Water Test

[tammy12179]

to be honest with you tez i am not sure what i will do. from my understanding of water drops comments is that the ammonia level in my tank is not the best but its not the end of the world so if i can atleast hold it that low. that is my best tactic but im still going to continue fighting it till i find if i am fighting a losing cause

 

[drobbyb]

It's possible to keep fish even with ammonia in your tap water. All it requires is a cycled tank. The ammonia would then be removed by your bacteria.

If your tap water contains chloramine, your water conditioner will break the bond between the chlorine and ammonia molecules leaving free ammonia in your water. Some water conditioners such as Seachem's Prime lock that ammonia up so that it's relatively harmless to your fish.

In your case, I would be using such a product for as long as it takes to sort out what's happening.

 

[tez2k007]

to be honest with you tez i am not sure what i will do. from my understanding of water drops comments is that the ammonia level in my tank is not the best but its not the end of the world so if i can atleast hold it that low. that is my best tactic but im still going to continue fighting it till i find if i am fighting a losing cause

My tank will have been going 2 weeks this sunday with 5 zebra danios in it and my reading has still been creeping to the inbetween point between 0 and 0.25 of ammonia so guess just gotta keep going. I am never 100 percent certain though as when I test it it looks bright yellow and also yellowish green depending on which way I look at it. Still not had any intrite readings yet so not sure how much longer will be before get some sort of reading for them.

 

[tammy12179]

tez what i had learned from water drop is that when you are doing the test you hold it right up against the white and make sure you are in good light from there you just make sure you keep doing the test the same way each time. with that you will be keeping yourself consistant.

 

[OldMan47]

Tez you are a little ways behind the curve. You may see some nitrite in the next week but your frequent water changes for ammonia may control it fairly well. If the ammonia changes become not often enough for the nitrites, you will see it rise and the nitrites will become your controlling parameter. That could mean even more frequent and larger water changes to keep up but eventually nitrites will be controlled by the bacteria.

 

[Fatpants]

hi There.

Interesting reading. I have had all these problems recently. A new piece of decor killed my biological filter big time. my ammonia went right off the scale at one point. The way I sorted it was initially with ammo lock because the ammonia was so high. Then 20 -50 % water changes every other day for 3 weeks ! Its important to declorinate the water first - I left mine overnight with tapwater conditioner and an airstone running. I then used Prime to kickstart the filter process. It took some hard work and patience but everything has now come fine again.
Hope this helps
Stu.

Ps Crap coming up when you disturb your gravel will give you ammonia problems. Use a gravel cleaner as mentioned before. I do my gravel in sections everytime i change water.

 

[tammy12179]

Thanks for all the impute every one is providing it has been great to learn that i am not the only one that has had this trouble. and it gives me hope that i can fix it.

 

[waterdrop]

Sounds like you're doing fine Tammy.


On the API tests, at least to my eye, there was a difference between faint greens creeping into the ammonia result. When it was finally a true zero, the yellow was bright and pure, without even a hint of green and its stayed that way ever since. Same sort of thing with the nitrite test, once the filter was cycled and the readings began staying at zero, the sky blue was very clear, bright and without a trace of purple.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[tammy12179]

ty water drop

any one ever used something called nitra-zorb it is supposed to help clean out ammonia nitrites and nitrates out of your tank. if so was it worth while and would you recommend it for some one fighting ammonia

 

[drobbyb]

Those products take the ammonia straight away from the water. This can be a bad thing. If it is taking it out of the water, it's also starving your good bacteria.

 

[tammy12179]

i wondered that because it never did talk about leavng good bacteria or anything the way it was being put across all bacteria is bad pretty much.

 

[TheConstantGrower]

I may have missed it but the all important word missing here...


"Patience"

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree with Robby.

Very important that you make sure there are NOT any things like NitraZorb in your aquarium or filter. The confusing part for beginners is that it makes sense for them to think: If nitrites(NO2) are bad and I can buy a chemical that removes them, then why not? I'll just remove them until my filter is working again.

The answer, and the reason this doesn't work is that the chemical will indeed remove the nitrites, leaving no food for the N-Bac population (the second of our beneficial bacterial species we work so hard to grow in the filter) and it will never grow. Then when the chemical stops being there, for whatever reason, the nitrite(NO2) level will suddenly skyrocket and kill the fish very quickly, if not almost immediately.

Its very important to grow and maintain a healthy biofilter population that matches your fish population. This can only be done via fishless cycling or fish-in cycling and usually -without- other chemicals used in the process, other than conditioner for the tap water.

~~waterdrop~~