Ammonia Spike

[Dave T]

Hi i looking for a little help again

Ammonia levels in my tank have risen to .25--.50

This i what i have done to try and reduce Large water change removed any dying leaves from plants
did a head count of fish did find a dead pleco removed from tank

but the ammonia seems to keep creeping back up

Residents of the tank
4 Guppies
1 Platy
1 Common Pleco who is starting to get big might see about returning him for a small one
2 very small catfish about half inch long who i no cant stay in my tank for two long as its 125 litre
and a lot of platy fry

Could the fry be creating this problem

Any help would be great

Cheers

 

[onebto]

Hello there

So we know your Ammonia levels what is your PH, Nitrite and Nitrate levels?
What sort of test kit are you using?
What sort of filter system do you have (make and model)?
How long have you had the tank, did you cycle it and how?

The details will help the people here to give you the best advise.

As for now to get rid of Ammonia you need to do water changes and lots of them 50% twice a day would be best and every day that will drop the Ammonia levels.

Regards onebto

 

[Dave T]

Hello there

So we know your Ammonia levels what is your PH, Nitrite and Nitrate levels?
What sort of test kit are you using?
What sort of filter system do you have (make and model)?
How long have you had the tank, did you cycle it and how?

The details will help the people here to give you the best advise.

As for now to get rid of Ammonia you need to do water changes and lots of them 50% twice a day would be best and every day that will drop the Ammonia levels.

Regards onebto

The tank has been running for about 5 months now
am using API liquid test kits
Nitrate is around 10
Nitrite 0
Ph is 7.00 which has dropped from 7.6
Filter is Fluval 125 external

and have just done water change again

Have spoken to a pet store in my area not to sure on advice given by them
they advised to take out all fish put in a seperate container mix up the substrate and compleatly change all the water

 

[fatheadminnow]

Don't listen to your LFS on this one.

Do you do weekly water changes, and when you do them do you gravel vac each time?

Also, since the pH has dropped, this could mean that the autotrophic bacteria, the bacteria in your filter, may be slowing in colonizing to consume the higher level of ammonia as your fry grow in size.

Read this article I wrote here, that explains how the bacteria are effected by pH changes. It is not the best article, but it will give you an idea.
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=307725

-FHM

 

[OldMan47]

You have had a large increase in biological load with the influx of platy fry. You also said you had lost a pleco recently, that you only found by doing a head count, so the dead fish could have been in there for a while and produced a lot of ammonia. Now you are experiencing a mini-cycle. It is not uncommon in a fairly new tank. If you stay on top of the water changes, you will recover the water quality quickly and in the bargain will have the pH recover. In a matter of a week or two, the filter should get caught up with the new biological load and you can go back to weekly water changes.