Ammonia Problem. Help!

[bliss_OG]

Hi, I've had fish dying this week and just got a water test done. My Ph is 7.2, nitrite is .025 and ammonia is 4.0. How do I lower this? Water change I presume? Please help, I don't want to lose anymore fish. BTW its a 250 litre tank, 3 guppies (was 8), 5 black skirt tetras (was 6), 5 ottos and 1 red tail shark. Also, I moved decor from an already established tank and its been running for a month with 2 guppies, why isn't it cycled?
Thanks in advance

 

[Tizer]

4ppm ammonia = 99% water change, need to keep it under 0.25ppm. gogogo

 

[phoenixgsd]

Hi, I've had fish dying this week and just got a water test done. My Ph is 7.2, nitrite is .025 and ammonia is 4.0. How do I lower this? Water change I presume? Please help, I don't want to lose anymore fish. BTW its a 250 litre tank, 3 guppies (was 8), 5 black skirt tetras (was 6), 5 ottos and 1 red tail shark. Also, I moved decor from an already established tank and its been running for a month with 2 guppies, why isn't it cycled?
Thanks in advance

im sure your aware its the filter that cycles not anything else in the tank like decor ect, nitrite and ammonia should be 0ppm and as tizer ha said, you need to do a massive water change today, keep checking and changing water everyday or you will loose more fish,

 

[Aqua Tom]

Do a huge water change. Empty the tank so the fish can just about swim upright, then fill it with Tempreture matched dechlorinated water. Repeat untill the Ammonia is less than 0ppm.
You also need to get yourself a Liquid Based Master test kit, this is the one thing that you MUST have as you are now in a fish-in-cycle.


Tom

 

[cascadingwaters]

Live plants would help out the cycling process tremendously. There are low light plants that would be fine if you are new to plants such as any of the Anubias and of course Java fern and Java moss. Just a suggestion to go along with all of the other advice you have been given. Best of luck!

 

[tomtomtom1230]

As mentioned above, huge water change. I'd do 50% water change twice within the next 4 hours to help minimize the stress on the fish rather than one big one. Although one big one may be necessary to drop the ammonia level immediately. Make sure you're doing a 10% water change EVERY day until your results settle down. Investing in a liquid-based test kit (such as the API Master Test Kit) will help you a lot. Without this, you may well lose all of your fish. It'll probably set you back about £20 (maybe about $30?). It's £18.50 (around $27.00) in my LFS.

 

[dh058977]

As mentioned above, huge water change. I'd do 50% water change twice within the next 4 hours to help minimize the stress on the fish rather than one big one. Although one big one may be necessary to drop the ammonia level immediately. Make sure you're doing a 10% water change EVERY day until your results settle down. Investing in a liquid-based test kit (such as the API Master Test Kit) will help you a lot. Without this, you may well lose all of your fish. It'll probably set you back about £20 (maybe about $30?). It's £18.50 (around $27.00) in my LFS.

Two 50% changes would be no less stress (perhaps more) and wouldnt be as effective. An immediate 90% water change would remove 90% of the Ammonia level where as in your suggestion you would be removing only 50% and then around 25% once it has been diluted by the first change.

Also 10% daily water changes is not enough, you need to be looking at large daily water changes to keep the Ammonia and Nirite in check.

 

[TheJ0kerrr]

Live plants would help out the cycling process tremendously. There are low light plants that would be fine if you are new to plants such as any of the Anubias and of course Java fern and Java moss. Just a suggestion to go along with all of the other advice you have been given. Best of luck!

What exactly can plants do to help with the cycle? From what i've read, they help keep the nitrates down once the tank is cycled, but before that, will they eat up ammonia and nitrites too? If it can help kickstart my cycle, i'm getting a couple of plants right after work.

 

[Tizer]

plants do use ammonia, but you need an absolute shed load of them in a tank for it to make a blind bit of difference, which is what most people don't get.

 

[cascadingwaters]

I have always had live plants in my tanks when I have started new ones. A good amount as well. They have always proven themselves with me when it comes to cycling, if not helping to keep the ammonia, etc tolerable while the filter built itself up. I am just speaking from my own personal experience with them and am just offering my own opinion. If you do get plants, and this is your first time keeping them I would go with the Anubias and Java fern.

 

[Tizer]

both of those are extremely slow growing and great under low light. If you want ones that use ammonia then its the fast growing stem plants that can convert these chemicals into plant mass, Cabomba for example springs to mind. Lots of others out there too.

 

[cascadingwaters]

What about corkscrew vallis? (spelling?) Also, thanks Tizer for that. I honestly didn't know that the slow growers used less ammonia than the fast growers. As I have only kept the low light plants.

 

[bliss_OG]

I was told that by removing that much water I would be removing all the ammonia and therefore the tank would take even longer to cycle. Is that true?

 

[fluttermoth]

I was told that by removing that much water I would be removing all the ammonia and therefore the tank would take even longer to cycle. Is that true?

Yes, that is true, but you have fish in there; you can't leave the ammonia that high or your fish will get really sick, or could even die. You have to keep the level of ammonia under 0.25ppm; the filter will still cycle with a level of ammonia so small it doesn't show up on our home tests.

I think the reason your tank hasn't cycled is that two guppies in a 250l tank will have been producing hardly any ammonia at all. now all the extra fish are in there as well, the ammonia has spiked. Moving decor won't help cycle a tank; you need to move the old filter media into the new filter to do that.

 

[bliss_OG]

I don't actually have a test kit and because I'm a student with a part-time job I can't afford to spend my whole weeks wages (£30) on a home test. My local fish store does free water samples but I can only really get there on work days if I leave early, so Friday will be the earliest time I can get another water sample done. Originally there was 9 guppies but when they were sold to me one of the fish had finrot which I didn't notice or I wouldn't have bought her. This fish infected 6 other guppies and when I came back from holiday I only had 2 very sock looking guppies left. I also had no lights on this heavily planted aquarium so I lost a lot of plants which had started to rot by the time I'd got home. I assumed the deaths of the fish and plants would've caused a large enough ammonia spike to adequately cycle the tank but clearly not. The fish aren't acting strange, I wonder has the ammonia level dropped? They had only been in 3 days when I got that test done.