How Do I Lower My Ammonia?

Budde

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My Ammonia level is at 4.0! How do I lower it?


Stocking List:
2 Freshwater Clams
1 Angelfish
2 Guppies
1 Baloon Molly
1 Gourami



Josh
 
Water changes! :nod: :nod:

What is your tap water ammonia level?
How often do you perform water changes?
Is your tank in the process of cycling?
 
Water changes! :nod: :nod:

What is your tap water ammonia level?
How often do you perform water changes?
Is your tank in the process of cycling?

Tap Water Ammonia - 0 - .25

I do changes every other week.

No, My tank is not in the process of cycling.


Josh
 
What dechlorinator do you use?
I'd cetainly think that now your ammonia is at 4 your tank is uncycled for some reason;
How long has it been set up?
Have you made any additons (ph buffer in particular) to the water recently?
Have you added any fish recently?
Have you cleaned out your filter recently, if so how?
Have you treated with any medications recently, if so what?

Sorry for all the questions, but they need answering to get to the bottom of your problem......
 
What dechlorinator do you use?
I'd cetainly think that now your ammonia is at 4 your tank is uncycled for some reason;
How long has it been set up?
Have you made any additons (ph buffer in particular) to the water recently?
Have you added any fish recently?
Have you cleaned out your filter recently, if so how?
Have you treated with any medications recently, if so what?

Sorry for all the questions, but they need answering to get to the bottom of your problem......

I use Chlor Out made by Wardley.
It has been set up for 6 Months.
No additions to the tank lately. - Other than a Water Change this Morning - I Used declorinated water.
Added fish but they died due to the Ammonia
I changed the Filter Cartrige - I use Ammo-Carb for my Carbon.
No Medications.

Thanks for the Help.

Josh
 
The bacteria involved in the cycling process would have been in the filter media, and if i read your reply correctly this;
I changed the Filter Cartrige
Means you have thrown your bacteria out, your tanks is now uncycled (if i am correct)....
This will be why your ammonia is so high, do you have a decent knowledge of cycling?
 
The bacteria involved in the cycling process would have been in the filter media, and if i read your reply correctly this;
I changed the Filter Cartrige
Means you have thrown your bacteria out, your tanks is now uncycled (if i am correct)....
This will be why your ammonia is so high, do you have a decent knowledge of cycling?

I do have somewhat of a Cycling Knowledge. But, I have two filters on the tank... Only one of the had been changed... So, That means something else is wrong.

pH 6.0 (I need help getting it higher)
Ammonia 4.0 (ALERT: High)
Nitrite 0.25 (Need help Lowering)
Nitrate 5.0


Please Help Me!!!

Josh
 
Its obviously (IMHO) cycling difficulties, raising your PH now would be a bad idea, not only is it generally a fairly risky procedure but it ammonia is more toxic at high PH levels.
Maybe the cleaning of the one filter has simply caused an overload. Unless there are any chemical additions to the tank you have forgotten about then your best weapon is regular water changes until it does eventually re-cycle. I personally, in a similar situation performed approx 60% daily, 20% in 3 lots; morning, noon and night.
If you have fish in i'd advise you to buy some seachem prime which should help detoxify your nitrite and ammonia. Maybe seed the filter that was cleaned with some media from the cycled filter.....
 
Its obviously (IMHO) cycling difficulties, raising your PH now would be a bad idea, not only is it generally a fairly risky procedure but it ammonia is more toxic at high PH levels.
Maybe the cleaning of the one filter has simply caused an overload. Unless there are any chemical additions to the tank you have forgotten about then your best weapon is regular water changes until it does eventually re-cycle. I personally, in a similar situation performed approx 60% daily, 20% in 3 lots; morning, noon and night.
If you have fish in i'd advise you to buy some seachem prime which should help detoxify your nitrite and ammonia. Maybe seed the filter that was cleaned with some media from the cycled filter.....

Oh, I was just looking at some of my supplies I had, and I noticed that I had put some cycle in the Filter after changing the Cartrige. And I let the Cartrige sit in there for about 24 Hours before throughing it out. Thanks for the help. Do you have any suggestions? I will test later and post it here.

Josh
 
Well not sure how old the CYCLE product is. However it is usually not recommended. As if you think about it, who knows how long the product was sitting in a warehouse with flutuating temperatures that could have been very hot, to freezing cold. And then who knows when it reached the LFS, and by the time you got it. The good things that were supposed to be in there are probably now dead. :nod: Just a thought on that product.

20% to 50% water changes will help your tank out. Do them everyother day, or at least once a week. Also in order for a tank to be considered cycle the readings should be...
Nitrate: 10-40 (ideal)
Nitrite: 0
Ammonia: 0


Best of Luck!
 
Although the tank has been running for 6 months, something has wiped out your bacteria colony or you wouldn't have ammonia. Have you recently used any type of medication in the tank. Quite a few of them will kill the bacteria colony. You say you have 2 filters in the tank. What type/size are they? If one is considerabley stronger than the other, then changing the stronger one would have removed a larger protion of you bacteria that the tank could stand.

As mentioned, all you can do is water changes until the tank cycles again. I would do a large 75% water change (what is the pH of your tap water?) to get the ammonia down as low as possible and then do smaller 25% WCs 2 to 4 times a day until you get the ammonia down below .25ppm. The reason I asked aboout your pH is that if the tap pH is considerably higher than the tank pH of 6.0 (could it possibly be lower and that is as low as your test kit goes), then a large water change could change the pH too much and would therefore not be a good idea. If that is the case, you should just do 25% water changes every 4 to 6 hours until you get the levels down.

The one positive point to your low pH at this point is that ammonia is almost non-toxic at a pH leel that low so in that sense it isn't bad. Most of the fish you have except the mollies would actually be quite at home with a pH of 6.0. And all of them can adapt to it. If you do want to raise it, get a piece of tufa rock and place it in the tank. It will raise it naturally and keep it up.
 
Although the tank has been running for 6 months, something has wiped out your bacteria colony or you wouldn't have ammonia. Have you recently used any type of medication in the tank. Quite a few of them will kill the bacteria colony. You say you have 2 filters in the tank. What type/size are they? If one is considerabley stronger than the other, then changing the stronger one would have removed a larger protion of you bacteria that the tank could stand.

As mentioned, all you can do is water changes until the tank cycles again. I would do a large 75% water change (what is the pH of your tap water?) to get the ammonia down as low as possible and then do smaller 25% WCs 2 to 4 times a day until you get the ammonia down below .25ppm. The reason I asked aboout your pH is that if the tap pH is considerably higher than the tank pH of 6.0 (could it possibly be lower and that is as low as your test kit goes), then a large water change could change the pH too much and would therefore not be a good idea. If that is the case, you should just do 25% water changes every 4 to 6 hours until you get the levels down.

The one positive point to your low pH at this point is that ammonia is almost non-toxic at a pH leel that low so in that sense it isn't bad. Most of the fish you have except the mollies would actually be quite at home with a pH of 6.0. And all of them can adapt to it. If you do want to raise it, get a piece of tufa rock and place it in the tank. It will raise it naturally and keep it up.

Filters -
10 G - Hagen
30 G - Tetra

Tap Water PH -
7.0

Thanks for the info.

Josh
 
Which of the 2 filters did you change? If it was the 30G, then you could expect that you threw away about 75% pf your bacteria as the filter with the higher flow rate would house the majority of the bacteria since it process more water thus bringing more food to the bacteria.
 
Which of the 2 filters did you change? If it was the 30G, then you could expect that you threw away about 75% pf your bacteria as the filter with the higher flow rate would house the majority of the bacteria since it process more water thus bringing more food to the bacteria.

It was the 10 G Filter.

Josh
 

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