Lowering Ammonia levels in tank with ADFs and cory catfish...

[Mandyfawn29]

Hi, I have a tank with 2 ADF and 3 albino cory catfish. The ammonia level is at 0.50ppm the nitrates are at 5.0ppm, the nitrite is at 0ppm, ph is at 7.2 and high range ph is at 7.4. I've been doing a partial water change about every 2 or 3 days the last week and usually use some seachem prime but it hasn't been lowering it much. I don't want to loose my fish or frogs.. I recent had to move them from old tank to new tank due to a Crack in the tank. So I'm just not sure what I can do you lower the ammonia before it kills my critters any help would be much appreciated thanks.

 

[Circus]

You need to be performing large daily water changes, and change a large percentage of water whenever ANY ammonia is recorded on a test. Ammonia kills fish. Adding bottles bacteria can help the cycle move along faster. Using your old filter and filter media helps the most.

 

[Byron]

I agree. If this is a cycling issue, your best action is daily water changes of half the tank, using Prime (but only the amount required for the fresh water).

It may not be a cycling issue...do they add chloramine to your water? And do you have live plants?

A comment on Prime (and similar products that detoxify ammonia). Prime changes ammonia into ammonium which is basically harmless, but our test kits will still show either as "ammonia." Prime does not remove the ammonia, it just makes it safe. But this is temporary. Prime works for around 36 hours according to Seachem, and any ammonia now ammonium that remains after Prime loses effect will (or may, depending) revert back to ammonia.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Besides doing big daily water changes, as mentioned by the others, you can reduce feeding to 2-3 times a week. This will reduce the amount of ammonia produced and help keep the levels lower. Don't worry about the fish or frogs starving, they will be fine for a few weeks while the filter settles down. Once the filter has established and there is no more ammonia or nitrite readings, then you can feed them each day.

Don't clean the filter for at least the next month.

If you can tell us what sort of filter you have, and how you clean it, we can check to make sure this won't happen again