Tank Ammonia problems HELP :/

[itschromesteel]

About a week ago i had a huge ammonia spike in my betta's 5.5 off the chart in less than 12 hrs from 0. Last night late i tested my 10 gallon tank and had .25 ammonia which was concerning but it was pwc day and i was going to have to add prime anyway. I did about a 30% water change and added enough prime to treat the entire 10gall tank this morning i woke up to some dead fish and 4ppm ammonia. I religiously gravel vac and remove dead plant matter and this tank is about 9 months old and i have never had a problem. I use bottled water for my small tanks and i drive to my grandparents house and fill up every container i own with there tap water for the larger ones because i have really orangey hard well water. Could something be wrong with my prime. I use it on 3 other tanks that have never had problems.

I removed the charcoal from the penguin filter on my 10 when i got it so i know that isn't the problem.

 

[jetajockey]

I would look for the culprit, there is something that would make that level of ammonia in the tank that quickly, it won't happen naturally.

The first thing to do is to test your water source for ammonia, so test your grandparents tap water.

It's possible a dead fish could pollute the water but I don't know if it'd happen that quickly.

Is there any way that something got into the tank? Aerosols, bug spray, etc? Any possible contamination while doing WC yesterday?

As far as prime not working, I've never heard of it going bad or anything, it doesn't actually remove ammonia so if there was some present it'd still be there, and a standard dosage only detoxifies approx 1 mg/l (ppm) ammonia temporarily.

 

[itschromesteel]

this tank is 100% bottle spring water no tap. The betta tank was as well.
time to tear apart tank i suppose it it is heavily planted so maybe a dead fish hidden up in the plants.

 

[LyndaB]

what test kit are you using?

 

[itschromesteel]

Im using API liquid

 

[LyndaB]

Definitely a reliable kit.

What fish do you have in the two tanks that are giving you problems?

 

[itschromesteel]

In the 10gal 5 endlers and some fry there was one 1in bn pleco but I took him out last night and moved him to my 60

In the 5 just one male betta