Ammonia! Help please.

[nuclearbroccoli]

I'm totally confused on this one, so I'll start at the beginning and hopefully someone can see something I'm missing here...

Equipment: 5 gal. tank, Elite Stingray filter, Air stone, 2 plastic plants.
Tank contains 1 Betta (Usually hand fed, very little food is wasted)

To start with, an ammonia test 2 weeks ago registered around .50 ppm, so I treated the tank with Ammo Lock for a few days until it tested 0 ppm. Then, about a week and a half ago I noticed some white fluffy (cottony even..) stuff growing on the gravel in a few spots in the tank. I inquired about it at the aquarium store and we both figured it was probably a fungus. I treated the tank according to directions with API liquid fungus cure (eerie green water, just in time for Halloween...). When the treatment was complete a few days later, I ended up doing about a 75% water change instead of the 25% the fungus cure recommended as it took that long to suck out all the white crap with the vacuum. I then had to do the same thing again to get the rest of it. Double water change would be the simplest way of explaining it. This got rid of almost all the green color in the process. I changed 1 of the two filter inserts in the filter, and rinsed out the foam filters in the aquarium water. After everything was back together, I did an ammonia test, and it came up at about 8 ppm!! My tap water does not have ammonia in it, and I used AquaPlus to treat the water, so chloramine doesn't factor in either. I've noticed this with some of my other tanks as well - A larger water change and stirring up the gravel a lot seems to result in an ammonia spike.. I just can't figure out what I'm missing here. I'm hoping someone can help before I kill the poor thing..

 

[bluerose]

In the future, if you see an ammonia spike (like you did to .5ppm), do a PWC instead of adding chemicals.

Treated ammonia/chloramines will sometimes still show up on test strips, and some ammonia 'lockers' will screw with tests. 8ppm would be fairly quick death for a fish so if fishy is still OK and not stressed I would think your test is having troubles.

You could be having an ammonia spike due to overdue gravel vacc'ing, changing filter media, medication- all of which happened here so it's a little hard to tell.

Test again and see what happens- might need to do another PWC tomorrow.

 

[OasisKeeper]

I think one thing we can be pretty sure of is that your ammonia is not 8 ppm because if it was, your fish would have long since journeyed to fish heaven.

So bluerose has a good handle on it. The only other thing I would say is use some carbon if you can to pull off any remaining medication and organics. Watch the fish closely. He/she is probably a better indicator then the tests.

 

[jsoong]

It is possible to have ammonia of 8 & the fish is still fine .... If your pH is low (say 6), most of the ammonia is NH4 & relatively safe for the fish. Also bettas can breath air, so can look OK even if the gills are fried.

What sort of dechlorinator are you using? Are you using any ammonia binder? And what test kit? Some combination might give false results.

When in doubt, do water change ..... "The solution to pollution is dilution!"

 

[nuclearbroccoli]

Wow, a few answers. Thanks to all, and I'll address each one at a time...

Bluenose: I was using the ammonia treatment as ammonia seems to show up in tests less than a week after a water change. I just don't have the time to do water changes twice a week. Besides, the tank has been running for 3 months now. I would expect that by this point there should be enough bacteria in the tank to break down the ammonia consistently. The test kit works perfectly as the local pet stores test match my results exactly. As for medication, and changing filters - I've had this happen even without doing either one of those things, so I can pretty much exclude those as the problem. Overdue gravel vacuuming may be a possibility I suppose... Is it possible that ammonia is trapped in the gravel and I'm releasing it into the water when I vacuum? I have no idea if this is possible.

OasisKeeper: I'm pretty sure the only reason my fish isn't dead as I had ammo lock in the tank before I did the water change - probably enough to bind the ammonia. The fish seems fine, and the filter has combined carbon/ammonia remover cartridges.

Jsoong: pH is about a 7.5, but again, I think the ammolock in the tank kept the ammonia from hurting my fish. The dechlorinator is Nutrafin Aquaplus, and I'm using an API (Aquarium Pharmaceuticals) test kit. I know the test kit is fine as the local aquarium store tested the water with the same results.

It's getting to the point that I treat my tanks for high ammonia levels BEFORE I do a water change just in case. I've thought about taking my betta out of the tank, cleaning everything in the tank except the filter, and then starting fresh, but I'm afraid of killing of too much bacteria and causing another ammonia spike as a result.
You can probably see why this is puzzling me now...

 

[bluerose]

I don't know if your dechlor can also be used as an ammonia treatment in the water... Prime can be as can AmQuel+ (I used the latter at the tail end of my cycle when I had a few tiny spikes after adding fish, worked well).

Perhaps try mixing up tap water with ammo lock and your dechlor in a bucket and testing- maybe there's some weird reaction? Also see if the ammo lock might be screwing with your TK- the API literature has some blurb about what kind of chemicals will screw with the kits.

 

[jsoong]

Ammolock will certainly help in a high NH3 spike. However, it seems strange to see such a high spike to start with.

It is possible that the "fungus" med killed your bio-filter. That combined with a lot of decaying matter in the gravel might give you a high spike.

It is a good idea to test your tap+dechlorinator+ammolock to make sure there is not a high level of chloramines (which gives high NH4 on breakdown) or some kind of false positive result.

Assuming that the spike is real, you would need to do lots of water changes until your bio-filter is reestablished. I would suggest major gravel vacs to get rid of as much mulm as possible. Then do enough water changes to keep ammonia below 0.5. You would prob. need to do pwc daily for a few weeks if your bio-filter is completely dead.

 

[An t-iasg]

Everyone has given you great advice! Has this tank cycled completely? Have you ever had readings of 0 ppm ammonia, 0 nitrite, and at least 20 ppm nitrates? Sometimes three months is not quite long enough to establish a biofilter.

I have cycled a 5 gallon tank with a betta before and I thought that it would go smoothly since there was just one little betta in the tank. I did battle high ammonia levels for awhile. I agree that your best bet is to do daily water changes, treating the water with just dechlorinator, until the ammonia and/or nitrite levels are 0. Consider using Prime as a dechlorinator. I would rather use a bit more Prime to protect the fish, as Bluerose also said, instead of Ammolock. Prime will dechlorinate your water, plus it also contains a binder to make the ammonia and nitrite non-toxic.

Seachem. Prime

I have tried to use the Elite Stingray filter before. I felt that I couldn't maintain a good cycle with it. I was getting low levels of ammonia with this filter in the tank. Consider using a sponge filter with an airpump and gang valve (to reduce the flow a bit to make the betta comfortable). You can squeeze the sponges from the Stingray onto the new sponge filter to give it a start, if any bacteria is present on the Stingray sponges. When I was attempting to cycle my 5 gallon tank with a betta, I used a sponge filter that I had sqeezed and soaked in water that had come from an LFS filter. It was very brown, dirty water but it infused my sponge with beneficial bacteria, and by the next day my ammonia levels were 0.

 

[nuclearbroccoli]

Probably gravel

As far as I can tell, I'm probably stirring up ammonia in the gravel. I'll start treating with ammo lock or prime and boost the water change frequency.

Interesting side note though. I treated some tap water with aquaplus and then ran an ammonia test - absolutely 0. However, when I added some ammolock to the water and retested, it registered a very light ammonia level (not even 0.25ppm). Strange... Thanks to everyone though. Much appreciated.