High Amonia Level

[devon_charm]

Just tested my tank today and the Amonia has spiked and i don't know why. The tank has been running for six months now, two months on a cycle. I have been stocking it few fish at a time and only feeding small ammounts every day. Any how i need to get the Amonia down, i know i will need to do daily water changes but is there any other way i can help get rid of it, like something i can add to the water. All the other stats are ok and fish are showing no signs of being unhappy. Please help as i am worried about my little fishkies

 

[Dark Wolf]

I think Ammo-lock would be pretty helpful for you right now, unless i'm confusing it with another product, Ammo-lock converts ammonia into ammonium, which is harmless to your fish.

If you can't find any of that, then just keep doing your daily water changes, and that should hopefully keep the level down

 

[grimmy]

I think Ammo-lock would be pretty helpful for you right now, unless i'm confusing it with another product, Ammo-lock converts ammonia into ammonium, which is harmless to your fish.

If you can't find any of that, then just keep doing your daily water changes, and that should hopefully keep the level down

He is right i would also use a tiny bit of aquarium salt to surpress the nitrate because when ammonia goes down nitrate goes up and the salt will help ammonia stress also but i could be wrong

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Hiya devon charm, if you've an ammonia spike then the tank has started cycling again, which measn that regardless of the reason why it has started you need to treat it like a cycling tank. In effect you are now cycling with fish. Read the link in my sig about cycling with fish which should help you.

basically you have three main options

1 - water changes, this is the most natural method, basically you allow the cycle to run it's course but change water every single day to keep the quality of the water ok for the fish

2 - ammo lock, there's other similar products but basically any of the ammonia removing products, what they do is convert ammonia to ammonium which the bacteria colony can still use but it's not harmful to the fish. The drawback with this is that when the ammonia spike has gone your gonna get a nitrite spike which is just as dangerous and the ammo lock can do nothing about it.

3 - get some mature filter media from someone or use one of the good bacteria in a bottle products to get the cycle finished in a couple of days. There's a thread in the new to the hobby section with people who will donate media so you can look for someone in your area. If you want a bacteria in a bottle product you need to be very careful about what you buy. there are hundreds of them on the market but only 2 that have been proved to be any good. Bio-Spira in the USA and Bactinettes in the UK. Now both products have to be refrigerated from leaving the factory to going into your tank, so if they're just on the shelf in the lfs then they are no good don't waste your money. if the lfs keeps them in the fridge then take a chance and just hope they weren't left out of the fridge for too long at any point in the journey.

quick comment about adding aquarium salt - firstly aquarium salt is basically plain sodium chloride with no caking agents or anything else in it. you can buy exactly the same thing from most supermarkets at less than half the price. the actual reason it helps anything is because it makes the ammonia and nitrite less toxic to the fish, however the effects are minimal and it's mostly just an old wives tail that's carried on from before we fishkeepers fully understood the science behind cycling. honestly water changes are free and will be much more effective.

 

[grimmy]

salt is a wives tail but it works just use a little bit

 

[Dark Wolf]

Also i've just got to say, i've seen you post in a few other topics, and that betta in your avatar is gorgeous

 

[devon_charm]

Wow thanks Miss Wiggle thats really helpful, i have picked up some amonia stuff today that converts it into the safer type, not looking forward to the nitrite spike though, i'll have to get my buckets and things ready to do daily changes. Thank you

and thanks to the others too

 

[rdd1952]

i would also use a tiny bit of aquarium salt to surpress the nitrate because when ammonia goes down nitrate goes up and the salt will help ammonia stress also but i could be wrong

Salt will help reduce the toxicity of nitrIte but will not have any effect on the toxicity of ammonia.

 

[Bignose]

Hiya devon charm, if you've an ammonia spike then the tank has started cycling again, which measn that regardless of the reason why it has started you need to treat it like a cycling tank. In effect you are now cycling with fish. Read the link in my sig about cycling with fish which should help you.

basically you have three main options

1 - water changes, this is the most natural method, basically you allow the cycle to run it's course but change water every single day to keep the quality of the water ok for the fish

Water changes cannot be overemphasized enough. Despite what many fishkeepers will think, doing waterchanges while cycling (or re-cycling) will not slow down your cycling process at all. But it will keep the level of ammonia low and hopefully below dangerous levels. Do a water change every single day, or even more times per day if you have the time and will. The tank will still cycle. So long as you keep using the same water, same temp, pretty close to the same hardness and pH -- if this is all the same water from your tap you should be fine -- you can do very large water changes, too, 50%, 75% or more.

After all that, it is important to try to discover what caused the tank to uncycle, so you don't accidentally do it again. But, the first priority is to do waterchanges, large ones and often.

 

[Musho3210]

yeah, bacteria can starve for a while, i think its like 24 hours? But anyway no mater how much water you change your fish is still going to produce ammonia so do as much as you want.

 

[devon_charm]

Now you come to mention it what causes a tank to uncycle? I will do as many water changes as i can but it takes me 2hrs to do a 50% change so it will only be once a day.

 

[Bignose]

I mentioned that you need to figure out what caused the ammonia spike -- the "uncycling" as it were. Did a filter clog? Did you maybe forget to dechlorinate your water and the chlorine may have killed your bacteria? Did the tank temperature get too hot, or too cold? Did you accidentally throw away a filter pad with a large colony of bacteria on it?

There are some other things. I am just suggesting that after you solve this crisis, that you review your procedures, and see if you caused something to happen to your filter. Because you don't want to accidentally do it again, what ever it is.

 

[devon_charm]

Also i've just got to say, i've seen you post in a few other topics, and that betta in your avatar is gorgeous

Sorry just seen this post, thank you. I now have 2 females same has him so hopefully i will have fry soon

Bignose: i have been carefull with the chlorine and the filter is not blocked, how long does it take for a spike to appear after the tank starts to cycle that way i can work out what i may have done, i did do a large water change on it but i used dechlorinator(spelling?)

 

[Bignose]

How long it takes depends on your stocking level, how many of the filter bacteria you may have killed, etc. It is very tough to say. It could just be one of life's little mysteries, but like I said, you should at least try to figure out if you did anything different. Did you do everything the same way as you have always done? No changes to the routine? No changes in the tank? No new additions? Did you take anything out, like live plants? Like I said, you may not be able to figure it out, but ir's worth thinking about so see if there was something you accidentally did that you won't want to repeat.