Ammonia spike + cloudy water

[Paristheprince]

Hello everyone,



I added 9 new tropical fish to my 30 gallon tank and the next day the water became cloudy and now there is a huge ammonia spike (used to be about 0.5 ppm but now it's like 4 ppm). I did a 10% water change yesterday but the water is still cloudy. I have been adding ammo lock to make the ammonia less toxic to the fish but I am not sure what to do at this point. Should I wait until it clears by itself or should I do something? I use a JUP-02 UV filter and a Aqua filter (3 layer filters). I'm still new to keeping tropical fish so I would really appreciate your help.

Before this I had a suckermouth Catfish that always kept the aquarium dirty with high ammonia levels so I let him go to a new home. The next day the water became crystal clear before I added these new fish but now I have this cloudy water problem. Thank you.

 

[Byron]

Do a much larger water change, 70-75% of the tank volume. Use conditioner in the fresh water, but no other chemical additive/substance. Do a good vacuum of the substrate during the W/C, dig down well. Also rinse the filter media to remove any organic gunk. You may still see some cloudiness, that is due to floating bacteria that feed on organics, so not harmful and it will clear.

I would not use the ammolock unless a test after the above W/C seems to warrant it.

 

[Avel1896]

Next you wish to add new fishes, quarantine them.

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

Also you said that you originally had an Ammonia reading of .55 before you added the new fish. Have you ever cycled this tank? With a cycled tank you'd never see any reading of ammonia (unless a very unusual event occurred to cause an amonia strike - the only time I've seen it has been when a fish dies and sits in tank a few days.

Your tank also may be been cycled at one time but lacks enough bacteria to handle 9 additional fish all at once. I did that with my first tank and a bunch of fish died. I never knew why until I read about it on this forum a couple of years later. Go look at the Tetra Solutions and look for the one that says it cycles immediately and adds bacteria. Hopefully that will solve both your problems.

I'm a GREAT believer in quarantining new fish I just never have figured out how you do it. Some how you're supposed to some how keep a second tank (or a big tub or large bucket with air hoses and heater as filters etc) in perfect shape and good enough for any time you buy a new fish and keep them in there either a couple of weeks or a couple of months depending on who you ask. Again, like the idea, just don't know how to implement it and where to put it etc.

As far as water changes 10% is similar to a couple of days of evaporation so it's not a water change. If you do not over feed your fish like I do. and you never keep too many fish in a tank you probably could get away with a weekly 50% water change. But if you have dirt in your tank or it's been longer than a week you are likely going to need to suction all the gravel/sand clean and do a 70-80% water change. Make sure add the proper amount of water conditioner to get rid of all the chorine and choramines

Best of luck!!!