Ammonia Spike

[Charlieboy]

Hi, Im just looking for some advice as to why my tank would have an ammonia spike after a big water change. The tank is a 240 litre tank, quite heavily planted and all water tests have been showing as fine. I bought new plants for the tank yesterday and the tank had a water change. I lost a female guppy yesterday evening, 2 shrimp during the night, a Ram was found this evening and another guppy is not looking to good.

De-chlor was used during water change and tank has 2 matured filters.
Readings are ....

Ammonia 1.0

Nitrate 0.25

Nitrate 5.0

Any help/advice would be appreciate, thanks

 

[WILDER]

How many fish and which type.
How often do you maintain the tank.
Do you over feed.
What your tap ammonia reading.
Any plant debris or rotting plants.

 

[Charlieboy]

Fish are fed every other day, algae wafers are added every day but get eaten straight away. Tank is heavily planted and all plants are healthy. Dead fish were removed straight away. Filters appear to be functioning normally.
Tap water shows no readable result for ammonia.

Fish are ... 5 Black widows, 4 rummy nose tetras, 2 female mollies/2 male, 2 pairs of dwarf gouramis, 2 spotted headstanders, 6 female bettas, 2 Rams, 8 neons, 6 panda cories, 4 pearl danios/4 zebra, 5 clown loaches, 2 apple snails, a few shrimp, bristlenose plec and 9 guppies

 

[WILDER]

Your tanks overstocked.
How many gallons is the tank.

How big are the clown loaches as they need 100 gallons tanks as they get bigger.

 

[Charlieboy]

The tank is 240 litres - approx 55 gallons. The loaches are all small. All water stats have been fine until today

 

[WILDER]

The tanks really overstocked.
How often do you maintain the tank.

 

[Charlieboy]

A 50% water change is carries out once a week, carry out regular tests, if ammonia was found an immediate water change was carried out but even with this stocking there has been no ammonia present for over a month. Tank is also heavily planted.

 

[WILDER]

When you do a water change do you also do a gravel vac.
All you can do is water changes and increase aeration.
Maybe think of rehoming some fish as the tanks overstocked quite abit.

 

[Charlieboy]

The tank has a sand base and i always vac it during a change. I am now carrying out a 75% water change. Thanks for the advice

 

[WILDER]

All you can do is water changes to get the ammonia reading back to 0.
Best to increase aeration in bad water quality.

 

[Charlieboy]

After my sudden spike in ammonia I carried out water changes over weekend and yesterday I had a reading of nil. Now my water has gone very cloudy ! I have rehomed 3 fish and a few are going to my friend on Friday. I have a guppy with a small patch of what looks like finrot. Do I treat whole tank or just the guppy? I also have a molly that as a clear "bulge" around her eye. I have tried to take pic but it will not show up because shes white. I think she is also due to drop fry. All fish are eating and swimming as normal but I have seen a few flicking. Any ideas ?

 

[WILDER]

Does the white patch look fluffy or bleached out. Any white or red edging to fins,
How many fish and flicking.
Are both eyes bulging out. Any redness to the eye.

 

[Charlieboy]

Hi, theres no redness to her eye at all, all gills are clear. Its like a clear swelling round her eye socket, so clear that you can almost see through it. The molly with the bad eye is flicking but looks like shes trying to rub the eye more than her body and a few of the guppies are also flicking. Water seems to have gone worse in the last few hours too. My last water test was at 2pm, just taken another and ammonia is back reading at 1.0 and nitrate is reading at 10.

 

[WILDER]

Overstocked tanks and bad water quality causes desease.
I would add a bacterial med to the tank.
You need to reduce your stocking as you will never have good water quality.

 

[Charlieboy]

Ok thanks, I will try and rehome some more then and continue with water changes again. I will do a small one now as I dont like to leave them in water like that and I will do a big one tomorrow and add the meds. Thanks for your help.