Urgent Help Needed

[Raidmeuk]

How do i lower my amonia levels. I lost 4 fish last night and have just checked the amonia level and found that the level ia about a 6 on the Nutrafin test kit (Lets just say the water went orange)

Urgent help greatfully needed.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

water changes, big ones and lots of them!

is the tank newly set up? if so read the link in my signature 'the nitrogen cycle' and then read the link 'whats cycling' which will explain what to do.

if ammonia is really at 6 then i'm amazed any fish are alive, you should immediately do a 90% water change

 

[shaz-killie]

have you done a massive water change yet?

 

[Raidmeuk]

Ive done a 50% change yesterday and a 20% today and its came down to 6ish maybe a little lower from a 7.9 shall i do another 50% change again ?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

bigger than that, do like 80/90% water change, with that level of ammonia you need to keep doing water changes and testing it until it comes down to at something like 0.25ppm at the most.

seriously, don't even bother replying now, go do water changes immediately and come back and we'll sort the rest out when you've done at least one massive change!

 

[Raidmeuk]

I think I know why its happened, my corys gave birth when i moved them in and i moved the eggs to a fry net in the tank but but only a few surived. i think thats when things started to go wrong.

Ok thanks Miss Wiggle

 

[shaz-killie]

yeah as above and you may need to do this a few times to bring the level down

 

[Fisses]

water change water change water change, you need to dilute the ammonia as much as poss

 

[Raidmeuk]

Looks like i've got ot down now to 0.6 do i still need to go further ??

 

[Thommo]

Looks like i've got ot down now to 0.6 do i still need to go further ??

YES,

No ammount of ammonia is good for the fish . Just keep doing water changes until you do not get any readings of ammonia. Only a small ammount can damage the fish's gills. I personaly would keep checking and when ever you see ammonia do a water change.


Good luck

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, you can do another water change as soon as an hour after a previous one. Now that you've dropped the ammonia down close to zero you can drop back from 80/90% to 60/70% if that would be more convenient, perhaps letting you leave the filter running during the change etc. but basically, large changes are needed whenever ammonia gets over (0.6ppm for you). For people with the API kit we usually quote the 0.25ppm number because that is the first detectable shade from the kit. The nutrafin kit I believe as .6ppm as the first shade. I'd make the goal to try and have it test at zero but then hope that it only gets up to the .6ppm shade in the time before you wake up, come back from work, whatever and can do another water change or two. We assume you are using conditioner and rough temperature matching for these water changes.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Thommo]

Yes, you can do another water change as soon as an hour after a previous one. Now that you've dropped the ammonia down close to zero you can drop back from 80/90% to 60/70% if that would be more convenient, perhaps letting you leave the filter running during the change etc. but basically, large changes are needed whenever ammonia gets over (0.6ppm for you). For people with the API kit we usually quote the 0.25ppm number because that is the first detectable shade from the kit. The nutrafin kit I believe as .6ppm as the first shade. I'd make the goal to try and have it test at zero but then hope that it only gets up to the .6ppm shade in the time before you wake up, come back from work, whatever and can do another water change or two. We assume you are using conditioner and rough temperature matching for these water changes.

~~waterdrop~~

As you can tell WD has been doing this for a while and I would listen to all of the advice. Sorry I wasn't as detailed I guess I assumed too much like water conditioner and temp etc. I have to work on my forum skills

Good luck Raidmeuk and I hope all your fishies are ok.

 

[Chris w]

the down side to all these water changes is that unless the water in your tank is of the same quality going in i.e ph level and tempreture, you may well destroy the bacteria in your filters. a 90% change is a very drastic and not recomended in my opinion. i personally would have done a 50% change at most then used a product called ammo lock for 24 hours then again done another change and repeat the process untill you sort the problem.

i would not say that a few babies being born would cause such a high rate of ammonia in a short time, have you checked to see if your filters are running properley and that your nitrite and nitrate levels are also prescent.

as if not this would then tell me you have a bacteria break down and the nitrogen cycle has stopped.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

the down side to all these water changes is that unless the water in your tank is of the same quality going in i.e ph level and tempreture, you may well destroy the bacteria in your filters. a 90% change is a very drastic and not recomended in my opinion. i personally would have done a 50% change at most then used a product called ammo lock for 24 hours then again done another change and repeat the process untill you sort the problem.

i would not say that a few babies being born would cause such a high rate of ammonia in a short time, have you checked to see if your filters are running properley and that your nitrite and nitrate levels are also prescent.

as if not this would then tell me you have a bacteria break down and the nitrogen cycle has stopped.

sorry but that's simply not true, fluctuations in pH and temp unless they are very very extreme wll not harm the filter bacteria.

added to which most people's pH is the same in the tank as the tap or near enough and you just temp match the water before it goes in.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with MW, in my experience the bacteria, even during initial cycling situations, is quite tough and will happily take large water changes and usually respond positively from them. Add to that though that we usually assume that the water change is being performed with appropriate precautions: 1x, 1.5x or even 2x recommended conditioner (chlorine/chloramine remover) dosing in case the tap water is over-chlorinated (this is added either to the new water going in or to the tank directly in a dosing appropriate to the full tank volume), rough temperature matching (using your hand is good enough as this should put the return water within a couple of degrees F of the tank water) and, in the case of fishless cycling only, the recharge of ammonia for feeding the bacteria.

I hasten to add that these recommendations pertain particularly to first-time cycling situations where we expect the bacterial colonies to be small and to still have somewhat fragile biofilm development. In mature filters, with large colonies that have been long established, you will find numerous threads on TFF discussing the possibilities that adding cold tap water straight from a garden hose with no conditioner and no temp matching with arguably have no negative effect on the bacteria. I feel it is reasonable though to still not recommend that to beginners and there are plenty of aquarists who don't care to risk their colonies to that sort of action.

~~waterdrop~~