Ammonia Just Wont Go Down.

[kelseybelsey1013]

I've been changing my water every day and the ammonia wont go down! It's always like 0.25, and I only feed once every other day, and I do a gravel vac, and I use ammonia detoxifying gravel, and I use an ammonia filter cartridge, and I have aquatic plants and cycled my tank with several products such as stress zyme and hagen cycle and I use Am Quel but it still WONT GO DOWN. I've even tried to double dose with Prime. It's not a bad test kit, my taps always tested 0.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

Well, adding stresszyme and cycle doesnt cycle your tank. The only product that actually cycles your tank is bio spira. Unfortunately, you will have to wait a few weeks for bacteria to start growing on the filter and have an actual cycle complete. If you can get your hands on some old filter media from another tank, I would suggest getting some of that and putting it in your filter. Make sure the media stays moist on the way to your filter though. For now, keep up the water changes. Goodluck

 

[WILDER]

How many gallons is the tank.
How many fish and which type.

 

[kelseybelsey1013]

How many gallons is the tank.
How many fish and which type.

See my signature.

-x-

Also where can I find a mature filter cartridge?! I have no friends that have tanks.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

You can ask the lfs for a little piece of the filter floss in their systems. They may charge you a few bucks but itll be worth it if it prevents your fish from dying.

 

[tlef316]

I had a similar problem. I did water changes every day in a very understocked tank which had been running for 8 months. I couldnt figure out what the problem was....


check your tank's Ph. I had all my bacteria die because my ph was off the charts low and could not support them(I know some will argue that the PH doesnt matter) turned out my water had so little buffering capacity that the PH just kept dropping no matter what i did. I had to slowly raise the Kh, do huge water changes to get the Ph back to liveable levels and then cycle the tank all over again from scratch. An absolute disaster that cost me several fish.

Good luck,

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I've been changing my water every day and the ammonia wont go down! It's always like 0.25, and I only feed once every other day, and I do a gravel vac, and I use ammonia detoxifying gravel, and I use an ammonia filter cartridge, and I have aquatic plants and cycled my tank with several products such as stress zyme and hagen cycle and I use Am Quel but it still WONT GO DOWN. I've even tried to double dose with Prime. It's not a bad test kit, my taps always tested 0.

How much water have you been taking out exactly? When you say you've been using Am Quel, have you been using "AmQuel Ammonia Detoxifier"?

 

[kelseybelsey1013]

Yess, Am Quel Ammonia Detox. I have looked at all the stores nearby! NONE have mature cartridges.

 

[backtotropical]

Hi Kelsey,

You mention various things you have used to help your ammonia problem. Beware of anything which claims to 'remove' ammonia. Things which 'detoxify' ammonia are fine as they will most likely turn the deadly ammonia into less harmful ammonium. Your filter will use ammonium in the same way it uses ammonia, so this will not starve your filter bacteria of food. Products which claim to 'remove' ammonia however, bond the ammonia to other substances, effectively removing it from the water. This will starve your filter bacteria of their food (ammonia) and will make your situation worse.

If you have any products which 'remove' ammonia, remove them now. Water changes is the best way to control the situation and don't be scared to do large changes, 50 - 75% or more, if necessary.

Meantime, cut back on feeding as this will help to reduce waste and therefore reduce ammonia levels. You should aim to keep ammonia and nitrite levels below 0.25mg/l (ppm) at all times. Achieve this by doing as many water changes as necessary. Also, as Dorkhedos suggested, mature filter media is a lifesaver in these situations and you should do your best to get hold of some. If you don't know anyone, look here for someone local to you who would be willing to help out.

Finally, if you can get hold of Bio-Spira, use it. Most other 'bacteria in a bottle' products are useless.

The most important point for now is to keep ammonia and nitrite below 0.25 as i said above. This will give your fish the best chance in the long-term.

Hope this helps you.

Cheers

BTT

 

[Gremily]

I had a similar problem when cycling a tank with mature media recently, the ammonia still seemed to be very low but not quite zero. I ended up comparing it to two mature tanks, one looked like it had zero but the other gave the same reading as the cycling tank. I think this was because of the lower pH in the cycling and other mature tank. In this case the difference wasn't noticeable (only because I was comparing the tests on two tanks).
(Using Nutrafin/Hagen and API testkit)
So try to get a reading from another cycled tank or check how much lower your tank pH is to your tap.