Amonia higher after a water change

[brianriv]

I just did a water change and cleaned the walls and vacuumed half the gravel. Before I did this I checked the reading A-0 N-0 NA-5. Here is the problem. When I was refiliing the tank I forgot the Water treatment for about 10 seconds. I am using a python. I than remembered and added it and continued to refill. But know my ammonia is off the scale!!!. Please help my fish . I don't know what I need to do for there survival. Thankyou all

 

[tstenback]

How soon after the water change did you measure? Is it still that high?

 

[Bol]

Putting a little water in before the dechlor most probably wouldn't have caused that.

Personally, with the information given, I'd suspect an inaccurate test -- either a 'false positive' or a dirty vial.

Have you retested the ammonia since then?

Also, did you happen to run an ammonia test on your tap water?

 

[brianriv]

I just checked it again with two different test tubes and they both have the same result. Alittle lower but still high. The test kit has been doing fine since I started the tank 2 months ago. I also checked the tap water and no ammonia. If you have any more ideas please let me know and I will do what I need to thanks again

 

[Sky042]

take some tap water. add dechlorinator to it then test that tap water. see if you've got a chloramine problem.

 

[brianriv]

ok sky I did what you said and I think I got a problem. The results of your test was that the water turned black. Now what? Thanks for all of the help everyone. What should I do next?


P.S. I use Aqua Safe by Tetra Aqua to dechlorinate my water. The bottle says it neutralizes chloramine. So now I am even more confused.

 

[Vip]

This MIGHT help, fill the buckets of water that you want to put in your tank, put the conditioner in them and leave them for 24 hours, this will make the water pure and everything else in the water would have died, then add it to your tank..
I bet it all turns out perfect

 

[gixer]

This MIGHT help, fill the buckets of water that you want to put in your tank, put the conditioner in them and leave them for 24 hours, this will make the water pure and everything else in the water would have died, then add it to your tank..
I bet it all turns out perfect

i'll bet it does too..

another reason the python is useles in some areas

 

[Sky042]

ok sky I did what you said and I think I got a problem. The results of your test was that the water turned black. Now what? Thanks for all of the help everyone. What should I do next?


P.S. I use Aqua Safe by Tetra Aqua to dechlorinate my water. The bottle says it neutralizes chloramine. So now I am even more confused.

You may want to try switching dechlorinators to something like insta chlor by jungle labs. But sounds like for you aging your water may be your only hope if you've got chloramines.

 

[Shizat]

You said...." I just did a water change and cleaned the walls and vacuumed half the gravel."

Your probabably killed off a good amount of good bacteria and you aren't left with enough to handle the load of ammonia the fish are giving off. Next time if you clean your gravel do it in small sections.

 

[Bol]

What kind of ammonia test are you using? Brand name would be good, and also, if it uses liquid reagents, does it have one reagent bottle or two?

edit: I ask because you could be getting a 'false positive' test result.

 

[brianriv]

thanks for all the help. I have a hagen test kit with one liquid reagent. I am going to try Vip advice and let the water sit for a day so all the nasty stuff dies away. I am going to do a test run today and test the water tomorrow. I will let you guys Know the results. Thanks again. If anyone thinks of something else i can do or has anymore questions they need to ask to diagnose the problem further please let me know.

 

[Bol]

That's a good plan, Brian, letting the water sit.

However, I tend to believe that your situation is probalby something like this:

Short version: You have chloramines in your water, and while the AquaSafe is in fact neutralizing the chloramines, your test kit is still registering them as 'ammonia'.

Long version:

You have chloramines in your water. It could be that your local water company just recently started adding them (you could call and ask), which could explain why the situation just recently showed up.

Tetra AquaSafe contains Sodium Hydroxymethane Sulfinate, the same (or a very similar) ingredient used in Kordon's AmQuel -- which is known to sometimes cause false positive readings in ammonia tests using a Nessler's reagent (sometimes called a "Nessler's test" or "Nessler-type test").

One liquid reagent in your test kit leads me to believe that the Hagen kit is a Nessler-type (I could be wrong, could find no info about this -- perhaps the manual with the test kit mentions "Nessler" or "salycilate" -- salycilate-type tests will not show false positives when chloramines are present). Nessler-based kits usually use clear as a zero reading, and different shades of yellow for other readings.

Just speculation; I could be completely wrong.

If you wanted to check, you could test your water with a test kit known to be of salicylate-type. Perhaps a knowledgeable LFS has such a test, and will do it for you. Also, I know that the two-reagent test by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals is a salycilate-type test, and is fairly inexpensive.

 

[leanne]

I agree with Bol. The Aquarium Pharmaceutical tests are quite good. They have recently changes their reagents and now the kits are quite accurate. I have an API one for my freshwater tank and a JBL (about 3x the cost) for my marine tank. The API kit seems to be about half a point off on the scale - sometimes it reads the same, sometimes it reads one lower. Because of this if it between two colours I tend to round the reading up. Another good thing about the API kits is that as well as being tons cheaper you get about 3X the reagents!! So you are getting 9X more kits for you money!!

 

[brianriv]

thanks bol and leanne. I do have the nessler test. Like you said clear for zero and shades of yellow. I am going to look into the other test kit. One more question so that I might take a deep breathe of releif. From your reply bol I am assuming that my water is good if infact it was at zero before the water change it could still be so the fish are ok?