Help!

[tanzen]

My redtail shark unexpectantly died just a few hours ago. He was alive this morning and i discovered him at feeding time.
He definately wasnt old and didnt appear to be very sick or diseased. I removed him and continued to feed my fish but none of them would, and still arent, eating. They all are acting very lethargic and wont come out of hiding. The only one that is very active is my BGK, which is very unusual of him.

I tested my water and came up with these results:
ammonia: 8 ppm
nitrite: 0 ppm
nitrate: 30 ppm

I dont know why my ammonia or my nitrates are so high, but i did an emergency water change of about 40 out of 55 gallons and added a small amount of aquarium salt, ammo-lock, and amquel plus.

I use the ammo-lock on a regular basis because although my tank SHOULD be cycled and has been up and running since april, my ammonia stays so high. None of my fish have ever acted ill or strange due to ammonia poisoning (or anything else for that matter) and i usually change at least 20 gallons weekly and sometimes twice a week to help with the high ammonia.

Now that the new water has been circulating for about an hour or so, a couple of my fish are starting to come out of hiding but they still arent eating and they are all (but the BGK) breathing extremely fast. I run two bubble bars, a bio-wheel filter with a waterfall effect, and a rena filstar filter with a spray bar to all agitate the water so i assume that my water is well oxygenated.

Water params after water change:
ammonia: 2-4 ppm (color is inbetween)
nitrite: 0
nitrate: less than 5 ppm

I'm planning on doing another water change tomorrow to get rid of the rest of the ammonia. Why it all didnt come out, i will never know.

I also noticed that my dojo loach has all of these huge bumps on him and he looks extremely wrinkly and raw. I first noticed that he had developed one very tiny bump about a month or so ago. I didnt really worry about it. But now he has huge ones all over his body and he looks terrible. He absolutely did not look like this yesterday. What are these bumps?? He also a small hole in his head behind his left eye. It not very big, more like he had been poked with a hot needle, but it's there. I am very concerned about what this may be. If this is a disease, i really dont want my tank to die because of my ignorance of fish illnesses. Please help me.

Picture of the bumps:


Close up on bumps:


I'm sorry the pictures are so blurry, i'll try to take better ones later.


What's wrong with my tank??

 

[Spishkey]

dont wait to do the water change do it now!!!!!, keep doing it until that ammonia reading reads 0!! also a good gravel vac is possibly needed to remove any muck from the substrate! how much do you feed your fish?
also can you tell us what fish are in that tank? perhaps you are overstocked or over feeding hence the ammonia reading? what filter are you using?

 

[indigoj]

Ammo Lock and Amquel can give false ammonia readings as they turn ammonia into ammonium which still shows on most tests.

Your Nitrates are fine even at 30ppm (even as high as 100ppm is not that bad unless you have particularly sensitive fish)

The very high ammonia reading does suggest your tank is not cycled. I'd do some big daily water changes for a week and stop using the ammonia removers for a while - see what your readings are then.

 

[tanzen]

dont wait to do the water change do it now!!!!!, keep doing it until that ammonia reading reads 0!! also a good gravel vac is possibly needed to remove any muck from the substrate! how much do you feed your fish?
also can you tell us what fish are in that tank? perhaps you are overstocked or over feeding hence the ammonia reading? what filter are you using?

i do gravel vac my substrate. that's how i do my water changes.
In the mornings i'll usually feed one frozen cube of either blood worms, brine shrimp, or beefhart (but not usually) and at night i chop up a nightcrawler and feed another block of usually bloodworms.

i use two filters. I have a marineland penguin bio-wheel 350 and a rena filstar xP3.

stock list:
1 black ghost knife (Apteronotus albifrons) ;4 inches
1 male betta (Betta splenden) ; 2 inches
1 pearl gourami (Trichogaster leerii) ; 4 inches
1 green swordtail (Xiphorphorus helleri) ; 3 inches
1 gold dojo loach (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus) ; 5 inches
1 red tail shark (Epalzeorhynchus bicolor) ;he WAS about 4 iches
1 african dwarf frog (Hymenochirus boettgeri) ;an inch
1 striped peacock spiny eel (Macrognathus siamensis) ; 9 inches

 

[tanzen]

Ammo Lock and Amquel can give false ammonia readings as they turn ammonia into ammonium which still shows on most tests.

Your Nitrates are fine even at 30ppm (even as high as 100ppm is not that bad unless you have particularly sensitive fish)

The very high ammonia reading does suggest your tank is not cycled. I'd do some big daily water changes for a week and stop using the ammonia removers for a while - see what your readings are then.

i was kind of scared about the nitrates because that's what my mom thinks killed my red tailed shark, but now i know that wasnt it. Do you think that my shark just died because he couldnt take the ammonia anymore? He had lived in high ammonia since i got him.

Thank you for the advice on the ammonia removers. i'll start doing daily water changes and post up the results.

 

[tanzen]

Do the bumps on my dojo loach possibly look like tuberculosis? Tumors?

 

[Marve99]

Not too sure about the bumps, but at your current ammonia levels (2-4 PPM ??) you will need to do more than daily water changes.

Change 50%-80% of the water now and retest. keep changing water until your readings are belwo 0.25PPM.

Keep posting your water readings and water changes details, and people will keep helping with this.

Good luck.

Using Ammo lock is not a good idea and is probably the reason your tank has never cycled. Chemically removing ammonia removes the food source of the bacteria which should colonize your filter(and eat the ammonia). Stop using chemicals and up the water changes to deal with you ammonia and your tank will cycle and stabalize with 0 ammonia and nitrites.

 

[tanzen]

I'm currently doing my first water change of the day. I am removing virtually all but 2 inches worth of water and I will be taking everyone's advice and do repeated water changes until my ammonia is zero and i wont add any ammonia remover.

I will post test results after each water change.

Here are my test results from this morning:
ammonia: 8 ppm
nitrite: 0 ppm
nitrate: 15 ppm

 

[tanzen]

I took out about 45 gallons and filled my tank back up with 20 gallons of water.
I tested my ammonia and got close to 2 ppm on the scale.

I'll take out more water, fill it back, and test again.

 

[Tolak]

Not too sure about the bumps, but at your current ammonia levels (2-4 PPM ??) you will need to do more than daily water changes.

Change 50%-80% of the water now and retest. keep changing water until your readings are belwo 0.25PPM.

Keep posting your water readings and water changes details, and people will keep helping with this.

Good luck.

Using Ammo lock is not a good idea and is probably the reason your tank has never cycled. Chemically removing ammonia removes the food source of the bacteria which should colonize your filter(and eat the ammonia). Stop using chemicals and up the water changes to deal with you ammonia and your tank will cycle and stabalize with 0 ammonia and nitrites.

Ammo Lock, which is hydromethane sulfinate, does not remove ammonia. It converts it to ammonium, which is used the same as ammonia by your nitrifying bacteria. The level of ammonium that the ammonia is converted to is harmless to fish. Many test kits read ammonium as ammonia.

Your better dechlorinators contain this substance, many will state that they remove ammonia when they actually convert it to ammonium. This is a good thing, as chloramine is a combination of chlorine & ammonia. Your cheaper dechlorinators contain only sodium thiosufate, which will remove chlorine, as well as break the chlorine/ammonia bond in chloramine, leaving you with ammonia.

For smaller water changes in a mature tank this is usually no big deal, as the nitrifying bacteria convert the slight level of ammonia to nitrite, then nitrate. At times, depending on the tank & water supply, larger water changes in a mature tank can cause problems.

When a traditional cycle with fish is concerned, the large water changes with chloriminated water are a problem, as you will not see the ammonia drop to zero until the nitrifying bacteria are capable of converting the ammonia (or ammonium) into nitrite. In the mean time, a product such as Ammo Lock will protect the fish from the affects of ammonia.

I would continue with the large water changes to drop the ammonia level, and keep it as low as possible. Ammo Lock is a good product, is the same component contained in many of the better dechlorinators on the market, and is a consumable used by many who commercially maintain aquariums.

 

[tanzen]

So wait, then i SHOULD continue to use the ammo lock?

Also, i use Aqueon water conditioner. It claims to "detoxify heavy metals, ammonia and other elements released from fish waste" and it's main ingredient is sodium hydroxymethane sulfinate. So then that should be good for the ammonia right?

**water update**
I just did another water change and my ammonia test read between 0.25 and 0.5 ppm.
I'll perform another one and i should be good.

 

[tanzen]

I just did my last water change and all water stats are 0. I didnt add any ammo lock. I probably will if my ammonia begins to climb again. but for now I'm going to let the water circulate for awhile, test, and update later.

 

[tanzen]

Urghh!!
My tank has had all clean water circulating for just a tad over an hour and my ammonia is starting to climb again!

water stats:
ammonia: 1 ppm
nitrite: 0
nitrate: 0

and it'll only get higher from here.
i dont understand what is up with all of this ammonia!
my mom thinks that there's something in the filters making the ammonia spike so bad. is this maybe the cause??

 

[zoetetra]

are you still feeding the fish , if you are please stop feeding the fish. as food into fish = ammonia out. they will be fine with no food for a few days until you sort this ammonia problem out.

 

[tanzen]

are you still feeding the fish , if you are please stop feeding the fish. as food into fish = ammonia out. they will be fine with no food for a few days until you sort this ammonia problem out.

i havent fed my fish since last night. i was considering about to feed them now, but i guess i really shouldnt. i really have had ammonia problems for months though with no real harm to my fish.