Ammonia level spiked crazy after water change

[tybooyahh]

Hi,

So basically yesterday I made my weekly water change 50%(200l tank) and my ammonia level just went up like crazy. The water became a little bit cloudy as well.

My fish seems to be fine, nothing to be worry so far. Im using fluval 207 filter and I cleaned the media same day as I did the water change. I did not clean it crazy not to kill the bacteria and I cleaned it using same water that was in the tank. Only thing that I added up is in the last filtration stage in addition to carbon powder thingy bag I added amonia remover pad because I had some ammonia in the tank present (0.25mg/l).

When I realised that the water is cloudy today(24h after water change) I made ammonia test and it showed now between 1-2mg/l (using colombo ammonia test)

I kind of dont know what to do with it now, Im going to put some ammonia block liquid and see if it will help, when I was changing the water I took as much dirt as possible.

 

[utahfish]

Hi,

So basically yesterday I made my weekly water change 50%(200l tank) and my ammonia level just went up like crazy. The water became a little bit cloudy as well.

My fish seems to be fine, nothing to be worry so far. Im using fluval 207 filter and I cleaned the media same day as I did the water change. I did not clean it crazy not to kill the bacteria and I cleaned it using same water that was in the tank. Only thing that I added up is in the last filtration stage in addition to carbon powder thingy bag I added amonia remover pad because I had some ammonia in the tank present (0.25mg/l).

When I realised that the water is cloudy today(24h after water change) I made ammonia test and it showed now between 1-2mg/l (using colombo ammonia test)

I kind of dont know what to do with it now, Im going to put some ammonia block liquid and see if it will help, when I was changing the water I took as much dirt as possible.

Ammo lock ammo block ammo Chips none of that stuff works its all snake oil. Ammo lock claims to neutralize ammonia by breaking it down to harmless form, that is the job of the biological filter so when you add ammo lock or like products you are essentially starving and killing your beneficial bacteria as it doesnt have ammonia to feed on. Not only that but the neutralizing of the ammonia is usually temporary turning back into its harmful ammonia form.
Throw out the ammo lock, chips and all that other garbage and just let your biological filter do its job. Do another water change. Carbon is useless as well as for as nitrates and ammonia carbon will just take up extra nutrients in which case if you have live plants the carbon is taking their food as well.

 

[FishGuest5123]

Does your city water use Chloramine or chlorine? If they use Chloramine then your .25-.50 readings are likely to be ammonium which is safer for fish than ammonia. It will still register as ammonia though because the test kit doesn’t know the difference. If you get a Seachem Free and Total Test Kit, it will give you the true fee ammonia.

 

[Byron]

Always test your source water when you see something like this, as well as the tank water. Just eliminates (or confirms) one possible.

 

[tybooyahh]

Ammo lock ammo block ammo Chips none of that stuff works its all snake oil. Ammo lock claims to neutralize ammonia by breaking it down to harmless form, that is the job of the biological filter so when you add ammo lock or like products you are essentially starving and killing your beneficial bacteria as it doesnt have ammonia to feed on. Not only that but the neutralizing of the ammonia is usually temporary turning back into its harmful ammonia form.
Throw out the ammo lock, chips and all that other garbage and just let your biological filter do its job. Do another water change. Carbon is useless as well as for as nitrates and ammonia carbon will just take up extra nutrients in which case if you have live plants the carbon is taking their food as well.

Yeah, I have heard before that carbon is useless and many people are not using it. I use it only because it came with the filter originally and Im a bit green with filtration process so I was a bit scared to remove it.

So basically what you saying I should throw away amo lock and carbon out of my system. What about amo removal pad that I have in my filter ? Also what should I put in my last filtration stage ? Or should I just leave the tray empty ?

 

[utahfish]

Im not sure whats in the ammo pad. If its whitish gravel looking stuff its ammo chips which will absorb ammo but dont break it down and need to be constantly changed. Any product that claims to remove ammonia from your tank is damaging the natural processes of your biological filter. I use filter floss which is basically a big wad of blue cotton to catch particles then fill my filter up with lava rock. Lava rock is inert, wont change water chemistry and is light and very porous giving it a ton of surface area for beneficial bacteria to grow. Carbon isnt really a problem unless you have live plants. Whatever you do ditch the ammo chips ammo pads ammo lock and all those money pit products.

 

[utahfish]

As long as you have something or some things to catch large particles like sponge, floss, ect and something in filter to grow and house beneficial bacteria, lava rock, matrix balls, ect.. Then everything else is just cosmetic.

 

[cupofjoel]

Im not sure whats in the ammo pad. If its whitish gravel looking stuff its ammo chips which will absorb ammo but dont break it down and need to be constantly changed. Any product that claims to remove ammonia from your tank is damaging the natural processes of your biological filter. I use filter floss which is basically a big wad of blue cotton to catch particles then fill my filter up with lava rock. Lava rock is inert, wont change water chemistry and is light and very porous giving it a ton of surface area for beneficial bacteria to grow. Carbon isnt really a problem unless you have live plants. Whatever you do ditch the ammo chips ammo pads ammo lock and all those money pit products.

so do you not recommend Purigen?

 

[tybooyahh]

So basically I will try to explain the best I can. With my filter, carnister is devided into to sections, into half (like on the photo) so basically when the water is coming inside it 1st go through big sponges(normal sponges like in every singlw filter) and catch most of the dirt. After that water is entering 2nd half of the filter where starts with the first, the bottom tray where from original there is some kind of black sponge and on top of it some black pad( it is not amonia removal) 2nd tray is with lava rocks kind of thing, basically what I know the rocks where the good bacteria is growing and the last, final stage, top tray is carbon bag and what I have added, kind of brown pad which I bought (amonia removal).

So what you guys saying I should remove carbon and amo pad from the final stage and replace it right ?

 

[tybooyahh]

And the amo pad which I mentioned is that one.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07Q4QF2F8/?tag=

 

[Retired Viking]

Replace it with more sponge, I only use carbon cartridges when I want to remove medication from my tanks

 

[Retired Viking]

I would pick up some fast growing floating plants like water sprite, hornwort, anacharis and moneywort. These will absorb the ammonia much cheaper and better than that filter will and they improve the water quality.

 

[utahfish]

so do you not recommend Purigen?

What is it and what does it claim to do?
Any product that claims to remove or denitrify or neutralize ammonia is starving your biological filter. The only way to remove ammonia from the water is through water changes or breaking them down to nitrite then nitrate and removing them. If one uses a product to do this then one is essentially paying money to doing something that naturally occurs in the filter. Its a waste of money not to mention the damage the chemicals in these products do to living organisms.

 

[utahfish]

And the amo pad which I mentioned is that one.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07Q4QF2F8/?tag=

Snake oil. Youll be better off just using a regular filter sponge and rinsing it in a bucket of tank water. The white stuff on it claims to trap ammonia, even if thats the case the water from ones tank runs through that sponge the only way to remove that " trapped" ammonia is by throwing the pad out which they want you to do so you keep buying them. A healthy tank should never have ammonia reading in it because a healthy tank has a healthy level of beneficial bacteria that breaks the ammonia down to nitrite then nitrate, which are removed through water changes. Any product that claims to skip these steps or reduce water changes are just after your money. The best and cheapest thing you can do to keep your water and tank healthy is have sonething to trap large particles and something in filter to grow beneficial bacteria then frequent water changes to remove the broken down nitrates. Everything else is a waste of money and more harmful to your tank and biological filter than helpful

 

[tybooyahh]

Thank you all for your reply. Next thing on Sunday what Im going to do Im going to add a little bit more lava rocks to the ones I have and I will throw away all the pads and amo removing products, empty tray with carbon in my filter and I will probably use it for some floss and I will make another water change (I will actually test the water before adding it to the tank) plants, I have a lot of plants so I will leave ot for now.