Ammonia Just Refuses To Go Down. -_-

[Curiosity101]

Just a thought, with such large waste producers.

Are you sure the ammonia is not off the scale as opposed to at a reading of 1?
I'm just saying as with a 50% and then an 80% change....
Simple maths says the amount of ammonia should have halved and then that half been turned into 1/5

Giving you 1/10 of the ammonia you began with. If you haven't seen a clear shift down towards the 0.25mark then I'd hazard you have off the scale readings.

You can easily check by doing a few dilutions.
Take 1ml of tank water, mix with 9ml of tap water. (take 5ml of this solution and test) - Depending on result you may need to dilute again. But whatever the result is, it'll be 1/10 of what is currently in your tank water.
Take 1ml of water from the left-over (untested) 5ml. And then mix with 9ml of tap water. - Re-test. The result of this test will be 1/100 of what you actual tank water ammonia level is.

 

[arobinson1984]

Good suggestion there from curiousity.

I'm guessing it will be one of 2 things:

1. Readings were originally off the scale
2. Gravel needs a good clean due to waste food rotting and giving off constant supply of ammonia. I've read quite a few times that people have been told not to clean the gravel during a fish in cycle as to not disturb the good bacteria, this is rubbish. Not cleaning the gravel will do alot more harm than disturbing the 'beneficial' bacteria that is present in the substrate (minimal amount anyway)

Try a diluted tank water test to establish whether you tank readings are indeed correct

Andy

 

[t1tanrush]

The readings a few days ago where up to 3 ppm, after the 50% it came up as 1-2 ppm, than after the 80% it came up as around 1 ppm. There is a visible difference after each change, however it just goes back up.
I don't know about the gravel. I have not fed them pellets so uneaten food is not there, and I cleaned the gravel well before use rinsing it several times. When I originally put it in the tank I had an ammonia reading of 0 just before fish added.
Another thing with it being off the chart, I would assume I would see more behavior from my fish if that was the case, they became less active when it hit 3 ppm and now they are staying there while it remains at 1-2 ppm... Just seems a little off.

 

[arobinson1984]

It doesnt matter what type of food you feed them, any uneaten food will get consumed by water and sink, flakes included. Its not only food anyway, fish waste will sink into gravel and cause ammonia

Get yourself a gravel vac and do a good deep clean and I'll bet you are surprised by how much waste and crud you get out of it, especially if it hasnt been cleaned since it went in there.

Andy

 

[t1tanrush]

It doesnt matter what type of food you feed them, any uneaten food will get consumed by water and sink, flakes included. Its not only food anyway, fish waste will sink into gravel and cause ammonia

Get yourself a gravel vac and do a good deep clean and I'll bet you are surprised by how much waste and crud you get out of it, especially if it hasnt been cleaned since it went in there.

Andy

They only eat live Most of there food as been grasshoppers which they have been fighting to get, I know there is no uneaten food, from what I can tell there isn't really anything in the gravel from when I was messing with it yesterday. I have a gravel vac I'll see if I pull up anything differently today after I add some prime..

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with C101 and Andy, this is a simple case of not understanding cycling, not understanding gravel cleaning and not understanding the Fish-In Cycling goals, written up in our article in the Beginners Resource Center.

t1tanrush, it doesn't matter at all to the heterotrophic bacteria whether their organic material is still in the form of food or has gone through the fish intestines, there's still plenty there for them to process into ammonia and they'll be doing it all the time. Its not something you see on a visual scale. Meanwhile an even greater amount is coming directly off the fish gills as they respire. With plenty of excess ammonia building up daily, they'll be sustaining permanent gill damage are are likely moving somewhere between those stages of permanent damage and death. As the autotrophic bacteria that process ammonia, Nitrosomonas, begin to slowly reproduce in the filter, they'll begin processing some of that ammonia into nitrite(NO2), which will begin causing permanent nerve damage, as there won't be nearly enough Nitrospira yet to handle the nitrite. Only good gravel-cleaning technique can begin to counter this. You don't have a filter yet.

Seachem Prime is probably the best conditioner out there, not only at clearing the chlorine/chloramines which are bad for both bacteria and fish but also neutralizing the ammonia into ammonium. The problem is that that is short-lived, intended only for the hour or so after a water change. Using it repeatedly would only work against what you're trying to accomplish, the growing of a filter. The main chemical of conditioners is an inhibitor of good growth of the bacteria if its present too much.

The members who are advising are just trying to "cut to the chase" of what works, as we get many cases of this each week and have watched them over and over. If you haven't had the info to put in the two months to get the filter working correctly prior to fish and have put more than a relatively tiny stocking of fish into a tank with no biofilter then it always comes down to two stark choices, re-homing the fish somehow or performing the labor of massive water changing, sometimes on a daily basis, to try and save the fish, even though they may live shortened lives.

The Fish-In Cycling article encapsulates the needed actions. The goal is to use a good liquid-reagent based test kit to do ongoing detective work figuring out the percentage and frequency of water changes needed in your particular tank/fish combination that will keep both ammonia and nitrite(NO2) from rising above 0.25ppm before you can be back at the house and test and perform another water change if necessary. Sometimes in cases of large individual fish, if you can work out a deal where the LFS or a friend can take one or two of the largest ones for the duration, then the needed water changing pattern will become much more manageable. Also, sometimes its found that a series of large gravel-clean-water-changes (you want to wait at least an hour between each massive change) will make conditions good and then maintaining that will be surprisingly easier. The time period for growing the two species of bacteria to form the working biofilter is nearly always around a month.

For the gravel-clean-water-changes you will want to use good technique. Dose the Prime at 1.5x recommended but not more than 2x and roughly temperature match using your hand, since the water changes will be as large as you can make them, still having room for the fish and plants above the gravel. Certainly a hose-technique is in order rather than buckets if the tank has any size. Good luck and we'll all be root'in for you and hoping the fish make it!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[t1tanrush]

Agree with C101 and Andy, this is a simple case of not understanding cycling, not understanding gravel cleaning and not understanding the Fish-In Cycling goals, written up in our article in the Beginners Resource Center.

t1tanrush, it doesn't matter at all to the heterotrophic bacteria whether their organic material is still in the form of food or has gone through the fish intestines, there's still plenty there for them to process into ammonia and they'll be doing it all the time. Its not something you see on a visual scale. Meanwhile an even greater amount is coming directly off the fish gills as they respire. With plenty of excess ammonia building up daily, they'll be sustaining permanent gill damage are are likely moving somewhere between those stages of permanent damage and death. As the autotrophic bacteria that process ammonia, Nitrosomonas, begin to slowly reproduce in the filter, they'll begin processing some of that ammonia into nitrite(NO2), which will begin causing permanent nerve damage, as there won't be nearly enough Nitrospira yet to handle the nitrite. Only good gravel-cleaning technique can begin to counter this. You don't have a filter yet.

Seachem Prime is probably the best conditioner out there, not only at clearing the chlorine/chloramines which are bad for both bacteria and fish but also neutralizing the ammonia into ammonium. The problem is that that is short-lived, intended only for the hour or so after a water change. Using it repeatedly would only work against what you're trying to accomplish, the growing of a filter. The main chemical of conditioners is an inhibitor of good growth of the bacteria if its present too much.

The members who are advising are just trying to "cut to the chase" of what works, as we get many cases of this each week and have watched them over and over. If you haven't had the info to put in the two months to get the filter working correctly prior to fish and have put more than a relatively tiny stocking of fish into a tank with no biofilter then it always comes down to two stark choices, re-homing the fish somehow or performing the labor of massive water changing, sometimes on a daily basis, to try and save the fish, even though they may live shortened lives.

The Fish-In Cycling article encapsulates the needed actions. The goal is to use a good liquid-reagent based test kit to do ongoing detective work figuring out the percentage and frequency of water changes needed in your particular tank/fish combination that will keep both ammonia and nitrite(NO2) from rising above 0.25ppm before you can be back at the house and test and perform another water change if necessary. Sometimes in cases of large individual fish, if you can work out a deal where the LFS or a friend can take one or two of the largest ones for the duration, then the needed water changing pattern will become much more manageable. Also, sometimes its found that a series of large gravel-clean-water-changes (you want to wait at least an hour between each massive change) will make conditions good and then maintaining that will be surprisingly easier. The time period for growing the two species of bacteria to form the working biofilter is nearly always around a month.

For the gravel-clean-water-changes you will want to use good technique. Dose the Prime at 1.5x recommended but not more than 2x and roughly temperature match using your hand, since the water changes will be as large as you can make them, still having room for the fish and plants above the gravel. Certainly a hose-technique is in order rather than buckets if the tank has any size. Good luck and we'll all be root'in for you and hoping the fish make it!

~~waterdrop~~

I understand how it works it is just very frustrating the fact I can do a 80% water change and get nowhere, when the gravel really isn't bad, I've rinsed it well and I've stirred some up to see if stuff was in the gravel, very little of anything is there, and I will be siphoning what little is there later tonight or tomorrow. Prime has so far done an excellent job of helping with the problem, seeing my stock being as it is... I am very glad these are not normal tropical fish, whom are much more delicate, these pond grown specimen are very hardy animals, who are from what I can see doing extremely well even at such high ammonia.
It is interesting that some of the tropical fish will die so easy however even at 1-2 ppm my fish are acting almost normal, besides the normal slight gill rubbing (which seems isolated to 1-2 fish..)
I know some say not to feed during this time, however the specimen I've brought home for aquarium use I need to make sure are strong and healthy. Unfortunately there is no way to tell if they ate decently in the pond before capture, unlike a LFS where you know they had adequate food (in most cases!) so I need to make sure they have some food in them to make sure they are healthy and that they are able to hunt (I don't want inactive hunters!).
I've watched my fish at some measure last night/this morning (when sunfish are active in the wild) and I only notice 2 of the 8 fish having difficulty, the other 6 where extremely active searching for food, fighting over the large grasshopper, and playing tug of war with earth worms. Seeing as the rest of them are tolerating the high ammonia fairly well and they are such a hardy species, is it possible they have some sort of similar illness rather than it being ammonia based? The other 6 do occasionally have the classic sitting at the bottom ammonia look but it usually late at night or during the heat of the day, leading me to believe it may not be because of the ammonia after all.

 

[arobinson1984]

you cant 'see' how much waste is in your gravel, you need to get your gravel vac and dig it right into the bottom of the gravel, as far in as it will go and suck out all the crap

Andy

 

[t1tanrush]

you cant 'see' how much waste is in your gravel, you need to get your gravel vac and dig it right into the bottom of the gravel, as far in as it will go and suck out all the crap

Andy

Lol I've done one better and taken gravel out and cleaned it and the water coming out is clear... I highly doubt there is anymore in the water that a gravel vac will get that a power hose can't.

 

[Forestpisces]

The point people are making iis that you need to get into the habit or regularly cleaning your gravel, it is an essential part of tank maintinance.

Good luck with the fish.

 

[t1tanrush]

The point people are making iis that you need to get into the habit or regularly cleaning your gravel, it is an essential part of tank maintinance.

Good luck with the fish.

I do However gravel vac isn't the only way of cleaning gravel lol, until I can get to petco again I'm not gonna worry about it, probably replacing it before too long anyway, it's ugly.