False High Ammonia?

[turbovr6]

I had a problem a week after I put 5 gourami in my cycled 150gal tank. The ammonia level started to rise, stupidly I put in ammo lock. After that I did 3 50% water change and the ammona kept rising. I did one more water change(about 70%), added biospira and stress coat(I have prime, but I read that it is not good to use with biospira). I also got one of those seachem ammonia testers you stick on the inside of the tank. The seachem tester tells me I have no ammonia, yet the liquid 2 part ammonia test keeps telling me I have 1-2ppm of ammonia!.
The fish are active and eating as usual, water looks and smells fine. I'm at a loss here. I tested my tap water with the ammonia test just to see if it was the test kit, but the water allways shows up 0ppm. Any Ideas? I can't see why it would be the ammo lock from 3 weeks ago considering I changed a good 150-200 gallons of water since then.
Just as a background, I cycled the tank with raw shrimp, had all my spikes, etc. Since I added my fish my ammonia has been steady at 1-2ppm, nitrites 0ppm, nitrates 4-5ppm, ph 7.2, tank temp 78-79F

Thanks in advance

 

[Andos99]

Time and only time will solve your problems. Don't over think it, don't add anything else......just wait it out. Good luck.

 

[turbovr6]

Thats basically what I am doing at this point. I'm so wanting to go get the newest additions for my tank(upsidedown cats, or clown loaches), but I'm worried they will make it worse. Should I be cleaning the waste off the bottom of the tank or just wait that out too??

 

[Macrosill]

Turbo,
How long after your cycle was over did you add the fish? Did you remove the shrimp after the cycle and not add the fish right away? If there was a delay for a few days between taking out the shrimp and adding the fish then there was no source of ammonia and some of the bacteria colony may have died off and now they need to colonize more to keep up with the new bio-load. How many shrimp did you use to cycle the tank? If you cycled with only 1 or 2 shrimp then there may not be enough bacteria to handle the waste of all 5 fish. If this is the case then you are going through a mini cycle. If the liquid regeant test showed 0 ppm for your tap water and 1-2 ppm for your tank water it would seem that it is accurate. I have never used ammo lock but after all those pwc I would suspect that the ammo lock would be so dilluted that it would be undetectable. At this point just keep doing the pwc's to keep the ammonia levels below 1 ppm. Do not add anything else to the tank until this is taken care of. Afterwards when adding fish add 1 or 2 a week so this way the bacteria can multiply and you will not have this problem again.

Good Luck,
Brian

 

[turbovr6]

Thanks for the advice. My question now is I'm due for another water change today. Should I vac the tank or just leave all the waste there?

 

[Macrosill]

I would not vac the bottom. You need the waste to supply the ammonia so the cycle can continue. Just go with the pwc's.

Good Luck,
Brian

 

[turbovr6]

Will do! Thanks again