My ammonia won't go down.

[Aiken Drum]

A 50% water change should remove 50% of whatever it is you are detecting. So to get to the 0.5ppm combined target change 50% of the water if you have 1ppm ammonia and no nitrite.

Stability and quickstart are the same kind of product. Doubling up is just throwing money down the drain IMO.

 

[MageAssassin]

Is there anything else I can really do to help the ammonia process or only water changes?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Post #29 outlines everything you can do to speed things up. The only surefire way to remove ammonia in an uncycled tank is water changes.

Using prime as your water conditioner will detoxify some ammonia for a day or two, but its still in the water albeit in a temporary non toxic form.

Plants, especially fast growing floating plants will use ammonia as a nutrient source.

 

[MageAssassin]

Yeah I have four live plants in there already. Just buying all this water is really expensive. So trying to see of there was anything I could do besides that. How do you know when your tank is cycled?

 

[Aiken Drum]

You are cycled when you are no longer detecting any ammonia or nitrite in your water tests. As per post #29 that will typically be 6 to 8 weeks.

I would expect you to be needing to do daily water changes for a couple of weeks. It should over time lengthen the period of time it needs to do a water change until you are no longer seeing any ammonia or nitrite and then you can reduce your water changes to probably something like 30 to 50% weekly.

If buying water is looking expensive, consider buying an RO filter so you can make your own water.

 

[MageAssassin]

I know you said i could speed up the process. I got aqueon bactieral balls and used those. The problem with the filter on my tap is I'm no close enough to a sink that i can equip the onto to fill up my tank. Also doubt it'll get rid of all the ammonia that's in the tap already.

 

[MageAssassin]

Sorry if I'm asking alot of questions. Trying to do this thing right. Would adding more live plants help?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Those bacterial products at best will speed up your cycle from months to weeks. That 6 to 8 weeks quoted is if the product does something helpful. There are many instances of it taking much, much longer.

Im confused as to why a filter on your tapwater wont work. The filter doesnt move your tap further away from your tank. You filled your tank before with tap water. Why would a filter make it so cant do so again. RO filters store the filtered water anyway. You run it overnight to produce enough RO water to do your water change the following day.

 

[MageAssassin]

I used the only sink i could reach which is my bathroom sink. I thought you meant like a brita filter. What is an ro filter?

 

[Aiken Drum]

A brita filter wont cut it.

Reverse osmosis filter. It produces reverse osmosis water which is demineralised to produce purified water. The water you buy to wash your car with if you have a flash car.

You can also go through a further Deionising process for further purification.

You have to remineralise RO water to make it suitable for fish to live in, but you can do this in a very targeted way to get precisely the water parameters you want.

Costs maybe £100 to get an RO filter, and there are operating and maintenance costs. But longrun is cheaper than buying water. You can use it to wash your car too.

 

[MageAssassin]

So I did the water change and just tested my water. Doesn't seem like my ammonia changed at all

 

[ColdKoi]

I don’t know what to tell you other than that’s impossible and/or your test readings are not accurate

Like I said before, this is going to be an expensive and labour intensive hobby if you have to buy and lug around water all the time. Once the tank is cycled and all is well, you still need to do weekly water changes or at least semi-weekly. An ro system may be your better option long term, but you will need to remineralize the water or you’ll have a whole new issue on your hands!

With an uncycled tank it can definitely seem like you’re steadily changing water trying to drop the ammonia. I personally wouldn’t get excited if the test showed 1ppm as that’s a fairly acceptable level for most water parameters. You also have to consider the fact that it’s just a home test, it’s not bang-on accurate and sometimes it’s hard to differentiate the readings. But at a 1ppm reading I would do a water change or plan to do it soon (in your case next day if you had to go get water)

Did you happen to check your bottled water again to make sure it didn’t have trace amounts of ammonia?