lowering amnonia levels

[Patswinitall]

Hi

I just did a test today on amonia levels on my tank and the range is in between 3.0 to 4.0 . I have a brand new fish tank i started about 2 weeks ago and i am trying to lower the amnonia levels in my tank?? Any thoughts are welcome thank you

[Imbrium]

Are you sure that's really what the ammonia levels are? You have fish in that tank? What are your nitrite and nitrate levels?

[Patswinitall]

Test levels are as follows

amnonia - 5.o ppm

nitrite - 2.5 ppm

nitrate - 3.0 ppm

ph levels - 7.4 ppm

all estimates according to color chart it just seems amonia is high according to test charts and advice !!

[Fishfirst]

well do a few waterchanges to bring down those levels... I'm sure since you are seeing some nitrates that your cycle should be coming to an end soon... but that high ammonia worries me... do you have fish in this tank, if not, bringing it down slightly would still be a good idea as to not overload your bacteria with ammonia so they won't die. Do a 25% water change then test again... see how that helps

[Patswinitall]

yes i have fish in the tank. What levels should i be looking for in a fully cycled tank ?? So far i havent had any fatalities from the tank water but i had a couple of sivler tetras who nipped my balloon molly's tail off. also had a swordtail jump tank (thinking it was the tetras) but so far the tank seems peacefull.

[nytra420]

When you guys say partial water changes do you use the gravel syphon every time. If not how ofter within a month should their be water changes, and when should their be gravel cleaned/water changes?

[Fishfirst]

the gravel syphon works well to just do water changes as well as syphon the gravel. You can use it everytime but you don't need to actually syphon per say. You are looking for 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and 20-40 nitrates. Your ammonia is very high and your nitrites are boarderline lethal. I'd do a waterchange asap!

[Damon]

Your ammonia and nitrites are at leathal levels already. Small waterchanges daily or every other day should help until the cycle completes. Don't vacuum the gravel everytime though.

[MyraVan]

Originally Posted by Simpte

Your ammonia and nitrites are at leathal levels already. Small waterchanges daily or every other day should help until the cycle completes. Don't vacuum the gravel everytime though.

With those sort of levels, I would be going for really big water changes, like 2/3 of your water daily. What good are 10% water changes going to do when your ammonia levels are 5ppm? a 10% water change will bring it down to 4.5ppm, which is very little different. Even a 25% change will only bring it down to 3.75ppm, which is still wayyyyy too high. A 2/3 (66%) water change will bring it down to 1.7ppm, which is still bad, but much better than 5ppm!

Of course, you must make sure you use water conditioner to get rid of chlorine, and make sure the temp is matched, and it's best to let the water sit overnight to get rid of some of the dissolved gasses, but with these caveats, such big water changes won't be bad for the fish. I fact I think it's the only way to give the fish any real chance at living.

[Damon]

Adding salt will detoxify No2 and to an extend Nh3 a bit. Large waterchanges will cause the tank to cycle in lets say 6 months vs 6 weeks. You will not only be removing the food source for the cycle, but also some of the bacteria for the process. This is why I recommend a fishless cycle or a planted tank. Its a gamble both ways, introduce the fish to a high stress level for a short period of time, or constant stress for a long time.

[MyraVan]

Originally Posted by Simpte

Large waterchanges will cause the tank to cycle in lets say 6 months vs 6 weeks. You will not only be removing the food source for the cycle, but also some of the bacteria for the process.

I'm not sure about this... First of all, I don't see how big waterchanges remove bacteria; I'm just talking changing the water, not doing a gravel vacuum or rinsing out the filter pads. The bacteria live in the filter and in the gravel and on plants, so as long as you add the right amount of water conditioner to your new water, and match the temp you shouldn't be losing any bacteria even with really big water changes.

And as far as removing the food source, I don't see how bringing down the ammonia from 5ppm to 1.7 is going to slow down the rate of bacteria growth. Let me explain what I mean by that. In a cycled tank, you have exactly enough ammonia-consuming bacteria to balance the amount of ammonia generated by the fish at this moment, there is no free ammonia. You only have free ammonia in a non-cycled tank because you don't have enough of the ammonia-consuming bacteria. I don't know the details of bacteria growth, but I don't see how LOTS of excess food (5ppm ammonia rather than 1.7ppm) is going to help them grow to the population we need any quicker. I mean, say the bacteria double in population every 12 hours, then having huge amount s of excess ammonia isn't going to make them grow any faster. All it will mean is that once they reach the desired level (enough to consume what's generated by the fish right now) they will continue to grow in population in order to handle the excess ammonia that has built up, and then the excess bacteria will die once they've consumed the excess ammonia. By keeping the excess ammonia down, you will just allow them to reach a stable population more quickly.

At least, that is what I think. But I really don't know the dynamics of bacteria population growth, so if someone else does know about how bacteria really grow, please correct me!

[Lydia]

can yall chill a little? it seems like every time yall reply to the same post it turns into an arguement between the two of you!

[MyraVan]

Don't panic Lydia! Simpte and I don't really disagree, in the sense to each of us thinking that the other is wrong. It's just on plant matters, he prefers the high-tech way, and has good success with it, and I prefer the low tech way, and have reasonably good success with it. At least I have healthy growing plants! Simpte recommends his way, and I recommend my way, but to be honest either way will work fine, depending on exactly what you want to acheive with your planted tank.

The simple fact is that Simpte has alot more experience than I do, so if he says something that sounds fishy to me I'll say so, because I'm quite likely to learn something from his reply!

[Damon]

Well said. The problem you can run into is the colony could already be bigger than 1.7 worth of NH3. This would likely lead to a die off. New bacteria feed on dead bacteria and so the cycle continues till it eventually settles down. The only problem is you cant predict when this will be. Smaller changes to gradually bring it down should prevent this effect.

[nytra420]

when levels are normal how often should one do a water change without gravel cleaning, and when exactly should one do a gravel cleaning? Like when the cycling is complete?

[Patswinitall]

my amonia level has dropped down to looks like 3.0 ppm so it helped somewhat with the 25 % water change. Remember people i started off with cheap stong fish to do the cycle with but the fish seem happy and active and i hope they live a long time. And most people who start fish tanks do not know about cycling the tank including myself. We wanted a fish tank in our sons bedroom becasue he would enjoy it and the sooth sounds of the filter will help him sleep. Petsmart is junk anyways we have found a new local pet store where we get our fish.

[Damon]

Waterchanges really depend on filtration, stocking levels and type of tank. As a base I would recommend 25-33% weekly waterchanges with gravel vaccuming. This is for a moderately stocked tank with adequate to above average filtration. The more densly stocked, the more need for waterchanges to remove nitrates. Planted tanks take care of nitrates themselves so theoretically waterchanges are never needed. (We still do them to remove excess nutrients in the water though).

[Patswinitall]

should i add live plants to the tank do you think that would help our the cycling process ?? or is that a myth ???

[MyraVan]

If your problem is too much ammonia, then adding some fast-growing plants (preferably floating plants as they grow the fastest) will help reduce your ammonia levels and thus help to protect your fish. Adding random plants, especially slow-growing things like java fern) won't help at all. And all the plants do is lower the ammonia levels. They don't speed up or slow down the cycling process.

I'm a big fan of plant-aided cycling and use floating hornwort in all new tanks. Floating hornwort is the perfect plant for me, because it grows madly in hard water, and our water is definitely hard here.

[mlefev]

I'd go with plants also, however if you're really battling ammonia, there are a few things I'd like to suggest. I tested my tap water because I kept noticing the ammonia spike after I was doing my water changes. I found out it had a bit of ammonia in it already, and when I used the chlorine neutralizer I tested it again...the ammonia was even higher. The city uses chloramine to treat the water instead of plain old chlorine, which leaves a by-product of ammonia. (I'm still not 100% sure why the levels went up after using the water conditioner, but I suppose it was the chemical exchange). A member suggested using a product called amquel (hope I spelled it right, I don't have the bottle in front of me) and that made the ammonia dissappear in the water I was adding to the tank.

If you're really worried about the fish, there are several chemicals you can add to neutralize the ammonia, but it does mess up the cycle to some degree, and probably isn't great to use if you have delicate fish in the tank.