High or Low Ammonia Levels??

[SilverDollar_03]

I have a 3 week old tank with these occupants:

1 common pleco
2 blue gouramis
4 silver dollars
(hope to get 2 german blue rams later)

I recently did a water test and my ammonia is at 2.0 is this high or low? also, my nitrite and nitrate are still at zero and i would have though they would have started to get higher by now. can someone try to explain what is happening please??

 

[Phantom Thief]

2 is very high, and is dangerous for your fish. Do water changes to reduce the ammonia levels. If possible, get a handful of gravel from an established tank and put it in the tank.

There are 3 possibilities as to what happened:
1) your tank isnt cycled
2) you have not done enough water changes
3) you have been feeding too much

P.T.

 

[tstenback]

anything above zero for an ammonia reading is cause for concern. Also what are your nitrite and nitrate readings? How big is the tank?

 

[SilverDollar_03]

nitrite is now at 0.25 and nitrate is still zero. my ammonia is now at 1 but i want it at zero. the tank is 55 gallons

 

[tstenback]

You may not be able to get the ammonia to zero if the tank is cycling. In any case the only way to do it is to keep doing water changes of about 20 - 25% daily. HTH

 

[SilverDollar_03]

daily?? i was doing 25% weekly. do you really think i should start doing it daily??

 

[tstenback]

Lets go back to the beginning. When you got your tank did you put the fish in right away? Did you cycle the tank with ammonia first? If you did not cycle with ammonia then you are probably at the beginning of a cycle with fish in your tank. If this is the case here is the situation. Ammonia is very toxic to fish, if not kept at or below 1 ppm it can be fatal to the fish. The only way to keep it down is to do water changes daily. The other option is to take all the fish back to the LFS and ask them to hold them until your tank is ready. and then cycle without fish in the tank here is a link to help describe what i am talking about. If yoou have to go on with fish in the tank then you will get very used to water changes until the cycle is over....usually 4-8 weeks. It is the only way to keep the levels of toxic chemicals down to a liveable range for your fish. Hope That Helps

 

[~FairyAngelFish~]

U guys are so smart!

 

[SilverDollar_03]

ok i understand. i think ill just do daily water changes then. i would rather do that than have to take all the fish back and stuff. it would be ebarassing and annoying to do.