ammonia up a little

[gale]

Due to a combination of things like unexpected stocking of my tank (due to lfs mistake and leaky other tank), dying plant leaves (took out the offending plant) and stupidity by me (changing cartridge and vacuuming gravel in the same shot) my ammonia is up a little the last couple days. It's probably a little lighter color than the .25 reading. The first day I did a 10-15% water change, without disturbing the gravel. Today, the 2nd day, I did a 25% water change and just got the dead plant matter without disturbing the gravel much (as little as I could). If the ammonia is at the same level tomorrow I was going to do another 10-15% water change. But should I be doing them this frequently? Is there a reason that I shouldn't? I am pretty attached to all of my fish and don't want any of them to die but if doing these frequent water changes is a bad thing I don't want to do that either. Thanks!

 

[kev_kb]

I think if you keep the level at 0.25ppm max you should be fine. Could you use gravel or filter media from a cycled tank?

 

[BobK]

Personally I would continue doing 10-15% water changes daily until the mini-cycle is over. I rather delay the process than lose any fish. Sorry for your troubles Gale.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi gale

The beneficial bacteria that you are cultivating to keep the tank cycled are clinging to the surfaces of the gravel, filter, plants, glass, etc. You will not disturb them or cause them harm by changing the water, since very few are floating in it.

You can do as many water changes as necessary to keep your fish safe and healthy.

 

[lizard]

I would continue doing the water changes until you are getting zero for your ammonia readings. Doing water changes that frequently shouldn't hurt your fish at all. Better to do the water changes than to have them living in that ammonia

Good luck

Pamela
aka Married Lizard

 

[maestro]

also reduce feeding to cut back on the amount of waste the fishes produce

 

[G_Sharky]

I say do more frequent water changes to help on the survival of your fish, but don't vacuum the gravel and don't clean your filter material, even if your tank finished it's cycle, you should never clean your filter material(unless it's really filty) and worse throw it out and put a new one......

 

[gale]

Thanks everyone. I don't mind doing the daily changes so I'll continue that. Luckily it's easy in a 20g and my dh is great about helping to put the clean water back in (he can do it without disturbing a single piece of gravel ). I just didn't know if it was a bad thing to do it so much. I am only feeding every other day, sometimes skip 2 days. My darn fish make me feel so guilty-they act like they're starving. But I will not cave. I hope.

From now on I will just cut the filter and dump the carbon after a month or maybe cut off the whole filter media and stuff that into the filter container next to a new cartridge. At any rate I will not just throw it out like I did the last one.

 

[lizard]

I say do more frequent water changes to help on the survival of your fish, but don't vacuum the gravel and don't clean your filter material, even if your tank finished it's cycle, you should never clean your filter material(unless it's really filty) and worse throw it out and put a new one......

Cleaning/rinsing your filter material is okay, as long as you do it in tank water. Depending on your filter, you need to rinse your filter material sometimes, otherwise it gets all gunked up and will overflow the filter I agree that you shouldn't throw out and replace your filter material though, unless you "seed" the new stuff first (keep the old stuff in there with the new stuff for a couple weeks so the bacteria can colonize the new stuff).

Pamela
aka Married Lizard