdered (tablet) form test kits harbor the same potential errors as the liquid test kits.

Insufficiently dissolved tablets, wrong water levels, incorrect timing or mixing ratios, all sum up to a combined mistake and inaccurate test result. ...


http/www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwno2faqs.htm

... Most dechlorinators break down chloramine (which we want them to do) into ammonia and chlorine. But not all dechlorinators will "mop up" that ammonia. If your filter is too small, then that ammonia could be being processed into nitrite relatively slowly, giving you the nitrite reading you're observing. Either way, it's important to establish if your water supplier uses chloramine or not. If they do, get a dechlorinator that removes ammonia.> ...

And I'm sure there are oodles of other possiblities - have you considered fatheadminnow's suggestion to stop using Ammo Lock?
It's quite possible (we can hope) you never really had a problem at all, or that any problem was/could have been long since corrected - which would probably be funny, once the first burst of hysteria ended, sometime next month...
But wouldn't it be nice to have your tank back?