Ammonia Still Rising

[BadBadger]

So its been a week since i started my fish-in cycle. The tetras seem to be doing fine but despite the daily water changes the ammonia is still rising to about 2 ppm. Am i getting ahead of myself thinking that i should be seeing some changes this early on?

 

[backtotropical]

It would not be too uncommon for you not to see any changes after 1 week. If ammonia is rising to 2ppm despite water changes, increase the size and / or frequency of the water changes.

2ppm is too high and could be a potential kiler.

 

[BadBadger]

It would not be too uncommon for you not to see any changes after 1 week. If ammonia is rising to 2ppm despite water changes, increase the size and / or frequency of the water changes.

2ppm is too high and could be a potential kiler.

Im doing 30% water change daily. Should i try 50%?

Cheers

 

[drobbyb]

You may need to do multiple 50% or larger waterchanges. It's not uncommon for this many waterchanges with a fish in cycle.

 

[arobinson1984]

It would not be too uncommon for you not to see any changes after 1 week. If ammonia is rising to 2ppm despite water changes, increase the size and / or frequency of the water changes.

2ppm is too high and could be a potential kiler.

Im doing 30% water change daily. Should i try 50%?

Cheers

hi,

With levels that high you need to be doing more like 80-90% water changes.

If you have 2ppm ammonia then a 30% change will effectively bring it down by a 3rd to about 1.3-1.4ppm but this will quickly rise overnight.

Fish-in cycles are a bit of an experiment to see how much water you need to change in order to keep the levels below 0.25ppm

Start with a 90% change, just leave enough water in the tank for the fish to keep off the gravel, wait an hour and then re-test, if levels are still high then do another large change and so on until you have the levels under 0.25ppm

once the levels are down then you need to experiment as to how much you need to change daily to keep the levels under 0.25ppm, obviously 30% wasn't enough so try 50-60% daily and judge by your test results. First and most important is getting them levels down because levels of 1ppm and above can cause permanent damage to fish in as little as 1 hour.

Ensure you adopt a good water change technique, temperature match the fresh water as best you can and add dechlorinator.

Large water changes will cause much less stress to your fish than current levels of ammonia currently are.

Andy

 

[BadBadger]

It would not be too uncommon for you not to see any changes after 1 week. If ammonia is rising to 2ppm despite water changes, increase the size and / or frequency of the water changes.

2ppm is too high and could be a potential kiler.

Im doing 30% water change daily. Should i try 50%?

Cheers

hi,

With levels that high you need to be doing more like 80-90% water changes.

If you have 2ppm ammonia then a 30% change will effectively bring it down by a 3rd to about 1.3-1.4ppm but this will quickly rise overnight.

Fish-in cycles are a bit of an experiment to see how much water you need to change in order to keep the levels below 0.25ppm

Start with a 90% change, just leave enough water in the tank for the fish to keep off the gravel, wait an hour and then re-test, if levels are still high then do another large change and so on until you have the levels under 0.25ppm

once the levels are down then you need to experiment as to how much you need to change daily to keep the levels under 0.25ppm, obviously 30% wasn't enough so try 50-60% daily and judge by your test results. First and most important is getting them levels down because levels of 1ppm and above can cause permanent damage to fish in as little as 1 hour.

Ensure you adopt a good water change technique, temperature match the fresh water as best you can and add dechlorinator.

Large water changes will cause much less stress to your fish than current levels of ammonia currently are.

Andy

Thanks for that mate. explains alot
I did another 30% after the first reply and im waiting to test it again.
I suppose its all a learning curve but dont want to upset the fish to much.

Thanks very much.

 

[arobinson1984]

Just thought I'd mention that my first ever cycle was a fish-in cycle because at the time I didn't know about fishless.

I had to do 2 or 3 water changes a day in order to keep the levels low, now I won't ever do a fish-in cycle again, it's not worth all the extra work compared to a fishless, but without performing a fish-in cycle myself I wouldn't have known this so we all learn things for the future.

Andy

 

[BadBadger]

Just thought I'd mention that my first ever cycle was a fish-in cycle because at the time I didn't know about fishless.

I had to do 2 or 3 water changes a day in order to keep the levels low, now I won't ever do a fish-in cycle again, it's not worth all the extra work compared to a fishless, but without performing a fish-in cycle myself I wouldn't have known this so we all learn things for the future.

Andy

Yeah i can see why it would get a bit annoying. Fortunately im off work at the minute so i've got the time
Have just tested again and its currently .25 or less

Cheers

 

[OldMan47]

BadBadger, you will upset the fish a lot more leaving them in high ammonia water than you ever will by doing a large water change. With neons in water as high as yours, I would drain the tank to about 1 cm of water remaining and refill with temperature matched dechlorinated water. Test after that to see if you have managed to get the levels under control and do another water change if it is needed. You are trying to drop the ammonia by a factor of 10 so the most contaminated water that you can afford to leave behind is 10%. That would leave you with barely acceptable water, not the good water that you want for the fish.
The last time that I found one of my tanks in a minicycle, I literally drained my swordtails' tank down to about 2 cm deep and refilled it daily for 3 days in a row until the filter caught up with the biological load. Each time, the fish looked better after the change than before it, and I was only dealing with 0.5 ppm of nitrite.

 

[BadBadger]

BadBadger, you will upset the fish a lot more leaving them in high ammonia water than you ever will by doing a large water change. With neons in water as high as yours, I would drain the tank to about 1 cm of water remaining and refill with temperature matched dechlorinated water. Test after that to see if you have managed to get the levels under control and do another water change if it is needed. You are trying to drop the ammonia by a factor of 10 so the most contaminated water that you can afford to leave behind is 10%. That would leave you with barely acceptable water, not the good water that you want for the fish.
The last time that I found one of my tanks in a minicycle, I literally drained my swordtails' tank down to about 2 cm deep and refilled it daily for 3 days in a row until the filter caught up with the biological load. Each time, the fish looked better after the change than before it, and I was only dealing with 0.5 ppm of nitrite.

Ok thanks for that. Im a bit worried about matching the water though. If i get it out a few degrees out will it upset them?
Overall, toady ive done a 60% water change. Should i wait till tomorrow untill i do what you did with your sword tails or will they be ok with another one?

Thanks

 

[OldMan47]

With a 60% water change, the fish should already be looking better but the ammonia is probably still around 1.0 ppm. A simple 75% change from where you are should get you there.