How Do You Banish Ammonia From Your Tank?

LISTEN I"M NOT A PROFFESTIONAL FISH KEEPER, i do not know all this stuff, should i just quit my job and start keeping fish all day as my profression??? I need money to get all the stuff to care for all the fish and keeping them will NOT give me money to buty this kind of stuff. I CAN'T DO WATER CHANGES EVERYDAY!! I NEED ANOTHER SOLUTION RATHER THAN JUST CHANGING WATER ALL THE TIME!



Sorry i got a bit snappy back there :(
 
Few people on this forum are professionals. You've been given good advice. You chose to keep difficult fish, you have to be prepared to pay what it takes to keep them alive.

Your options are water changes until your bacteria catch up, buying something to ease the problem until your bacteria catch up (still likely to require water changes), or if the problem is persistent, either getting a new ammonia test to confirm it's working properly, or upgrading your filter if it's consistently underperforming. Water changes are the closest thing to a free fix for any problem, and it's not always enough.
 
LISTEN I"M NOT A PROFFESTIONAL FISH KEEPER, i do not know all this stuff, should i just quit my job and start keeping fish all day as my profression??? I need money to get all the stuff to care for all the fish and keeping them will NOT give me money to buty this kind of stuff. I CAN'T DO WATER CHANGES EVERYDAY!! I NEED ANOTHER SOLUTION RATHER THAN JUST CHANGING WATER ALL THE TIME!

If you can't go on the Internet and read a little on your fish, then you are being ignorant. None of us here are "professional" fish keepers.

If you think there is a way to cheat the system and not have ammonia, then you shouldn't have fish in the first place, especially Discus. If you can't do water changes ever day, till' you get your ammonia at zero, or keep your fish properly. Then re-home the fish? Remember, for Discus you need to be doing water changes a few times a week especially when they are young. At minimum you need to change your water once weekly. THIS GOES FOR ANY FISH TANK.

It's comments like this that really make me wonder. Seems like you are just lazy... :sad: -_-
 
What test kit are you using that will detect 0.02ppm of ammonia?

This is the key question. Unless the OP has some lab-grade material, no off-the-shelf aquarium home kit is anywhere near accurate enough to measure hundredths of ppm.

i suspect it's a typo and it's 0.2ppm

LISTEN I"M NOT A PROFFESTIONAL FISH KEEPER, i do not know all this stuff, should i just quit my job and start keeping fish all day as my profression??? I need money to get all the stuff to care for all the fish and keeping them will NOT give me money to buty this kind of stuff. I CAN'T DO WATER CHANGES EVERYDAY!! I NEED ANOTHER SOLUTION RATHER THAN JUST CHANGING WATER ALL THE TIME!

right, the tank is not cycled, there's no magic fix we can give you to make it be cycled. The first thing you need to do is make sure you understand what cycling is and what the levels we are talking about are. read the link in my sig 'whats cycling' which will explain all this to you. You may not be a professional but if you aren't prepared to take 10 minutes to read this stuff through then you shouldn't be keeping pets at all.

now you need to bear in mind that the usual problem of a fish-in cycle has been compounded by the fact that you've got discus, they are one of the most delicate sensitive fish around and shouldn't be kept in a tank less than 6 months old, it needs to be mature and stable to keep them happy and alive. I don't mean to be the bearer of bad tidings and I'm not trying to have a go at you, just being realistic. There is a very strong chance that your discus will die if you keep them in this tank.

So, onto fixing it, easily the best option for you is to return the discus to the store and complete a fishless cycle, there is a link in my signature which explains how to do this as well. This means that the fish will not be put at risk by your water conditions and that you can prepare the tank properly so when you are ready for fish they have a safe environment to go into. This is not an expensive process, all you need is a bottle of ammonia which costs £2/3, it does however take a few weeks so you need to be patient.

There are a few alternatives if you are not prepared to do this though, the first is daily water changes, this will go on for around one to two months, you'll need to change about 50% of the water every day to keep things clean enough for discus. Basically you need to do as many water changes as it takes to keep both ammonia and nitrite at 0. Even 0.1ppm will be v dangerous for discus. During this time the fish are highly likely to get ill, this will mean buying appropriate medications which can become v expensive, diseases are hard to treat when there's ammonia present in the tank so the chances of recovery are slim. There are however a couple of things you can try to speed this process up.

The first is to buy either Bactinettes (UK) or Bio Spira (USA), these are 'bacteria in a bottle' supplements which contain some of the good bacteria you need to keep your filter healthy. There are however no guarantees that these will work, they are expensive and probably have something like a 50% sucess rate. Don't buy any other bzacteria in a bottle products, most of them don't work, the two products mentioned above are the only ones that real fishkeepers rate.

The second option is to get some mature media from another fishkeepers filter, this will contain the bacteria you need and will speed up the cycling process.

So you can either go for the cheap option which doesn't involve daily water changes i.e. return the fish and doa fishless cycle

or you camn try and do the daily water changes to doa fish-in cycle, potentially loose your fish and most likely have to spend a lot more money rectifying problems.
 
A few people mentioned rehoming the discus, from one of this emergency posts, the store won't take them back. From the pictures posted (I don't know that much about discus, granted) the gray one looks like he's on his way out. If they all look that bad, it'll be hard to find somebody to take them.

It's an expensive lesson to learn, especially if you're going to dump on the advice offered. I think Miss Wiggle mentioned an acquaintance who learned (or failed to learn) the same lesson with discus.
 
A few people mentioned rehoming the discus, from one of this emergency posts, the store won't take them back. From the pictures posted (I don't know that much about discus, granted) the gray one looks like he's on his way out. If they all look that bad, it'll be hard to find somebody to take them.

It's an expensive lesson to learn, especially if you're going to dump on the advice offered. I think Miss Wiggle mentioned an acquaintance who learned (or failed to learn) the same lesson with discus.


yeah sadly at the last count said acquantance is still classed as 'failed to learn' at the expense of a lot of very nice discus and various other fish.
 
why would you need to give up your job to do a water change every day ?? if you cant look after the fish then why have them>>discus especially<< its not hard to empty a few buckets and it will be so worth it when you get into a routine, i have 14 tanks and spend all day saturday`s cleaning them etc.. and i wouldnt change it for the world, get a routine and you`ll enjoy it, if you cant be @rsed then youre in the wrong hobby,sorry :)
 
What test kit are you using that will detect 0.02ppm of ammonia?

This is the key question. Unless the OP has some lab-grade material, no off-the-shelf aquarium home kit is anywhere near accurate enough to measure hundredths of ppm.

i suspect it's a typo and it's 0.2ppm

He said 0.02ppm in two threads (also stating that the ammonia was almost gone), he also referred to 0.18ppm and 0.25ppm


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I just feel sorry for those discus, you couldn't choose a worse species for a fish-in cycle :(

As said, the only way to get rid of your ammonia is to do lots of water changes until your tank is cycled.
You would probably be looking at 50% in the morning and 50% in the evening, every day to keep those discus happy.
 
What test kit are you using that will detect 0.02ppm of ammonia?

This is the key question. Unless the OP has some lab-grade material, no off-the-shelf aquarium home kit is anywhere near accurate enough to measure hundredths of ppm.

i suspect it's a typo and it's 0.2ppm

He said 0.02ppm in two threads (also stating that the ammonia was almost gone), he also referred to 0.18ppm and 0.25ppm

Ah fair enough then, hadn't spotted it in the other thread as well.
 
Being rude to people who are trying to help you and shouting (typing in capitals) is also very rude and uneccessary! People on here kindly give their time and advise freely to help so some common manners would be nice!

Its no good saying you cant afford stuff and that you dont have the time to look after your fish properly - you should have done your research before buying and putting your fish through this misery! :angry:
 
Totally agree with your statement Gilli.

There are some very expert fishkeepers on this forum with a vast collective knowledge.

RedDiscus you have obviously got yourself into a stressfull and potentially expensive dilemma here and all this 'free' advice should not be looked upon lightly. Discus are NOT a beginner fish and require a lot more care and attention than almost any other type of fish you can buy.

I have been keeping fish for about 3 year now as an adult and have made my fair share of mistakes along the way. I only wish I had done better research in the beginning and got better 'expert' advice. Luckily you have found this forum to request help with your situation, hopefully you will heed the advice on offer and your Discus may stand a chance of pulling through this.

If you really don't have time to dedicate to fishkeeping and the vigorous maintenace process required to be a good/ successful fishkeeper then maybe for your own financial sake and the health of the fish you would purchase be better off trying your hand at something else.

Don't wish to sound rude but all your posts here and in the emergency section have pretty much recommended the same course of action. You MUST now perform fish-in-cycling with one of the most delicate fish in the hobby, this means YOU NEED to find the time to perform large daily water changes for the next month or so, this should not take more than 1/2 hour per day really and I don't think that is too tall an order.

I wish you all the best with this and hope you fish make it.

Good Luck, Bricko
 
Alright please don't get upset about the advise being given, if you can't/won't do the water changes then can you at least see if you can obtain some mature filter medium from a friend or from the pet shop (making sure that it comes from a healthy tank).

You can add that to your filter to quick boost the bacteria already growing in there.
 
sorry! I snapped a bit back there, and i apologise if you got offended, i truly am sorry. :sad: :sad: i've got some invaluble resource and advice on this page more than what i got out of my book, sorry people.
I will try your suggested course of action, thank you :D
 

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