Ammonia!

[justinp]

hey

I really need help with an emergency!!! I have a newly cycled 40 gallon brackish water tank (month and a half). Suddenly the other day I noticed a few fish gasping and knew it must be an ammonia spike, which ive had before after a new tank is cycled and fish are added but when I tested I found the results were off the charts! Ive never seen ammonia so high! I did an emergency 40 percent water change and tranfered my archer fish into another tank...they are now fine, stressed at the size of the 10 gallon tank but ok. I got the ammonia down over a few days and added a few mollies to make sure it was going to be safe...but yesterday when i tested i found the results back off the charts!

Ive never seen this before??? Does anyone know whats going on? I know the bacteria would not have been too strong yet but it now seems non existant...Do high levels of ammonia kill benificial bacteria? How can i fix this quickly, as i need to get my archers out of the small tank!

Thank you so much for any help!

 

[nmonks]

Sounds unpleasant.

I have zero experience of fishless cycling, so if that's what you've done, I can't comment further.

If the tank has been cycled with fish, then you've added too many fish too soon. In this case you will probably need to keep the archer in the emergency tank. Archers are not nitrite tolerant. The mollies should be fine though. I'd simply leave them where they are, feed sparingly, and wait a week before doing anything else. Water changes are a mixed blessing. Yes, they lower the ammonium level, but they also remove the food from the bacteria, and bacteria grow at a rate proportional to the abundance of food, among other factors.

So when maturing tanks, I do water changes only when absolutely neccessary (i.e., fish are visibly distressed). Otherwise, I increase temperature and aeration to optimise bacterial growth. Given you have mollies, you can definitely take the heat right up (30C, 86F will be fine for them). Remember from school Q10 = 2... for many chemical reactions, an increase in temperature of 10 degrees C multiplies the rate of reaction by 2. It's not exactly so simple with biological systems, but it's close. So going from 20C to 30C doubles (almost) the rate of bacteria growth. Of course more bacterial growth means more oxygen is consumed, so aerate or otherwise agitate the water accordingly.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[justinp]

Thanks for the advice...

Can high levels of ammonia affect the bacteria colonies in a harmful way?

 

[nmonks]

Eventually, if you took the ammonium concentration high enough, I'm sure the bacteria could be harmed. But your fish will be dead long before. So, as long as you still have happy fish, I wouldn't worry about it.

Cheers,

Neale

Can high levels of ammonia affect the bacteria colonies in a harmful way?