Amonia Spike And A Molly With Pop Eye

[LittleMissDynamite]

I have a UFO 550 tank set up since March which is very overstocked right now,due to a massive number of fry.Luckily my local pet store has agreed to rehome my young fish but i am concerned about rehoming them now as my adult female molly has developed a red,bloodshot pop eye.it looks like a massive blood blister.I read up that pop eye could be caused by amonia poisoning among other things.When i tested the water i did have a massive amonia spike.Possibly caused because i did too big a water change because i needed to move the tank and it was to heavy.Probaly did more than thirty percent.Dont know what the amonia reading is because hubby lost the colour card but it went green which is not good news.Should i do another small water change ???

 

[fluttermoth]

Water changes will not produce ammonia spikes. All my tanks get 50 or 60% or more changes every week, so a 30% change wouldn't cause any problems.

Did you clean the filter out at all? You may have killed off some of your helpful bacteria if you changed any of the media (sponges or whatever is inside), cleaned them with untreated tap water, or cleaned them too much. That would cause ammonia spikes.

You need to do another change; take the water right down to a level where the fish have just enough water to swim upright. Then test again, and if the ammonia isn't zero, you'll have to do another one, and keep on doing them until it is zero.

 

[colleen0309]

Good morning and welcome! Fluttermoth is absolutely correct. Water changes will not give you ammonia spikes, unless your tap water is high in ammonia.

 

[LittleMissDynamite]

Good morning and welcome! Fluttermoth is absolutely correct. Water changes will not give you ammonia spikes, unless your tap water is high in ammonia.

Thankyou for your reply.I despatched the poorly molly.I only ever wash the filter in siphoned tank water and rinse it one a week.The small Aqua one pump in there is pretty useless to be honest.I have just purchased the eheim classic and after a lot of swearing from the hubby it is up and running.I am hoping that better filtration and more boilogical medium will help the problem.All i have in the aqua one 320 tall now is the two male mollies that fought like crazy at first,but are the only survivors of the water spike.They share the tank with two zebra snails and 4 yamamoto shrimps.I will check the tanks water conditions for a few days and once i am sure they are alright i plan to add three male guppies that i have bred in my 550 tank.What i find a little strange is all the male guppies i have bought have noe died but the females continue to keep dropping young.They never seems to get eaten either in my well planted tank so i am making monthly trips to the lps to keep them supplied with mollies and guppies.Hope they stop breeding soon.My poor tank cant cope with the numbers