Need help with my ammonia

[Helen 26]

Hi everyone, I brought a new tank couple of months ago and left it running for few week's before adding my fish, I have a self cleaning filter in the bottom of the tank, the ammonia was okay, nitrate, nitrite was okay. My ammonia has gone up so I've done a 50% water change added pouch in another filter but still my ammonia is not going down. Please help...

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

There's no such thing as a self cleaning filter. Can you tell us what sort of filter it is, (pictures or description)?

What is the pouch you put in the tank?

How often are you feeding the fish?
How often do you do water changes and how much do you change?
Do you dechlorinate the new water before adding it to the tank?

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If you have an ammonia or nitrite reading above 0ppm, or a nitrate reading above 20ppm, the best thing to do is reduce feeding to once every couple of days, and do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day until the levels are back to 0ppm. Then do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate once a week.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

 

[itiwhetu]

Have you any live plants in your tank. They will help