Hi, I'm new here and I have seemed to have a BIG ammonia problem in my 55-gal freshwater tank for a long time. I'm weary trying to battle it. Here are the characteristics of my tank:
There are 14 fish in there ranging from as large as one pleco and one silver dollar to as small as a couple of cardinal tetras and a dwarf puffer. There's a panda cory, a melanistius catfish, and upside down catfish, a couple of head and tail light tetras, a few buenos aires tetras and one black neon tetra. The reason for one or two tetras in a group is that a few of them have died over the months/years and with the ammonia reading SO high, I haven't bought anyone else in for a long time.
Here's what happens. This tank typically has such a LOW pH reading (6.0 or lower?) and such HIGH ammonia readings (6.0 or 8.0?) that I do water changes way more often than average. Sometimes every day, sometimes every other day, sometimes every few. I rarely go more than just over a week without doing somewhere between a 12 to 25% water change, and somewhat recently I went ahead and did a 50% or so change out of exasperation. That seemed to help the most (lighter green color on both the test strip and in the API test tube) FOR ABOUT ONE OR TWO DAYS. Then back to that very dark blue-green API and dark green "danger" Quick Dip strip.
I use our hard tap water with a tiny bit of Prime added to each gallon, and even then the pH will slip down, down usually within a couple of days. I also typically add either StressCoat or NovAqua when I do a water change.
I have had a few fish die over the past two or three months, but I've had the tank a few years and have had some of these fish from the beginning. We used to have a lot of snails in there, but for awhile I had a couple of goldfish in here which my chinese water dragon was too afraid to eat. They grew big fast eating those snails, but I also wonder if something in the water killed off the rest of the snails. (This would have been about 10 months ago when I found another home for the goldfish.)
I seem to need to clean out the two Penguin BioWheel 200 filters every few weeks due to a grayish/brownish with a tinge of greenish sludge. It's possible that I have overfed these guys over the years now, but after all this time, I'm still afraid both that I'm overfeeding AND underfeeding since two of these guys are big. Nightly I put a pretty small pinch of Omega One flake, a couple of small kelp pellets, a pinch of freeze dried medley of shrimp and krill, a couple of bottom feeder tablets, broken up some, and a dozen or more tiny sinking super color pellets by Omega One. How does that sound? Oh, and usually put one sinking algae round in for the pleco.
Typically all the other readings are very good other than that darn ammonia reading and the pH that won't stay static.
Any help out there? I love these fish enough to really try to keep them alive and well, but I'd love to have a low-maintenance aquarium.
Thanks!
There are 14 fish in there ranging from as large as one pleco and one silver dollar to as small as a couple of cardinal tetras and a dwarf puffer. There's a panda cory, a melanistius catfish, and upside down catfish, a couple of head and tail light tetras, a few buenos aires tetras and one black neon tetra. The reason for one or two tetras in a group is that a few of them have died over the months/years and with the ammonia reading SO high, I haven't bought anyone else in for a long time.
Here's what happens. This tank typically has such a LOW pH reading (6.0 or lower?) and such HIGH ammonia readings (6.0 or 8.0?) that I do water changes way more often than average. Sometimes every day, sometimes every other day, sometimes every few. I rarely go more than just over a week without doing somewhere between a 12 to 25% water change, and somewhat recently I went ahead and did a 50% or so change out of exasperation. That seemed to help the most (lighter green color on both the test strip and in the API test tube) FOR ABOUT ONE OR TWO DAYS. Then back to that very dark blue-green API and dark green "danger" Quick Dip strip.
I use our hard tap water with a tiny bit of Prime added to each gallon, and even then the pH will slip down, down usually within a couple of days. I also typically add either StressCoat or NovAqua when I do a water change.
I have had a few fish die over the past two or three months, but I've had the tank a few years and have had some of these fish from the beginning. We used to have a lot of snails in there, but for awhile I had a couple of goldfish in here which my chinese water dragon was too afraid to eat. They grew big fast eating those snails, but I also wonder if something in the water killed off the rest of the snails. (This would have been about 10 months ago when I found another home for the goldfish.)
I seem to need to clean out the two Penguin BioWheel 200 filters every few weeks due to a grayish/brownish with a tinge of greenish sludge. It's possible that I have overfed these guys over the years now, but after all this time, I'm still afraid both that I'm overfeeding AND underfeeding since two of these guys are big. Nightly I put a pretty small pinch of Omega One flake, a couple of small kelp pellets, a pinch of freeze dried medley of shrimp and krill, a couple of bottom feeder tablets, broken up some, and a dozen or more tiny sinking super color pellets by Omega One. How does that sound? Oh, and usually put one sinking algae round in for the pleco.
Typically all the other readings are very good other than that darn ammonia reading and the pH that won't stay static.
Any help out there? I love these fish enough to really try to keep them alive and well, but I'd love to have a low-maintenance aquarium.
Thanks!