# Ammonia Level Help



## Elt31987 (Nov 15, 2010)

Hey fellas and ladies, IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢m new to the whole fish tank hobby and am quite excited. So basically i have a 30 gallon tank with Penguin 200 Power Filter (i bought the next size up figuring the extra filtration would be good) and a 150W submerged heater. So i let the tank run for about 4-5 days with no fish and brought a water sample to the store. Everything was fine but the ammonia level was at about .25 and the information the Pet Smart girl said was 0-.25 is OK for ammonia but lower is better. So i brought home 1 Electric Yellow Cichlid and that was on 11/3/2010, so about a week and a half ago. She (IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢m guessing sheÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s a she) is doing just fine, but IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ve been waiting to add another fish until the Ammonia goes down. IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ve read that the Bio Wheel needs to create more bacteria for the added fish so i want to make sure everything is good before i add another fish. Well the water was staying at about .25 until recently. Wanting to do things right i did a 25% water change by using a syphon on about half of the rocks. I then treated the water in the bucket and let it sit for a few minutes before adding it into the tank. I used API Tap Water Conditioner. Now hereÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s where itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s interesting. The Ammonia Levels jumped to about 1.00 and have been there since the water change (which was about 5 days ago). So i tested some water from my sink and it had about 1.00 for the ammonia level. Is it normal for tap water to have this much ammonia in it? And could adding 25% of it to my tank make that big of a difference? So i added some API Ammo Lock which is supposed to make the Ammonia nontoxic until the filter gets it. It also said that the ammonia will still show up on test until itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s removed, it will just be harmless to the fish. It said to add it every 2 days until the ammonia is gone on the readings, if after 7 days there is still ammonia then do a partial water change. ItÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s been 5 days since i added it and i have put in 3 doses (every 2 days) and the ammonia level is not going down. My fish seems fine, itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s been swimming all about and will come the tank when i enter the room and follow my finger etc. It even goes to the top of the tank when itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s feeding time and gets excited when i take out the bag of food. So i donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t think sheÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s being harmed. I just want the ammonia to go down so i can add another fish. Any ideas at all? Thanks in Advance.


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## fishaddict09 (Jun 1, 2010)

The reason that you are having problems with ammonia is because you do not have an established biological filter (nitrifying bacteria that essentially eat ammonia and produce Nitrite).
Fish create ammonia through respiration and the waste they produce and this why your ammonia levels are rising.
I am not sure the above information will help but if you read about the aquarium "Nitrogen cycle" online it may clarify what I said.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Information about the cycle is THE most important thing to learn. Fish can't be kept healthy without knowing about the cycle.

This is a place for info that makes sense to me. Lots of places to read about the cycle.

http://www.freshwater-aquarium-fish.com/water_chemistry.htm

Can't say enough that it is critical to know. Ammonia build when there are fish and food before there bacteria grows in the filter. You have a bit of a problem but the fish may get by if you don't add too much to the problem. Right now more fish may likely kill them all.


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## DGT (Mar 28, 2010)

I will second the advice given above. Take the time to learn what is necessary to keep healthy fish and you will save yourself a lot of trouble in the future. In my experience, local fish stores are not a consistently reliable source of information.

Dave


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## KiDD (Aug 20, 2010)

Hey Pfun, do you think he would be better off since he already has a fish in the tank to do some kind of quick start on his bio filtration something like Prime?


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## Glaneon (Sep 27, 2010)

That, and frequent water changes to keep the toxicity down.

_[edit: shoot, I forgot he has 1ppm ammonia out of tap; seems high to me. You probably want to treat the water before adding to tank if you can. Once your BB gets established, the 1PPM ammonia will be taken care of by the cycle.]_

Definitely don't add more fish. The one in there may survive, may have long term health issues, may die in a month...

Cichlids are pretty hardy - I had one (1.25") stuck in the bottom of a Fluval 404 after it got sucked up the intake ... for TWO WEEKS. It lived and is doing quite nicely now (5 months later).


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Personal thoughts on ammonia--One is try to avoid it!!!
two -I don't think of Prime for ammonia. Great for treating water but not the main defense for ammonia with me. 
three-- I do keep a box of Ammo-carb which is designed to remove ammonia from tanks. There is some discussion about whether this delays the cycle by removing the ammonia from the water causing bacteria not to grow. I use it anyway if I someway kill off my bacteria. I feel it saves the fish at the time and I can get the bacteria back slowly. Right, wrong???

On the other hand doing a fishless cycle is something I have not done successfully. Too stuck Old school ways? Anyway , IF one is careful, he can go slow with adding fish and cycle the tank without visible harm to fish. I stress visible, there because there can likely be damage that I don't see. I do recommend fishless but I have trouble with doing it for myself.

I wonder about the ammonia reading in the tap water. Maybe a case of the water needing to "rest" a bit before reading the ammonia. I worked water treatment for a time and never heard of any that were drinking safe that had ammonia. I'm not up on why there would be a measurable amount from any public water system. Is this a private well, by chance?


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## Elt31987 (Nov 15, 2010)

Nope city water.


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## Elt31987 (Nov 15, 2010)

I did a partial water change today and treated the water in the buckets before adding it back in. I guess the only thing to do is sit tight and wait for the levels to go down. How long is typical for a 30 gallon to cycle?


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## Glaneon (Sep 27, 2010)

3-6 weeks I would say (size does't matter AFAIK). You can help it along with Dr. Tim's stuff or Seach Stability.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Got any friends with tanks? If you could get some used filter media(floss, foam , etc.) from a tank that has no disease and put it in your filter that is one way to hurry the cycle along quite a lot. Some of the bacteria in a bottle may help but I've never gone that way. Doing some reading on ammonia in water, I find some places say it can be a result of filtering the water at the plant. Maybe this is ammonium rather than straight ammonia and it shows on the test??? As time passes what you can normally expect is that the ammonia would go up as more food and waste enter the tank. Cutting down feeding drastically will reduce that. Fish will always act hunger if they are healthy so that is not a way to judge. Just be assured that more fish die from ammonia far more than starving. In nature they are trained to eat any time they can because they don't get the chance much of the time. We feed too much. Be tough, feed very little and wait. Watch for fish that go to the surface or fish with really rapid gill movement. Change water right away to cut ammonia and do anything you can to get more air into the water. Dropping the water level slightly will get filters more splash and make more air enter the water. Just keep the surface agitated.


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## Elt31987 (Nov 15, 2010)

My friends tank is not maintained really at all so ill stay away lol. My question on feeding is that I'm using this petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4368184&lmdn=Pet+Type and it says to feed a few times a day in small amounts that are consumed within 5 minutes so I've been feeding early in the morning about 4 of the teeny tiny pellets and 4 at night? Is this too much? How do I tell if its too much? My Cichlid will eat all of it almost instantly. FWIW my fish is about 1 to 1.5" long


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## Glaneon (Sep 27, 2010)

Funny enough - as long as his filter has been running (more than 6 weeks) and has bio media that will work in yours - it will have the bacteria. (presuming it has any live fish at all in it)

You can also get "sponge mud" out of a filter (maybe even from a local fish store) and it will have some good bacteria in it.

Whatever it can eat in 30 seconds (varies depending on age of the cichlid and your tank conditions, if you have ammonia issues, feed less for a bit). You can probably feed them 3 times per day at that feeding amount.

I have to put a little more food in at times due to a few slow pokes not coming up (they all cluster up at feeding time but a few don't hear the dinner bell).


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## Evita (Jun 14, 2009)

Could chloramine in the tap water be the source of the 1 ppm ammonia? I'm not sure if an ammonia test would measure that. If I had 1 ppm ammonia in my tap water I'd be calling the water company


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## Glaneon (Sep 27, 2010)

I don't know about the interaction between chloramine/chlorine - the chemicals folks add to neutralize that *and if it turns into *ammonia. I bet someone knows though!

I only mentioned the 1ppm out of tap since someone else on here posted that theirs was. I was shocked myself.


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## Aija (Jul 1, 2010)

oops i posted twice... read post below... thanks


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## Aija (Jul 1, 2010)

I have a similar problem and have tried everything i could find. I have an established 70 gallon tank that i never have problems with, no ammonia or nitrites, and i do regular water changes to keep the nitrates in check. I am using a sump under the tank, with just some of that cottony stuff and charcoal... and it works beautiful.
Well, recently a fish of mine got preggers and i set up a 10 gallon tank to put her in. I bought a cheap little filter at pet co for 10 gallon tanks (Tetra in-tank filter). I shoved the "bio foam" from the new filter into my sump in-between the layers of filter i have, and left it their for about a week, thinking this would allow some of my established filter to grow onto the new one. When i was ready to move her, i put half tap water, half tank water, i set up the filter, (squeezed some of the water out of my filter into the new one for extra measure). Within a couple days the ammonia level shot up... and mind you this is 1 fish that hasn't eaten in 2 weeks. Well, i added ammonia lock, i continued to squeeze some of my established filter into the new tank.... i used the Nite-Out II which helped me set up my original filter... and did frequent water changes... well for the next two weeks nothing helped... now i have 37!!! little hungry mouths mucking up the water in their too... and i have no idea what to do.
I am a nut about the water chemistry, and test both tanks (the big one weekly, and the little one daily) for everything from ammonia to gh and kh to make sure every thing is PERFECT. really retentive about it you know)
I've read every article i could, talked to my lfs, tried every product on the market.. and there has been no negligence that has lead to this. For the past week i have done 50% water changes religiously hoping for a change and at least keeping it livable for them. I know it must be something with the biological filter... but i can't figure out how that could be possible. At this point the only thing i can think is that the filter i bought is a piece of you know what and i need to go out and spend some money on a good one.... ugh.
Please help.. I'm so worried about the babies!

(one more thing.... I'm not really sure if the issue IS with the biological filter... over the past week, the ammonia stays about the same, (sometimes down a little and sometimes up) but the nitrites has slowly gone down, and the nitrates have gone down/stayed same as a result of my vigorous water changes... so i don't know what would explain that....)

Little tank specs:
Temp:76
Ph: 7.8
Ammonia 1.0 ppm!!!!!
Nitrite: .05ppm-.0ppm
Nitrite:5.0-20.0ppm
Gh:200-400ppm
Kh:9'

Whenever i do water changes i add water conditioner for chlorine and chloramine, i put a little bit of some rift lake buffer recipe in (if needed) and let it sit and mix for a while and then put it back in the tank. I have tested my water straight out of the tap, and after sitting for a while, allowing it to oxygenate and nothing ever comes up on my tests, so i know that that is not the source.


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## Elt31987 (Nov 15, 2010)

Well i figured IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢d keep you guys/gals updated. The ammonia level is somewhere between .25 and .5, the greens are too close to tell lol. They havenÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t dropped from this point. IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ve done several 20% changes during the last time we spoke. I also upgraded to the Penguin 350 Power Filter because i got an amazing deal on it. This has 2 Bio Wheels on it. I kept the Bio Wheel from the Penguin 200 so i wouldnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t lose any bacteria.


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## Glaneon (Sep 27, 2010)

After adding this filter, see what it looks like in 2 weeks - perhaps just not enough bio filtration.


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## Elt31987 (Nov 15, 2010)

So the ammonia seems to be at the lightest green color on the API Chart which is .25. So it seems to be going down. I measure the Nitrite thinking it would prove the bacteria is present and eating the ammonia but the nitrites are at 0 ppm.


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## Glaneon (Sep 27, 2010)

if you have enough BB that is converting nitrite to nitrate, then that would be normal


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## Elt31987 (Nov 15, 2010)

So i bought 2 Marineland refillable filters and added API Ammo Chips to remove the ammonia. Ammonia level is now 0 ppm


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