Getting Rid Of High Ammonia?

[stratosxjl]

i just started out a fish tank 40 gallon with a 4 inch flowerhorn and ill be upgrading the tank after we move,.i didnt really do the fishless cycle i just addedd this nutrafin cycle that adds good bacteria into the tank the few days ammonia was alright but now after 3 days it spiked into the 2.0-4.0 and i need some help on reducing the ammonia i dont know if i should do a water change and risk losing some of the good bacteria or add some anti ammonia medication??the guy at the pet store told me that nutrafin cycle wouldnt need a fishless cycle you could just add the fish 24 hours after you put the first dosage,.and keep on using it as it says on the directions..i really need some help..

 

[Harlequins]

Hi & welcome

Lesson one - never believe what pet stores do say especially when it comes to not cycling and bottled bacteria these are the bug bears of bad advice...

You won't lose bacteria by doing waterchanges,the good bacteria to keep your fish tank good is built up in your filter not the water.
Your filter therefore needs to go through the nitrogen cycle to support all the things that your fish do,(breathe,pee,poo,eat etc) these all produce ammonia in the water which is deadly to fish in anything above zero.ammonia in turn will turn into nitrite and then to nitrates which once the filter is cycled is removed by the weekly waterchange.

Have a read in the beginners section ,there's a link under my signature pic,this will explain the cycling process.

Do you have fish in the tank? - if so you need to do a complete waterchange near on 100% or around 90% just keep enough water in the tank to cover the fish,make sure you temperature match and dechlorinate the water before adding back in...

 

[stratosxjl]

is it alright to use the medications that remove ammonia in the tank??

 

[Harlequins]

I wouldn't use additives to remove ammonia from the tank,this will probably slow the cycling process down,the best way to remove ammonia is by doing large waterchanges.

Do you have fish in there?

If you don't have fish in there,you might has well do a fishless cycle,in that case don't do waterchanges and have a read up on the fishless cycle process in the beginners section

 

[onebto]

Harlequins is giving you good advice

What fish have you got in the tank ?

Lots of hard work plenty of daily water changes an absolute must.

I wish I had a pound for every Local fish shop that cons beginners into using and buying this joo joo juice I would be a rich man.

Good luck and give the reading Harlequins recommended a go

Regards onebto.

 

[Shaman]

Change the water as soon as. Then test the water daily and remove enough water to keep the ammonia/nitrite levels under 0.25ppm (which test kit are you using?) I had to do 50l water changes every day for around 6 weeks. (its a 180l tank).

Take the advice on here over your lfs. Waterdrop & oldman are really good on cycling, listen to them!

 

[stratosxjl]

thank you soo much..ill just start doing some water changes..so the good bacteria are in the filter and not in the water?i took a filter from my other tank and right now is in the filter of this new tank..

 

[waterdrop]

Good! Yes, the beneficial bacteria are almost entirely found to be tightly bound to the surfaces of anything inside the filter. This is because the filter has lots of bacteria food (ammonia!) and fresh oxygenated water flowing through. The water coming in from the tap or out in the tank will have very few of these bacteria, just a few loose ones on there way to sticking somewhere. Once you have fish in a tank the whole ballgame changes with respect to "cycling" and you must focus on the fish (to keep it alive) by doing very large water changes very frequently (ideally judged by results you get from liquid-reagent based tests.) (that's called fish-in cycling and is written up in the fish-in cycling article in the beginners resource center.)

~~waterdrop~~