Hi Guys,
I apologize in advance, this is a bit lengthy.
I'm having a really big problem with my 20 gallon tank. I've had the tank for about 6 weeks or so. I had 2 pink kissing gouramis, 1 cory catfish, and later added 2 tiger barbs when i saw that things seemed to be fine. When i first started this tank i realized that my tap water had chlorine in it so in a panic i added water conditioner which included a chlorine remover. The water conditioner is wardley's 3 in 1 conditioner. It reduces PH to 7.0, neutralizes ammonia, and eliminates chlorine and chloramine. It was the only thing i had at the time so i used it. My filter also has an ammonia remover insert in it. Everything with the tank seemed to be fine for a few weeks except for the fact that Nitrates and Nitrites were always 0, PH was between 6.8 and 7.0, and alkalinity was through the roof. Recently I did a routine test for ammonia and discovered to my shock that the test registered 8ppm. The test is the one with 2 bottles that you drop into a sample of water and mix together. 8ppm seems impossible as the fish are swimming around and doing just fine. They are showing no signs of stress. Nitrates and Nitrites are still at 0. I tried a 50% water change just to be sure, but nothing changed. Ammonia is still registering as through the roof. How can i get that ammonia level under control? I suspect that the only reason it's not hurting the fish is due to the ph level, but i could be wrong. I thought about doing a 100% water change ( I have regular dechlorinator now, i didn't that night and petsmart was closed and my fish were bleeding so i was forced to add the conditioner) but i don't want to lose the fish. Especially that little cory catfish, he is something else. What should I do?
I apologize in advance, this is a bit lengthy.
I'm having a really big problem with my 20 gallon tank. I've had the tank for about 6 weeks or so. I had 2 pink kissing gouramis, 1 cory catfish, and later added 2 tiger barbs when i saw that things seemed to be fine. When i first started this tank i realized that my tap water had chlorine in it so in a panic i added water conditioner which included a chlorine remover. The water conditioner is wardley's 3 in 1 conditioner. It reduces PH to 7.0, neutralizes ammonia, and eliminates chlorine and chloramine. It was the only thing i had at the time so i used it. My filter also has an ammonia remover insert in it. Everything with the tank seemed to be fine for a few weeks except for the fact that Nitrates and Nitrites were always 0, PH was between 6.8 and 7.0, and alkalinity was through the roof. Recently I did a routine test for ammonia and discovered to my shock that the test registered 8ppm. The test is the one with 2 bottles that you drop into a sample of water and mix together. 8ppm seems impossible as the fish are swimming around and doing just fine. They are showing no signs of stress. Nitrates and Nitrites are still at 0. I tried a 50% water change just to be sure, but nothing changed. Ammonia is still registering as through the roof. How can i get that ammonia level under control? I suspect that the only reason it's not hurting the fish is due to the ph level, but i could be wrong. I thought about doing a 100% water change ( I have regular dechlorinator now, i didn't that night and petsmart was closed and my fish were bleeding so i was forced to add the conditioner) but i don't want to lose the fish. Especially that little cory catfish, he is something else. What should I do?
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)... I believe the ammonium cation (a cation is an atom(s) that's lost some negatively charged electrons and so is positively charged (but not for long!)) tends to quickly form strong bonds with other things it finds in the tank water to form salts and get its charge back to neutral. Those things might be OH- (hydroxide groups), or potentially all sorts of salts (there are lots of salts like ammonium sulfate, ammonium phosphates, ammonium chloride.. etc.) It all starts with starts with water being so interesting 
. You've got this little H2O molecules wanting to surround everything but some of them will be separated into H+ ions and OH- ions, giving the NH4+ cations opportunities to do things! Water itself is special, partly because of its 4 hydrogen bonds and sort of 3-dimnesional ability to interact with other molecules around it. The oxygen side of the water molecule is a little negative and the hydrogen ends are a little positive and so water "sticks to itself." Fats and oils (like some of the oils in our fish foods) don't have enough charge to overcome this self-attraction that the water molecules have for each other and so can't "push apart" the water and be "dissolved" but instead may form a slick on the water surface. Lots of other things, like the salts we mentioned and acids and alcohols and lots of stuff can be dissolved, or surrounded by the little water molecules. Anyway, I know I'm going on, but its fascinating how the carbon atom, which is like nature's tinker-toy, being a universal all-angle structural thing, and water, with its ready hydrogens, get so involved in all life forms.. ok, I'll shut up now 
