Ammonia Levels

[cody2715]

I have had my tank set up for about a month and a half now. I have 1 red tail shark, 6 tiger barbs, and 7 leopard danios. My ammonia levels have always been at 1.2 and this week they were up to 2.4. I use the Nutrafin NH3/NH4 test kit i check my levels every sunday. I just added a plant last week. I have been changing the water every week because of the 1.2 ammonia levels. Any ideas of why they high and anything i can do to help keep them down?

 

[Teuchter]

I'd say your tank has not fully cycled yet. Have you tested for Nitrite and Nitrate? Have you checked for dead fish in the tank?

I'd advise increasing the frequency of your water changes until things settle down. That's about all you can do to keep the ammonia down just now.

 

[rdd1952]

For some reason, the tank isn't cycling plus you hae way too many fish for an uncycled tank. You really need to be changing water daily (several times daily if needed) until you get the ammonia level down below .25 ppm and continue them to keep it there. What are your nitrite, nitrate and pH readings? What size tank is it?

 

[waterdrop]

Agree, and you can do a second water change as soon as an hour after the previous one. I'd start with a 70% on the first one, test after one hour and it the ammonia level has dropped a lot then maybe 50% on the second one. Be sure to add dechlorinator/dechloraminator and roughly temperature match (your hand is good enough) on the return water.

Then, as RDD says, you need to pick up further test kits. If your ammonia kit is part of the Nutrafin Mini-Master Test Kit then you should already have them, otherwise that would be one to pick up or another many of us use is the API Freshwater Master Test Kit. The most important thing is that they be liquid-reagent (bottle) based and not paper strips.

Then you can test your tap water in addition to the tank water and see whether anything is coming in via the tap water.

~~waterdrop~~