Water Change/ammonia Levels

[fish_r_friends]

Hi,

I have a 60 litre tank which after cycling, I added 3 guppies. A week later, (2 days ago), I added 6 zebra danios, and as a result the ammonia level has gone up to 1, and Nirtrites are at 0.50. I carried out a 20% water change last night, but the levels have not really dropped, and when I returned home this evening one of the danios had unfortunately died. I think that he may have died due to the stress of being caught-he was not as active when we got him home as he was in the aquatics centre and there were no signs of any disease at all (I had a good look when I fished him out of the tank earlier). All of the other fish seem perfectly healthy, and I am aware that I will need to carry out further water changes to lower the ammonia levels, but how often should I do this, and how long will it be until the levels stabilise? I have added Ammo-Lock in order to help things a bit.

Thanks,
Dan

 

[Christine1014]

hmm... sounds like you just added too many fish at once. If you're tank was already cycled though, it shouldn't take too long for some additional bacteria to build up and accommate the current load of fish. Adding the Ammo Lock and doing the water change was a good start. You might have to do water changes every day (some people say don't do more than 25% or so, but lots of us also do bigger changes -- like 50% -- with no ill effects). Just keep testing your water, and doing changes. The ammo lock is great, but it's no subsitute for the water changes. Also keep in mind, even when using Ammo Lock, you'll still get an ammonia reading from your test kit. So it doesn't mean the ammo lock isn't working. Anyway, depending on the size of your tank and type of filter, this could go on for 2 days or even a week or so... Good luck!

 

[rdd1952]

How did you cycle your tank before you added your guppies? If you just added the water and let the filter run for a few days, your tank wasn't cycled. You must add ammonia or an ammonia source to cycle a tank. If the tank was cycled, it the bacteria would have multiplied enough in 2 days to handle the additional fish. They can generally double in about 24 hours so in 2 days they should have been fine. Another reason I suspect the tank wasn't completely cycled when you added the first fish.

You are probably right about the danio. They are very hardy so I doubt being exposed to 1 ppm of ammonia for a day or 2 was enough to kill him. You will just need to keep doing daily (or twice daily) water changes to try to get the ammonia as low as you can.