Please, Please Some Advice?

[ellena]

My tanks still have high ammonia
It took one tank nearly 18 weeks to fishless cycle. I have had fish in it for just over 2 weeks. It was testing 0 ammonia and nitrites until the 2 week mark and I really thought I'd cracked it. Then there was a trace of ammonia. I've just tested it, 3 days later, and the ammonia was 1ppm! I've done a 50% change and will do another later.
My tank with 1 betta in has been fish in cycling for over 12 weeks and its stats are all over the place. Most recently it had gone 9 days with 0 ammonia then today, 3 days after the last test, it was also 1ppm.
I have the stats in excel format if someone could look over them. I could also describe my maintenance routine to see if anyone can spot something I'm doing wrong.
I really appreciate all the help I've already had on here, but I'm afraid the advice 'keep doing the water changes and it will settle eventually' is wearing a little thin. I get no enjoyment whatsoever from this hobby. I dread doing the tests, that's why I cut them to every few days rather than every day, it was really getting me down.
I think I really have been patient, I'm way past the normal settling down period and no sign of it happening. It seems anyone can go and set up a tank and have success, but I've given it my all and I'm getting nowhere.
So, please, please, if there's anything at all you can think of, ask away.
Thanks


Update

The ammonia levels seem to have stabilised in my bowl and I noticed on Sunday evening that I seem to have lost 2 endlers. I am fairly sure they were there when I fed them friday (I posted at the time as they were bloated) but I didn't actually count them to say for definite. Do you think the ammonia readings I've had could be due to them having died?

day 1 trace
3 1ppm
4 0.25
5 0.5
6 0.25
7 0
8 trace
9 0
10 (today) 0

The weird thing is I can't find them anywhere? I haven't stripped out the whole tank although I will next time I have to do a water change. I check every morning for fish floating on the top (paranoid, me?!) and never saw them. During the ammonia spike, I did tons of water changes and never found them. Never saw the other fish pecking at their bodies.
I do sometimes leave the lid open for a few minutes and I have cats, so there's an outside chance they've jumped and been eaten (no sign of them around the tank) or been taken straight out of the tank. And the ammonia spike was something else entirely?
Thoughts?

 

[indigoj]

have you changed anything? what dechlorinator do you use?

 

[ellena]

I used tetra for aquariums at first, but now use their pond stuff. I double dose it as someone on here suggested in case high chlorine is the problem.
I have changed some of the media a couple of times in the betta tanks as ammonia was just building up. That was early on though, about 10 weeks ago maybe? About a month ago, I cut the betta's feed right down but it still builds up.
I'm surprised by how quickly it builds up too.

 

[glolite]

Hi hun.

Try changing your dechlorinator to seachem prime. It's very concentrated so if double dosing you just need 0.5ml per 10 litres water. It neutralises ammonia and nitrite, might help you in these last frustrating stages.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with glolite, Prime is the concentrated dechlor of choice, especially in tricky situations.

Sad to hear you are still having problems, we think of you as someone who finished up long ago! The usual problem with tanks that can't hold their cycle is that there is not enough biomedia volume or there is a quality problem with what was thought to be biomedia. Perhaps the members should re-visit that with you. Small tanks are definately more difficult in this regard.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[indigoj]

Prime also helps neutralise ammonia and nitrite so good all round

 

[drobbyb]

Prime is all I use. It's probably the best value for the money. It goes a long long way, almost as far as pond dechlorinator. It does have a sulfur smell, but that is normal. To help with dosing, get a graduated pipette that way you know exactly how much you are putting in.

 

[ellena]

Right guys, I'll get some seachem ordered. The fact that it neutralises ammonia and nitrite, does that not starve the filter bacteria? I have a grad. pipette to measure out the pond dechlor. That's 0.5ml to 10l, so I dose 1ml.
WD, is there a way to measure whether there's enough media?

 

[ellena]

Just checking out the description on their website and there looks to be some decidedly dodgy science on there! It implies normal dechlorinators fill your tank with toxic ammonia!
If it detoxifies ammonia and nitrite, but still leaves them in some form that the filter bacteris can use, will they still show up on tests?

 

[indigoj]

It changes ammonia to ammonium which still feeds the filter. You can safely does upto 5x the required ammount too if needed. I use a medicine syringe to measure the correct ammount.

 

[waterdrop]

WD, is there a way to measure whether there's enough media?

A very challenging question, ellena! I know the story of the bigger picture but when it comes to solving things for small betta tanks I'm not sure I have the best answers by any means. One of the things that became obvious to me here in my "re-beginner" hobby life at TFF was that big "beds".. "layers" of ceramic gravels and ceramic rings.. large sponges or large masses of pot scrubber "tuffys" were much more in evidence among the more experienced aquarists who posted about their filters. I began thinking about how different the biomedia volumes were between the wimpy little bubblebox filters of the 50s/60s and some of the smaller HOBs versus the big trays of media in today's larger external cannisters and then ultimately the huge sumps that often sit below big tanks hidden in the cabinet. There's just a whole lot of extra insurance in those big bulk biomedia volumes.. there's going to be lots and lots of surface area there for the autotrophs to use if they need it.

When I look at some of the little filters that only have two ceramic rings or have flimsy, inadequate little thin films of spongy gauze that they call their "biomedia" I just have to wonder how much bioload, how many fish, those small surface areas will be able to support. Now, over time, I believe I've seen that very experienced aquarists seem to be able to make these lesser filters do ok... (oldman47 seems to be a master of knowing what a little filter will support and seemingly having little tanks trying them out ) but personally I find it hard to quite imagine where the balance point will be as you have less and less media and/or more and more fish. Its in there somewhere obviously but getting a "feel" for it seems challenging to say the least!

I remember your threads some but I don't have a good feel for your filters/tanks/fishloads. I'll betcha most of the experienced ones go by a "feel" of what filters and media volumes will work for what they're currently doing, rather than ever "measuring out" their media. I could be wrong but I've never heard any of them talk of measuring media as such. I suppose if we did more of that we could get more science based rather than practical art based, lol.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[ellena]

Here's a thread with pics of one of the betta tanks. The cage with sponge in is about as big as 2 playing cards, but very thin. I've added 2 pieces of ceramic media, one where the filter tube empties in and one where it flows back into the tank.
My second betta tank is a 3gall glass bowl with this filter.
Both these tanks just have 1 betta in.
My 'main' tank is this one. A pic of the filter in this thread. The baskets are 5x5x6cm.

 

[waterdrop]

Yup, that's kinda what I thought. I'm just out of my element here. You are in the land of the micro-tank hobby. Because there's only one betta in two of them and not much more in the other, there shouldn't be a -need- for all that much biomedia... but you're having trouble that does seem to indicate you either still have not enough or that the design and function of one or more of the filters just is not cutting it.

You really are attempting to do all the careful hobby things we do here but with $10 equipment in the spot where many of us spend $150 or more, so it would be expected there might be deficiencies I guess. I can't remember if we went all through this before when you were beginning (and we might have!) but I do think some of the other betta hobbyists have described pretty effective little filters that work on the odd shaped little tanks. I'm assuming perhaps one of those, whatever they are, might be the answer.

The problem is we can't really recommend an AC mini or something because there's nowhere to hang it. I think there's someone who makes a tiny external but I can't remember whether its very good actually. And of course an internal can't get much bigger or it will be bigger than the tank!!

Maybe just building a traditional 5G/19L rectangular setup would be better? But that might be giving up in a sense, so perhaps more help on filter alternatives will come along!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[ellena]

Thanks WD. Perhaps one day I'll have a regular tank set up and it will be easier. Lots of people have had 1 betta in those hexagon tanks with no problems though. No-one seems to have owned the bowl, but the design is the same as the aqua one in lid filtration.
Any advice on the points I raised about the seachem prime?

 

[indigoj]

Seachem can mess with ammonia readings as ammonium still shows in traditional tests. Seachem recommend their own rather expensive ammonia test kit but I doubt most people bother, I don't worry if I get very small ammonia readings after water changes as I know this will be the prime (simple answer - wait a while before testing after a water change). Normally though after a few hours the reading will be 0 as the bacteria process ammonium just like ammonia.