My 20 Gallons And I Need Your Help

[patricka]

hi guys,

so here is a picture of my 20 gallons
http/i62.servimg.com/u/f62/16/32/90/24/001_aq11.jpg

tank has been running for 1 month and 2 weeks and cycled. went from 0.25 ammonia to 10 nitrites to 0 nitrites to less than 5 nitrate.

it`s a peaceful tank, 5 black phantom tetras 2 males and 3 females and recently they males are showing their full color, dark near black fins and lower body...
then I have 4 ammano shrimps they've found a hole in the wood and spend most of their time there,
2 leopard corydoras
2 ancistrus

so far everything works just great except....

I use the API test for PH, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate. PH is around 6.4 Ammonia color isn`t 100% yellow and I would say ammonia is around 0.1, nitrite is 0 and nitrate is lower than 5. I just can't seem to get the ammonia to hit 0 and yet my tank is not over crowded. I have a good amount of plants, I run the tank with 2 aquaclear 20s, I have enough wood for bacteria colony, I do not use co2, there is enough room between the aquaclear 20s and the water surface to do a splash and oxygenate the water

and still for some reason my ammonia seems to be at 0.1... 0.15

any help would be appreciated.
thanks.

 

[Mikaila31]

I would say that is a zero reading..... API isn't THAT accurate.

 

[KkAaNnEe]

Yeah, agree with above.

You could try some water changes, or consider getting a new tube to test the water in, there might be some residue from previous tests

 

[patricka]

I don't think it's 0 ... some of my fish have red gills which is sign of ammonia...

I'm doing water changes once every 2 days about 5...10% water change I just did another water test and I have
ph 6.4...6.6
ammonia between 0 and 0.25
nitrite: 0
nitrate: 5 +-

yesterday I did an ok job at cleaning the bottom I just don't want to clean everything or clean too much, I did a 5...10% water change, lowered my water level for my 2 aquaclear 20s to do an ok water splash, oxynenate the water ... I don't have anything dead in the water and whatever I feed them they eat almost everything within 1 or 2 minutes.

and yet I still see some ammonia... I do not use the same tube for my tests so the ammonia tube could very well be the tube I used to test my PH yesterday but I clean them good with tap water and I have no ammonia in my city water.

thanks for any ideas.

 

[patricka]

ok guess what my ammonia color is now more near 0 than 0.10...

yesterday I did a cleanup of the bottom and a 5..10% water change and it seems that I didn`t wait now for the color to develop...

so I will do the same again tonight and hopefully tomorrow it should be at 0

thanks.

 

[KkAaNnEe]

Ok good

you could try a latger water change of 20-25%, it should clear it up

 

[Randi]

I agree that your reading is very low however, you may want to test your tap water. My ammonia levels go up after a water change because of the chloramine in my tap water. The dechlorinater makes it safe for fish but it still shows up in the test.