Help! Ammonia in betta tank

[Caity]

Hello! I recently bought a sick looking betta fish from petco, hoping to help him heal up, he's in a 2.5 gallon tank with a homemade filter that has cycled media from a few of my other tanks, but his ammonia still remains at 0.25ppm despite daily water changes. I have read about how some tap water contains chloramines I believe? And when mixed with water conditioner these can be converted into ammonia, so I tested the tap water after conditioning it and letting it sit out over night, and no ammonia. I cannot figure out what's causing the ammonia in his tank, if anyone could help that would be great, so I can get this little guy healed up. I should also include that I started getting these ammonia readings when I tested the water after he had only been in there for one night, which is very confusing to me, I'm also not feeding him currently because he is showing symptoms of swim bladder issues, so I can't figure out where this ammonia is coming from.

 

[mimiheart]

Do you have seachem prime? I saw some at Petco yesterday. You should only need few drops in a tank that size. It will neutralize the chlorimines/chlorine.

 

[Caity]

I don't unfortunately, and I don't believe the petco near me has it, I'm just very confused as to where the ammonia came from!

 

[mimiheart]

fish poop, uneaten food, pretty much anything. You could try tetra safe start -- I've heard that it has good bacteria to get rid of ammonia. If you have a lfs they'll have Prime.

 

[Caity]

I do have a lfs, it's a little while away, so I'm not sure when I can get there, I have ordered him a sponge filter that I can use with some sponges from an established tank, I just found it to be very strange when I saw the ammonia spike after the tank had only had a fish in it for a few hours. Thank you for your help, I will try to get some of the tetra safe start, I know they have that at petsmart near me.