I'm getting dirty looks from my fish

[FriscoTX]

Well I wouldn't get dirty looks if the water wasn't so...dirty...sorry, I couldn't resist.

Seriously, I'm having this huge problem in my tank. I posted earlier how my crawdad assassinated one of my goldies, now I can't seem to get the water to clear up.

The Amonia readings (after a 50% water change) are off the charts at 3.0. I put Ammo Lock in a few days ago and am resisting the urge to repeat the treatment because I don't want to screw with the cycle - yes, to top off the whole mess - the tank is cycling.

So what do I do? Should I do 100% water change, or is that too drastic? I wonder if there are some bits of fish left over from the crawdad-goldie battle? Could that cause such a large Amonia spike?

 

[greenmaji]

then do larger and more frequent water changes..
It doesnt hurt to take the water down to were the goldfish is turning sideways, seriously.
The crayfish isn't still in the tank?

 

[donttaptheglass]

The ammonia is WAY too high, however I am unsure of how much Ammo Lock will screw with your water readings . . .don't know what it will do to the test kit. Have you got a picture of this tank? Would be curious to see where "dead fish chunks" might roll off and hide.

I had a problem a while back when I had a small Pleco that had died . . . couldn't for the life of me find him. Turns out I had a cave decoration in the tank that had a hole in the bottom of it just big enough to change an airstone. He had gone INSIDE the decoration to die. Took me half an hour to get his dead butt out of there and he was badly decomposed.