question on vacumming the gravel

[janeth0185]

i wanted to know if i can vacuumm the gravel in my tank more than once in a day.thing is my fish all died, and since ammonia levels are high at this point im not adding no more fish til the ammonia levels go down. but i dont know if i can do any harm to the tank if i vacuum the gravel more than one time in a day. i wanna try to get the ammonia levels down as soon as possible because i hate having an empty tank.so if i vacumm the gravel more than once in the day is it bad?? im also doin 25% water changes daily to help with lower ammonia.

 

[Alyxx]

Was this tank cycled? There shouldn't be high levels of ammonia in a cycled tank, and the ammonia is probably what killed all the fish. Just leave the tank as it is and let the ammonia go down naturally as the bacteria establish themselves. It will take a while, but if you clean the tank and start over, you will have to do a fish in cycle which is a lot more work. You will be doing water changes pretty much daily to keep the fish safe. What is the ammonia level now, and have you tested for nitrites and nitrates?

 

[janeth0185]

Was this tank cycled? There shouldn't be high levels of ammonia in a cycled tank, and the ammonia is probably what killed all the fish. Just leave the tank as it is and let the ammonia go down naturally as the bacteria establish themselves. It will take a while, but if you clean the tank and start over, you will have to do a fish in cycle which is a lot more work. You will be doing water changes pretty much daily to keep the fish safe. What is the ammonia level now, and have you tested for nitrites and nitrates?

no.i never cycled the tank because all this was new to me and the salesman where i bought the tank from said to just run the tank for 24hrs before adding fish.thats all i did and then i added just 2 goldfish in it which died ( gone thru 5 goldfishes in total thru out 2 1/2 months, thats how long ive had the tank for).ive had ammonia for the past month and havent been able to lower the ammonia.so now since im fishless i wanna do everything as possible to lower ammonia quickly before adding any more fish ( this time around im gonna add tropical fish instead of goldfish).but i dont know if vacumming the gravel more than once a day is harmful to the tank

 

[janeth0185]

the ammonia levels i would say is about 2.0ppm or so...i have the strips which i know arent as accurate, but a week ago when i went to test it at the local pet shop it was at 2.0 ppm.so i know theres ammonia in there..

 

[Alyxx]

Don't do anything, just wait for the ammonia to go away into nitrites. Then add more ammonia, by either dosing pure ammonia used for cleaning or putting a raw shrimp in the tank to decompose. Keep adding ammonia until you see zero ammonia, zero nitrites, and some nitrates 24 hours after you add ammonia. Then you can add fish.