Ammonia Levels - Help!

[SharpRhombus]

We got some pictus catfish on Monday night of this week. They seem perfectly happy and play and everything, but the past few days the ammonia has started to rise. It was at .5 this morning, and is now near 1.0 after a water change this morning (my boyfriend did it; didn't ask him exactly how much he took out, but he has been doing about 30%).

He went to the store right now to get some ammonia detox stuff in case we needed it - what do you guys recommend we do? He read that anything above 1.0 begins to harm the poor little guys.



Alison

 

[SharpRhombus]

Update - we're putting in a tablet b/c it's going over 1.0, and since we haven't heard anything yet. I heard that you want to be careful when adding extra stuff to the tank (i.e., chemical solutions to problems), but we're afraid if we don't now the fish will start getting harmed (based on things we have read, but we haven't heard anything specifically about it on the forum).

 

[TheWaterBoy]

I wouldnt use the ammonia detox because I have heard that it will throw your test off. Then you wont know if it worked or not cause it will show false readings. I would keep doing water changes often I think that would be better in the long run.

 

[pendragon]

Question time: Is your tank established? When you add fish, you expect the ammonia level to rise until the tank comes to equilibrium again, but by the rhetoric you used, I'm unsure if you know about cycling (and cycling is VERY important).

If you need information on cycling, please look here: http/faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html I don't mean to jump to conclusions, so if you are not a beginner, please pardon me; but if you are a beginner, you absolutely need to understand what happens to your tank when you put fish in it, and when, and why (i.e. the cycle). Your fish will thank you, I promise.

To more specifically address your question, ammonia is very toxic to fish, but its toxicity is greatly increased as the pH level of water rises. For instance, ammonia levels as high as 10 ppm are generally considered "safe" at a pH of 6.5, but ammonia present in 0.5 ppm is deadly at a pH of 7.8. You really need to know your pH level so you can guage the "safe" zone for ammonia. Generally speaking, a level of 0.5 ppm is nothing to panic about (unless your pH is high, in which case you should consider finding a *gentle* way to bring it down some), but it does indicate that you should continue to monitor to see if it elevates. If you are currently cycling, your ammonia levels are only going to get higher. Constant water changes to keep ammonia down that low are counterproductive to getting the cycle going, in my opinion, though some will disagree.

Test your PH and determine what it is. If it's 7.2 or less, you needn't really be concerned about ammonia damaging your fish (unless you have terribly sensitive fish) until it gets in th 4.0 ppm range. If it's higher than that, you should consider getting it down in the 6.8 to 7.0-ish range. Lower pH does not remove the ammonia, but it does neutralize some of its toxicity.

Also, as TheWaterBoy pointed out, a number of ammonia neutralizers don't remove the ammonia, they neutralize it's toxicity. The unfortunate side effect of this is often that their use makes your ammonia test produce inaccurate results. Using these chemicals is not all bad, though, because they makethe water safer for the fish while leaving the ammonia present so the nitrogen cycle can continue - you just aren't able to accurately monitor how much ammonia there is. Kind of a double-edged sword.

pendragon!

 

[BartokTheDog]

Hey, SharpRombus' boyfriend here, thanks alot for your post; I appreciate your feedback and help.

Yes, this is my first aquarium (how did you know? ) ) and it's just started cycling ( added fish several days ago) ; but I did familiarize myself with the cycling process as much as I could.

The problem, is that the PH is around 7.6, so I don't want to let the ammonia levels go up to near the one range again.

I've read that adding chemicals to neutralize the ammonia is bad. I've also read that changing the water too much is bad. I've also read that siphon-vacuuming the gravel is bad.

I'd appreciate any ideas you have regarding what Im trying to do to solve this; seeing as how i dont think i can do *nothing*:
My solution so far: Change out 20% of the water morning and evening, cut back on feeding to minimal level (was worried that I may have been overfeeding them).

The ammonia level was around 1ish this morning, I changed 20% of the water, and then it was slightly higher in ammonia when i tested again at lunch time. From what I had read concerning our PH this was very bad thing, so I ran out and got some "ammonia clear" tablets from "Jungle". I changed another 10% of the water and put in 2 of the tablets (the box said that going up to four would be ok, but I didnt want to use any more than was needed)

The ammonia is a little over .25 right now - and I'm hoping that with steady water changes and reduced feeding, that things should be ok. Please let me know what I should be doing different thanks for your help!

 

[Inchworm]

Hi BartokTheDog

There is one thing you might be able to do that would help greatly.

If you know anyone who has an established aquarium, you can beg, borrow or steal some bacteria from them and add them to your tank. This could be in the form of gravel or filter media.

If it's gravel you could spread it on the top of yours; if it's filter floss or other media that will fit into your filter, put it in there. Or, for either one, you could put it into a clean (soap free) nylon stocking and just let it hang in the water.

This added bacteria will soon begin eating the ammonia and producing nitrites, which other bacteria in your added batch will eat to produce nitrates. They will then multiply rapidly and soon populate your tank. This is a much faster way of cycling than starting totally from scratch.

BTW, if you keep catfish of any kind, don't believe what you read about not vacuuming the bottom. They need a clean bottom and since the bacteria is clinging to the gravel, very little will be removed that way.

Good luck!


P.S. Why don't you start a thread in the Newbie forum and say hello to everyone?

 

[sinistral]

I've read that adding chemicals to neutralize the ammonia is bad. I've also read that changing the water too much is bad. I've also read that siphon-vacuuming the gravel is bad.

I think a lot of this is situational. In a situation where you are doing a cycle with fish, I would almost always err on the side of protecting the fish.

IMO, water changes are a great thing. Conceptually, removing old water filled with nitrates (and possibly nitrites, ammonia, and other substances) and replacing it with clean, fresh, dechlorinated water is good for the fish. It may delay the cycling process, which could potentially lengthen the amount of time the fish are exposed overall to ammonia, but I think the tradeoff (lower time of exposure to higher concentrations of ammonia) is worth it.

How much of your gravel you vacuum I've found is rather subjective. On the one hand, hypothetically when you vacuum a section of gravel you may be disrupting the beneficial bacteria that may be colonizing that location. On the other hand, you do have a filter that you won't vacuum in which the colonies will remain perfectly intact; moreover I don't know if vacuuming gravel disrupts bacterial colonies or not. One way to test this for yourself is to vacuum a section of gravel (or the whole thing) and then do a water test the next day. Now, I don't have one of these, but there's a filter based on suspending grains of sand in an upward rising column of water and having the bacteria grow on that...so I don't know if a siphon is sufficiently strong to disrupt enough colonies to make a difference in your tank. YMMV!

 

[G_Sharky]

Besides water changes you could also add some Bio-Spira if your in the U.S or the stuff called "Cycle" which is the only one i could find in Canada to your tank. I know some people might say that it's useless but in my experience it definetely help me out I cycled my 33 g with 9 fish and it it took about a month to drop my water parameters to 0(that's with frequent 10% WC if you get A&N spikes).. Goodluck on the cycle and hope you don't take casualties..

 

[Bol]

Some good advice above, but one thing I'd like to add:

To the best of my knowledge, adding ammonia-"removing" products will not harm the growth of your ammonia -> nitrite converting bacteria. They can still feed on the "neutralized" ammonia.