How Long Can Fish Tolerate Ammonia?

[Lord Zogat]

My tank seems to go from 0ppm to 1ppm or just below that in a day or two. I tried doing the fishless cycle for 3 months but the ammonia disappeared so slowly it never followed te recommended information.

I have put some fish in and they have been in there for almost 5 days. They all seem normal, except on started swimming sideways and within minutes was motionless. I netted him and left it for a bit but it was done.

The rest appear fine other than some looking to be a little more aggitated than normal or breathing a bit faster than normal. Other than the one or two, the rest are moving as normal?

 

[PaPeRo]

Ammonia causes permanent damage to the fish's gills so even if the ammonia levels go down the damage has already been done. Fish with damaged gills from ammonia will have a hard time getting oxygen from the water so they'll always seem like they're breathing heavy/fast.

I recommended that you use Cycle but you didn't listen so now you paid the price.

 

[Glod]

Water changes to get your ammonia down. Daily if necessary.

 

[andywg]

Hardy fish shouldn't be too bad with levels up to 1 ppm. Obviously it isn't ideal, but plenty of water changes should help them out. Improving gas exchange by pointing a powerhead or filter outlet at the surface will aid in keeping the oxygen levels at the desired amount. After all, many people have only ever cycled with fish and had no real problems.

There was a post a while ago detailing about how at lower pH (7 and under) the amount of ammonia (rather than less toxic ammonium) present in water is not so high. I recall Lynden started that thread and it had a lot of input from Bignose, though would be at a loss to suggest when it happened.

Cycle is generally considered a load of tosh. The bottle cannot contain enough food and the correct conditions to maintain any colony of bacteria long enough from bottling to use.

If you can find bio-spira/bactinets then you might be alright, or else try and borrow some filter media from someone nearby. There is a list of donors pinned somewhere.

 

[Lord Zogat]

I did do an 80% water change that droped levels, and I will do them more often once a night.

Regardless of what I tried during the fishless cycle, even the article owner didn't have any idea what was going on. The levels would drop so slowly and cycles to go from 4 - 6 ppm to 1ppm would average anywhere from 3 week to 8 days, but was never consistent and never made it to a 12 hour cycle. Also later cycles took longer to remove the ammonia then middle cycles.

From what I have read I agree that the cycle stuff is useless.

The fish appear to be normal today, not the behaviour I was seeing the night before.