Help Please! Too Much Ammonia

[Smells a bit fishy]

Yeh. Wait a week once the tank has settled and reading are coming up double zero, then you could add a coupl of female mollies, however do it fairly quickly otherwise the female will get very stressed and die eventually. It doesn't matter if she's pregnant, the males will still want to mate. Also if you can get some dense plants, so that the fry can hide otherwise they will get eaten. Even with the plants most will be eaten just gives them a chance to hide.

Sounds like your tank is coming along nicely

I have transferred my fish over to the bigger tank using the same filter and has now settled down to double 0's. So I may get a few silver sharks soon

Well thats good your tank is settling also ooo silver sharks, nice yea I need to get some more plants so the female can hide for now, my mums borrowed my car and no where close that sells plants here which sucks! there are 5 plants and 2 'houses' in there but they still follow her everywhere! are you in the uk or states? want any baby platys? lol

I'm in the UK in west Sussex. Where bouts are you?

you should have a look on ebay for cheap tanks! I see some going for rediculously small amounts of money and wish I had got one on there rather than paying money to a large chain store! we live and we learn though, never buy fish or anyhting from p@home. As long as you disinfect it with some stuff form your local fish store it should be nice and safe for your likkle fishies.

Yeh I may do that. No I won't ever buy new. No real point really. Second hand ones hold water just the same

 

[orli]

Im also in uk, Hampshire

Iv learnt my lesson and your right they do all just hold water I would give my left arm for a Marine tank but the upkeep costs are horrific..or so I hear!

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Im also in uk, Hampshire

Iv learnt my lesson and your right they do all just hold water I would give my left arm for a Marine tank but the upkeep costs are horrific..or so I hear!

Certainly more expensive than tropical. Not alot more I don't think. Most of the equipment is the same. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

It's just a huge amount of maintenance and very very time consuming. I don't really feel I want a marine tank, I do believe they need to be bigger swell but could be wrong also. Have a look in the marine section of this forum. I'm sure that the difference in cost between tropical and marine has been covered. If not you could always ask

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

There is a picture of my new tank on photobucket, will be getting more on there as it progresses, and i get a better camera than my Iphone!

heres the link, pictures on photobucket

 

[orli]

HMM I think you tanks abit bigger than mine lol. Its a lovely tank, and I recognise the pineapple
Heres a link to mine http/s1099.photobucket.com/albums/g384/iamorli/
I actualy never though of photobucket to add pictures, wanted to put one as my profile pic but they are all too large. If anyone could look at my female platy and tell if she is pregnant or not? she has a white spot on her bum and so do 2 of my mollies. Going to phone my LFS and try sort out this male chasing my female today. How are your tank levels doing now?

P.s Loving the skeleton in the middle!!

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

I have since taken the pineapple out as my catfish was hiding in there, far too small for it, so I have now replaced it with a cave that was in my old tank. However I am going to go down to LFS today to get a bigger hiding spot that looks nicer. ( I do have another hiding spot, I large fake tree stump, but my pleco keeps kicking out the catfish)

Yeh the skeleton is actually drinking a bottle of rum, well gives the impression of that with the bubbles

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Ok, still getting a high ammonia reading. It was 1ppm today and nitrates were.75 so a 75% water changed and that got it down to .25 and .2ish of nitrites.

I still need to get a backdrop for it, I will get one from pets at home on my way back from work.

I delegated the hiding spot to my other half, and got one that's not appropriate. Typical. I'll have to get one at the weekend. I'm thinking about getting a ship or something, they look cool, or a few large rocks then make them overlap to create a hiding spot in-between.

I'm just hoping that my tank will stop it's mini cycle. Seems like my older tank hadn't cycled properly. I'm sure it won't be too long now.

I will upload some more pics at the weekend so you can see how it's progressing.

Once it has cycled I will get some dithering schooling fish.

 

[orli]

typical! Im sure you can take it back though! I refuse to put any more money in pets at homes pocket, got our tank there, 1st one had all the stuff missing from inside the box, second one the suckers for the filter where broken and we are still waiting for the replacement ones, then bought some Neon Tetras from them and they had fin rot before I even got them home!
As for the tank isnt there a small family owned fish shop that you could get some filter media from? That would sort out the ammonia and nitrites, well hopefully. Or you could try Tetra Start. supposedly instantly starts your tank, although I keep getting slightly high ammonia and nitrites so it cant work instantly. Must do some good as it 'says' it has live bacteria in it!

I would recommend platies or mollies, they seem to be realy hardy little fish and all have their own personalities, although make sure you get 2 females for every male platy! they leerrrve sex! lol they wouldnt leave my female alone!

Hope your tank sorts it self out quick

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Tetra aqua start doesn't do anything. There is somebody doing a fishless cycle using it to prime the filter media and didn't really help. So I won't waste my money. Also my LFS also confirmed that it doesnt work. I like the fact they don't try and sell you things.

I have now got a new filter arrives today. A Fluval U4 as I don't think my Fluval plus 2 has enough filtration. So I will put that into my tank tonight after doing my daily w/c.

I have a feeling that my tank is not near finished cycling yet as I'm still not getting any nitrite readings. Is this normal anyone?

Also have had a bit if a move around last night, the tank is looking alot nicer now

I'm just getting bored of these water changes. I know I still have about a month to go of them as well.

It will be interesting to see if my fishless will cycle before my fish-in. Considering that I am going to change the filter and my fishless, the nitrites are off the scale.

But we will see..........

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Ok. Just put my new filter in the tank. So much more filtration. I am so happy I bought it. Took the carbon pads out so I could fit my carbon and wool filter media into it. Otherwise it wouldn't fit. I have just had a thought though. Im not sure but can you have filter media that is too small to hold enough good bacteria to get the ammonia levels to 0.

I say this because every 2-3 days I was having to wash out the pads because they had this brown muck on them. Is that bacteria or just muck? But whatever it was it was clogging the filter so I had to keep rinsing it off. Could that be why my tank isn't cycling also?

I say this because my other tank is reading ammonia 1ppm 2 days after adding 4-5ppm of ammonia and nitrites are off the scale. Just a thought.

 

[This Old Spouse]

The brown muck is likely mulm, which is the large gobs of waste from the tank. It's not the bacteria you're washing off. That's embedded in the filter media. It sounds like what you'd find if you were overfeeding the fish, but you're not doing that, right?

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Ok Thankyou. No I am feeding them a small pinch of flakes once a day.

I wouldn't class that as over feeding. Maybe under filtered is probably more than likely.

 

[This Old Spouse]

Well, the mulm is getting to the filter, so it's working to get it that far. But you were talking about your old filter, right? Is your new filter doing the job?

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Yeh I was talking about my old filter. I think because it was wool and carbon that's why it was building up I think. Could be wrong.

I put it in yesterday the new filter, so I havn't checked as I have been staying elsewhere coming back to my house once a day to do my water changes and check water in both tanks. So I will check tonight. But when I put it in I did like looking at the current produced from the filter. I think the fish were enjoying it too trying to swim against it

 

[This Old Spouse]

I have a couple tanks full of guppies, and they LOVE the current! They also love it when I'm putting water in the tank. They swim all around the bubbles.