High ammonia

[JnJ040310]

I'm starting to get frustrated, I check my ammonia levels everyday for the past week and a half I have done 3 partial water changes in that time and started to use ammo lock 3 days ago. I can't seem to get the ammonia level down this afternoon it was between 6.0 and 8.0 and that's high. I checked everything else and those are between 1.0 and 0.. Should I just get a new filter cartridge it's maybe 3 weeks old, I didn't think I would need one that soon. Help please

 

[rich311k]

Why not do a bunch of water changes to lower it and then cycle the tank the natural way instead of relying on chemicals.

 

[JnJ040310]

Why not do a bunch of water changes to lower it and then cycle the tank the natural way instead of relying on chemicals.

When I started the tank I did a fishless cycle before I added my fish and everything was fine, I've had fish in it now for 3 weeks and only in the past week and a half it's been high and I don't understand why :-/

 

[rich311k]

Have you touched the filter? How are the fish doing? Have you verified your test kit? I would start daily water changes until we figure out what is going on here. If that number is right, it must come down quickly.

 

[JnJ040310]

The only time I touched the filter was when I put it in. The fish haven't changed they're swimming and goofy just like the day I first put them in. I have the master test kit just as I was told to get no strips. *sigh* I was looking forward to getting another fish or two this weekend but now I have to wait till I figure all this out

 

[rich311k]

Test some bottled water just to be sure the kit is still good.

 

[-Mac-]

My best guesses are:

1. Something has seriously damaged your bacteria colony.
2. Something is dying in the tank.

Did you change/discard any portion of your filter media?
Are you missing any fish?

Water changes and water conditioner are your friends until you figure it out, but those are my top two ideas.

 

[JnJ040310]

My best guesses are:


[*]Something has seriously damaged your bacteria colony.
[*]Something is dying in the tank.

Did you change/discard any portion of your filter media?
Are you missing any fish?

Water changes and water conditioner are your friends until you figure it out, but those are my top two ideas.

Everything is still the same with the filter, I did loose one fish almost two weeks ago my albino rainbow shark and that day I did almost a full water change the next couple of days the water was fine then all of a sudden it wasn't.. I use water conditioner everytime I do a water change.

 

[-Mac-]

Ok, so I'd do a serious tank cleaning, including giving the filter media, a good rinsing in clean conditioned water, and a few more back to back water changes. Oh, any plants in the aquarium? Perhaps one of them is the culprit. Also checking your water source to ensure nothings changed at the faucet.

Good luck and sorry I can't offer better advice.
-M

 

[h2oskierc]

Ok, so I'd do a serious tank cleaning, including giving the filter media, a good rinsing in clean conditioned water, and a few more back to back water changes. Oh, any plants in the aquarium? Perhaps one of them is the culprit. Also checking your water source to ensure nothings changed at the faucet.

Good luck and sorry I can't offer better advice.
-M

I would not rinse the filter in clean water. That will just make your problems worse.

 

[-Mac-]

I would not rinse the filter in clean water. That will just make your problems worse.

I'm sorry to disagree, but if I understand it correctly, using conditioned water to rinse the filter media will not injure the bacteria colony.

 

[h2oskierc]

Everything I have ever been told or read was to rinse the filter in old tank water. Disagreement is fine, I just want to make sure the op is aware.

 

[eco23]

Water from the tank or conditioned water are both fine. The point is to not rinse them in raw tap water that has chlorine.

 

[alex07]

Are you using tap water?

 

[h2oskierc]

Water from the tank or conditioned water are both fine. The point is to not rinse them in raw tap water that has chlorine.

Excellent, good to know!

 

[JnJ040310]

Thank you everyone I will keep posting to let you know how it works. I don't have any real plants in there I wanted to put one or two but I never did.

 

[librarygirl]

Everyone else seems to have it covered You'll want to do water changes regularly to get the levels down until the biofilter catches up. It's possible the tank was stocked too fast, or something was decaying in there. Keep testing the tank every day (assuming you have a good liquid test kit) and anytime ammonia or nitrite are 0.25 or above or nitrates are over 20 do a water change to get them down as close to 0 as you can for ammonia and nitrite and as close to 20 or under for nitrate.

You also do not want to ever change out your filter media. The packaging says to change every x weeks or months, but don't. You can keep it until it is literally falling apart, which could take years. Leave the filter media in there but you can rinse it off in either old tank water during a water change or conditioned tap water (treated with dechlorinator, whatever you use), just never pure tap water.