Ammonia levels

[dkmuller]

I keep checking daily levels of my ammonia and other levels. My ammonia stays at at the color for stress. I do water changes once a week, I don't over feed, I have a good filtration system. So I was wondering if it is caused by the food I add for the snail. It is blanched cucumber and squash. I put it in at night and take it out in the morning . It is well eaten to the rind. I have a betta and she is no way stressed she is healthy and so is my mystery snail. My tank is 5.5 gallons and has been set up for about 2 1/2 months. I did not cycle it prior to putting them in due to not even knowing about that prior to doing this. Advise is appreciated.

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[jglover]

What are you using to measure this ammonia stress concentration? Is it a test kit or a test strip?

 

[Supergummy]

I do a change every other day. I'm also curious as to why are you testing to stress levels, just test to the real level.

 

[dkmuller]

I am using a test kit. I am not testing for stress but real ammonia. The color on the chart with my kit tells you that it causes stress on fish at that level maybe I didn't explain it right.

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[jglover]

Generally a test kit such as the API kit will give you a concentration corresponding to the colors of the water in the test tube. Light green is 0.25ppm, darker, is 0.5ppm, etc. The trouble is test kits generally test for total ammonia, including ammonium compounds which are more prevalent at lower pHs. so knowing the actual concentration of ammonia you are reading, your pH, nitrite, nitrate concentrations,etc., will better help us understand what is going on. You're on the right track those, as decaying organics are one thing that can contribute to ammonia increases.

A five gallon tank is tough to stabilize,, considering it was not cycled, but you have a fairly low bioload in there with just a betta and a snail, so I'd be surprised if it has not cycled on its own in two months. Still, if we knew nitrite and nitrate, that would help determine if the tank has cycled and is experiencing a mini cycle of some sort.

 

[dkmuller]

I checked my log I keep and my nitrate and nitrite have been running at zero

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[jglover]

You should be seeing some nitrate by now if the tank has cycled. There should also have been a nitrite spike which dropped to zero. Sounds as if the cycle has not run.