Ammonia Problem New Tank

[mike126]

Ok I know I made a bunch of mistakes! Be gentle this is my 1st post here.

I have a 10 gallon tank with a Topfin 10 filter (mistake #1 should have bought individual components). We cycled the water for the first week and the readings were ok except the ammonia was a little high but the LFS said it was ok to put fish in (mistake #2). The fish include 3 guppies, 2 mollies and a black skirt.

I have been checking the water from day one and have made several water changes 10 - 20% about every third or fourth day. I added some bacteria growth over the past weekend. I have cut back on the feedings to twice daily one small pinch to try and reduce the amount of waste/ammonia.

My current readings: Ammonia - 2.5, Nitrite - 0, Nitrate - 0, Hardness - 75 - 100, Chlorine - 0, Alkalinity - 120, PH ~7.6 , Temp 78.5

I have read the materials on new tank setup and cycling but only after we put fist in the tank (mistake #3).

So my questions:

Should I use a little Ammo Lock to reduce the ammonia in bewtween water changes?
How long should I expect the tank to cycle?
Should I get a larger filter? This spring we want to move up to a 30 gallon so I don't mind getting a filter that would be large enough for a 30.


Thanks, Mike

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Mike and welcome to TFF!

Excellent that you've begun reading the setup articles upon finding this sight! Also really good that you realize the situation is bad as that is sometimes half the battle for beginners.

Here's your main problem sentence:
"I have been checking the water from day one and have made several water changes 10 - 20% about every third or fourth day."

Your ammonia is 2.5ppm, which means its rapidly killing your fish and this situation -overrides- any concern that would tell you to only change such a small percentage of water so infrequently. You need to do about a 70% water change (with dechlor and rough temperature matching) immediately. You need to then wait at least an hour, remeasure your ammonia level and if its not below 0.25ppm (!) then perform the same thing again.

Your goal in fact is going to be to keep that ammonia (and eventually the other toxin, nitrite(NO2)) as close to zero as possible (and below 0.25ppm for each) all the time. In most cases this means starting (after your first 70% ones) with 50% daily water changes. But the percentage change and the frequency are dictated by your ammonia and nitrite measurements, not by some hunch or advice. Note: you also need to measure your tap water and make sure its at zeros for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate(NO3) and post up numerical results here.

To answer your questions, its better to use water changes and a good dechlorination/dechloramination product (like Prime for instance) for the return water than to get involved with Ammo-lock and other chemicals I think. Now, if the situation stays cricial for some reason then we may have another member who will advise something like an ammon-lock but I think we should definately try the water changes first. Please do pH numbers on tap and tank also when you are posting up the other results. Also please let us know your testing kit.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes WD is quite right, start with big daily water changes, any level other than 0 for ammonia or nitrite is dangerous, i'm surprised you have any fish alive in 2.5ppm of ammonia! Can you let us know what test kit you are using?

Can you also please run some tests on your tap water and let us know what the results are?

When you are cycling your aim is to keep ammonia and nitrite as close to 0 as possible with 0.25ppm being the absolute maximum. As WD said you can do a water change, leave it 1 hr and then do another change, so to start off with then do several large water changes until ammonia reads less than 0.25ppm

Once you've got to this point it's a case of testing at least once a day, twice if possible and whenever you get a reading of above 0.25ppm you do water changes to bring it down. This will start off as changes every day, maybe twice a day but over the course of a few weeks it will go to every other day, then every couple of days and eventually they'll hold steady at 0,0 and you can just go into a normal pattern of weekly water changes.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, to follow up on MW's comment, most people find a good testing pattern in this type of situation (often for working people anyway) is a morning test before going out and an evening test after coming back to the house. That way you get a change to take an action (water change) if your readings direct you to.

And to answer another question: You are in a "Fish-In" cycle which we usually say takes an average of 4 weeks. Cycling is highly unpredictable though and just like water changes, the time it takes is dictated by measurement results. In the case of a fish-in cycle, the end is found to be near when you can go two whole days with zero readings and no water changes, usually somewhere out near 4 weeks from the start.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[littlest]

totally agree with the other two posts.

on a couple of smaller notes - you don't really need to feed your fish twice a day. You can cut that down further to once a day or once every two days.

I don't know what the filter you have is like, so I've no idea how powerful it is, but if you do decide to get a filter for a 30 gallon now don't simply replace the one you've already got. Doing that would mean you were throwing away what good bacteria you have. Either run the new filter alongside the old one or put the media from the old filter into the new one.

Good luck. you have lots of water changes in front of you. And don't worry about making mistakes, most newbies do. I know I certainly did. The good thing is that you have realised early so you can take the appropriate actions (ie water changes)

 

[mike126]

Hey guys thanks for the feedback. After I posted this last night I did a 20% water change. I'll do a 50% water change this morning and check the stats in an hour or so. Also good idea on check the tap water. I'll post back later with an update.

Would it be helpful to add a bacteria starter to the tank? If so any recommendations?

Thanks, Mike

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I often go for stretches only feeding my fish once every other day. Fish will always act famished.

I think the bottled bacteria products are the equivalent of the bottles of snake oil sold in the early days of the USA. Well, actually there's a glimmer of hope for them in the future but 99 to 1 it would be a waste of your money right now.

Mike, littlest had some good comments. I'd take my time learning here about filters and filter media. Its a big topic, very central to the hobby and you'll make better choices after you've learned the basic theories driving its implementation. Do some searches and ask here some, then later you may be able to ask re some brand and model recommendations, but its so much better to understand the principles first.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[mike126]

Ok we have a problem.....

I did a 50% water change this morning and kept the temp within a degree or 2 of the original temp in the tank. So far so good the fish seemed to like the change. No big surprise there, right?

I then tested the tap water. It is registering around .5 - .75 (Red Sea Ammonia test kit). This was at the same temp as the water change and I let the water run a few minutes before the test to clear the pipes. I do that for all of my water changes as well.

So if my tap water has ammonia in it at .5 - .75 how do I cycle the tank?

Thanks, Mike

 

[Miss Wiggle]

is the red sea test a liquid one? i think it most likely is but would like that to be confirmed because some test kits are not all that accurate. need to have an idea of how accurate the reading is before panicing!

No need to panic at all though really, plenty of people have 0.5ppm of ammonia in their tap water, long term it's no issue because the filter will suck it up when you do water changes, all you'll have to do is more small changes instead of one big one, so instead of an average 30/40% change once a week you'd do two 20% changes one at the weekend and one on a wed or something like that. This means you're never putting a lot of ammonia in so the filter bacteria will just suck up what you put in to start off with.

Now while you're cycling all it really means is you move your goalposts, so normally we say keep ammonia below 0.25ppm, with your tap water that's not achieveable so in this first phase of cycling your goal is to keep it at the level of your tap water 0.5ppm. After the first phase of cycling the filter bacteria will grow to handle the extra ammonia from the water changes so that will start dropping down to 0, at this point you'll start to see nitrite rising, you've 0ppm nitrite in the tap water so your goal now would be to do as many water changes as possible to keep the nitrite below 0.25ppm. It will mean adding in a little bit of ammonia but as I said once your ABacs are in place they'll handle it fine.

Now you can give things a helping hand by using either prime or ammo-lock (the liquid variety not the crystals). Both these say that they neutralise ammonia, what this actually means is that they convert ammonia to ammonium, this can still be used by the filter bacteria but it's less toxic to fish. Your test readings will probably still show ammonia as they measure total ammonia and ammonium. It'll just be a bit better for the fish. Prime is also a dechlorinator so it means just using one product which is nice and easy.

Now the whole process of cycling with fish is harsh to the fish and it's worth noting now that even if you follow this advice to the letter there is still a strong chance that some of the fish will die or become diseased. What we can work on is risk mitigation (can you tell I work in Health and Safety ) so all we're doing is trying to make the best of a bad situation, these levels of ammonia should not be considered as 'safe' or 'OK' by any stretch of the equation so the best option if at all possible is to return the fish to the store and complete a fishless cycle.

 

[mike126]

MW - The Red Sea kit is the liquid version. I finally went to a better LFS (Marine) to talk with them about testing. They recommended the Red Sea kit as being more accurate.

I'll add some Ammo-Lock today. Is it ok to add directly to the tank or should I add it to a water change?

I'll look for the Prime at the local shops. I'm currently using the Top Fin water conditioner (liquid).

BTW, I work in Technology Risk so I completely understand risk mitigation...

Thanks for your help!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yay someone else with just as sad a job as me then!!

yes from my dabblings with marine i know red sea is a good brand, this may sound totally silly but the kit is suitable for freshwater isn't it?! Just incase you were talking at cross purposes with the marine shop and they didn't realise it was for a FW tank.

yes fine to add straight to the tank. same with dechlor when you've done a water change you can take water out, dump all the dechlor into the tank then fill it up with a hose, makes life a little easier sometimes!!

can you also fill in the location details in your profile please as it will display on your threads, this is an international forum and the products available differ in the different countries so it will help us to advise you appropriately.

 

[mike126]

Yes the Red Sea is FW and SW safe. I told the guys at the marine shop I was working on a tropical FW issue.

I'll add some Ammo-Lock....

 

[Miss Wiggle]

good stuff, apologies if the question sounded a bit patronising, but you'd be surprised some of the funny little things we come across on here, i'd rather ask the silly questions and be sure!

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, good he's added the USA location MW, as I suppose that brings up the thing about there begin two different products called ammon-lock, right? I believe maybe the one in USA is the white grannules perhaps and removes ammonia such that you -don't- see it on your tests? As opposed to the UK one, which is a more typical converter to ammonium so you still see the reading?

Just a little worried about him getting hooked on the ammon-lock chem stuff.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup in post #9 you'll see i pointed out to make sure it's the liquid one not the crystals.

I do know what you mean, and you know me IMHO there's not much that can't be fixed with a water change or two, but I do think it's handy when you're cycling with fish and have ammonia in your tap water. ASlthough I'd prefer it if people used prime instead of ammo-lock as it's a much better long term habit if it does become one!