Amonia

[rubberdoofa]

just read the pinned post on mature medium donation by Cheffi (great idea by the way) as i have made some boob ups recently now as ive transfared the used filter sponge in to my new tank i need to know how do i get amonia to feed my bacteria on befor it dies off? how long will it last with out amonia?
the tank water stats are :
0 for all but ph which is 7.5
to be honnest my big tank has a 0 amonia level too and its been up and running for 2yrs or more now
i thought amonia was bad for fish didnt know i may have to add it if so how?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

you don`t add amonia when you have fish in the tank , you only add it when in the process of a fishless cycle,


you can get amonia from boots for a couple of quid,

and your bacteria will last around 12 hours without amonia

 

[rubberdoofa]

you don`t add amonia when you have fish in the tank , you only add it when in the process of a fishless cycle,


you can get amonia from boots for a couple of quid,

and your bacteria will last around 12 hours without amonia

dont i feel a fool my problem is i have fish in the tank already daft me thought a week was long enough for a fishless cycle , i added them last night but this morning i lost 4 and when i came home from work i found more dead, the survivers are 3 mollies and 3 danios who i might add are acting like nowt is wrong and the mollies are gasping periodicaly.
Do you mean normal amonia like the stuff that go's on your hair in those colour tints..not that i use them.......much not that ide put a colour tint in my tank i was just using that as an example.
thought it would be a specific aquarium type what do i do while the fish are still in it ? would adding some water from my big tank help? but on saying that its been up and running fine for 2 yrs or more and it has no amonia in it which is why i always thought it bad.

 

[smmetz]

If you have fish in your tank, you do not add amonia. The fish produce it.

Your old tank did not have amonia in it because the good bacteria that break down fish waste turned it into nitrate.

You will not find amonia marketed for fishless cycling, since it seems to not be a mainstream thing with the big comercial companies. You have to buy it at a department store, usually some cleaning product or something. You must be carefull that the amonia does not have certain additives in it though.

You are right, amonia in water is bad for your fish.

If your fish died so quickly, maybe you didnt let them aclimate to the new water properly? I didn't think the amonia would build up fast enough to kill off fish overnight, unless you crazy overstocked and overfed it right away.

 

[rubberdoofa]

yeah thought the amonia came from the fish as in its waste products as they brake down,the fish did die quick over night quick the temp of the tank i transfared them from to put in to this bigger tank was the same to be honnest i didnt think they would need acclimatising because of that reason ...i stand to be corrected on this one dont i? I didnt feed the fish when they went in as i had already done so a few hours earler in the other tank befor i transfared them over i had 12 fish in a 2 ft and none above 1" they where small tiny cardinal neons danios silver tips and mollies (3 of each+ 6 neons) is that overstocked? i have only 6 fish left is it over stocked now ...oooo my head hurts now!
oh will the remaining fish make adequate amonia in the next 24hrs (apx) to keep my transfared filter sponge bacteria alive

 

[juicebox]

what size tank do you have?

any number of reasons could have caused your fish to die. you may have not let the fish acclimate to the new tank's water, like smmetz said, or you could have had an ammonia or nitrate spike, though i'm not sure if that would have killed them overnight.

your fish are gasping at the top because your water might not be aerated enough or the ammonia or nitrites are burning their gills (or both). but the latter would probably only happen if your tank is overstocked. you could try adding an airstone to get more oxygen in the tank and if your ammonia or nitrite levels are high, try doing more frequent water changes (maybe 25-30% twice a week or 10-20% every other day).

i'm sure your fish will make sufficent waste for the bacteria to eat.