Ammonia high, crystal clear water?

[killerz6]

Hello, I have a 55 gallon African cichlid tank. For my filtering I use a Marineland Emperor 400 with activated carbon in the media cartridges and a Marineland Penguin 350. I have a 200w tank heater, I keep the tank at about 78-79. I have roughly 16 fish in the tank, and it is aquascaped pretty well I believe (picture bellow) the tank is about 2 months old. The other day I put the carbon filters back in from a 3 day melafix treatment, the next day me and my roommate noticed the tank looked very clear compared to the day before. Water temp was the same. Ph monitor read about 8.0. But the ammonia monitor said 0.2ppm. I don't have a test kit yet just the stick in tank monitors. I did a 25% water change. Ammonia dropped to safe for a while following return to 0.2ppm said the tank monitor. Can anyone explain what is going on with the tank please? Thank you!

 

[killerz6]

Please help!

 

[1998golfer]

Have you tried testing it with a liquid test kit? I think those monitors aren't always accurate and reliable.

 

[killerz6]

My friend did a few weeks ago but the water conditions have changed since then and it's not very convenient for him to ride over and test it

 

[1998golfer]

Invest in an api master test kit. It's accurate, not very expensive, and lasts a long time

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[killerz6]

Right, but once I get the test kit how do I go about knowing where my water levels should be at?

 

[rpgmomma8404]

Right, but once I get the test kit how do I go about knowing where my water levels should be at?

It has color cards that will tell you what your levels are. Your levels for your tank should be 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and if possible the nitrates as low as possible, should be under 40 at least. Hope that helps.

 

[killerz6]

And if my ammonia and nitrites and nitrates are higher then that, how do I go about getting them where they should be?

 

[rpgmomma8404]

And if my ammonia and nitrites and nitrates are higher then that, how do I go about getting them where they should be?

Water changes, also try not to over feed your fish either. Sometimes that will cause problems. I would leave one day where you don't feed your fish. I do that on Sundays.

 

[killerz6]

Thank you very much for your advice, how often can I do water changes?

 

[rpgmomma8404]

Thank you very much for your advice, how often can I do water changes?

I would do mine twice a week. Once on Monday and again on Thursday but I had to go down to once a week for health issues. I take out about 50% when I do it once a week. Some people may have different opinions or could have better suggestions then I have though. When I did it twice a week I would take out about 25% to 30%.

 

[killerz6]

Yeah I usually do 25%, I'll try doing that twice a week for a while and get a test kit and see what I can do, hopefully no fish die, I have the cichlid salts and buffer max in there, I was gonna use proper ph 8.2 by API but I'm not to sure how to use it