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draagyn84

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Feb 12, 2018
Messages
19
Location
UK
Ive made the mistake of trying to increase the ph in my tank. It's was a BIG mistake and I lost fish. Finally thought I got things back to normal when the water suddenly went cloudy and the ammonia readings are really high.

I'm doing 20% water changes a few times a week to get my water back to normal and it's started to correct itself but the ammonia shot up suddenly.


The readings are :

PH: 6.0
Hi PH 7.4
Ammonia: 4.0
Nitrate: 20
Nitrite: 0
 
Sorry to hear you had trouble.
If you have any fish left you need to change a lot more water a lot quicker..
The % changed is the % of [in your case] ammonia will be removed..20% water change will leave you with almost 3ppm ammonia and take many changes to get to safe level .I would do 50% to get to 2ppm then another 50% to get to 1ppm then do small changes..
If you have no fish then no worries at all as the filter should catch up in time...
 
I'd start doing 50% water changes and repeat until you get the ammonia to 0. If it's 4.0,
 
What are you doing to chase your ph? Your gonna have to do alot of water changes. And it's not good to chase ph.
 
I used proper ph 7.5. I've learned my lesson and will never do it again to be honest!

I've just done a 50% water change so hopefully the fish will be ok. I'll do another one tomorrow and test again the day after.
 
One 50% won't do much. You have ammonia way too high. Back to back water changes at 50% is much needed right now. Your fish are suffering, And more will die. It's like us, setting in a running car with a hose running from the exhaust (tail pipe) to the inside of the car (windows up) and breath the exhaust fumes. We wouldn't make it for long. Just say'n. Too much ammonia!
 
You can use prime to detoxify the ammonia for 48 hours also.
Just add a full tank dose to the tank after water change and regular dose. They say up to 5X dose I ok ,but IMO that is a bit much..I like to split the damage between water changes and extra prime if needed..
Do you have fish in the tank now still ?
 
Yeah I've got fish in now. They seem fine. The ammonia level was fine last week so I'm not sure where this has come from.
 
Yea the ammo lock is supposed to work instantly also.
Ammonia can cause permanent damage that at not show till much later if fish survive.
Try to get it under 1ppm and keep it under 1...
 
I agree with Coral. 50% change then do another 50%. Then test your water. I'd try to get it around .25 ppm on the ammonia. Is your tank cycled or were you doing a fish in cycle?
 
My tank was cycled but then I started playing with the ph (dumb I know) a few fish died and The ammonia spiked.

I've done 3 days of 50% water changes and it's not budging?! I don't understand :(
 
Today, do 50% back to back til the ammonia is at least .25. Then keep testing daily. And when the ammonia spikes again do another water change.
 
What she means is change the water and then immediately change it again and keep doing it until your ppm is down to .25ppm You will most likely be doing around 4 changes in 1 day. Might be more.
 
My nitrite and nitrate are both at 0ppm. Done loads of water changes over the weekend. Ammonia still not budged. I'm at my wits end here!!
 
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