Can't get tank stabilized

[jojojc]

My tank was cycled, somewhere along the line it went haywire and I can't get it back. I have a 30g tank
3 gold wags
2 platy's
6 zebra danio
5 seprae tetras

Do I have too many fish?

Here are my reading; ammonia is high , I tested tap water and straight out of tap it reads .50ppm so I know I will never get a 0 reading, I have been doing 50% water changes every three days for past week.

Ammonia- 2.0
Ph- 7.6
Nitrate no2 - 2.0
Nitrate no3 - 5.0

Any suggestions? I also had a case of ich recently and I had to take the media out of tank. Which seems to have cleared that problem up.

 

[BillD]

It sounds like there is chloramine in the tap water, rather than just chlorine. A dechlor such as prime will detoxify the ammonia so the filter can consume it. It will still show up on a test.of more concern is the high nitrite number, which Prime is supposedly also be able to help. The key for me is to do a large water change, like 75 or 80% and get the ammonia and nitrite numbers down.

 

[Aquariumfish123]

If you have 2 ppm ammo with all those fish, get some type of ammo-lock product such as prime and I think API makes one as well

 

[BBradbury]

Hello jo...

You likely need to get the help of floating plants. Check you local fish store and see if they can get Common water weed (Anacharis), Pennywort and Hornwort. You just need to toss in as many stems of these plants as you can. They'll grow quickly and help maintain a more stable water chemistry, but using dissolved nitrogen. Smaller tanks 30 gallons and under need 50 percent water changes with pure, treated tap water every week, more often if necessary. Vacuuming the substrate in areas that don't have plants will help remove old plant and fish material that when dissolved in the tank water, can affect the chemistry. Acurel has some filter media that removes ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, might be worth using.

B

 

[AtHomeWithTwins]

You probably sent the tank into a mini- cycle when u took the media out. What exactly did you remove? What type of filters do u have?

 

[jojojc]

I have a Topfin 30 filter

Plants sound like a good idea I have one in there now hit looks like I need more.
I have been doing frequent water changes but that do looks like I need to do more frequent.

 

[AtHomeWithTwins]

Plants can help... But ur gonna need alot of plants. U have one, but a couple more isnt gonna address a 2 ppm ammonia problem. U said it was cycled at one point before the ich, so obviously ur tank can be fine without plants. U took the filter media out im assuming to treat for ich, and when u were done u put in a new cartridge. Even if u put the old media back in, the bb was probably long dead, so now ur tank has to cycle again. If u want plants, go for it. But its not going to solve ur problem in the short term.

 

[jojojc]

So do you suggest more frequent water changes?

 

[AtHomeWithTwins]

If ur tap water has .5ppm ammonia, more pwc will help but thats still too high. Alot of lfs have RO water for $.50/gallon. If you have the $ i would do that for a couple pwc. If u dont, i would use prime to 'inert' the ammonia in ur tank and hold off on pwcs as much as u can. Ur basically doing a 'fish in' cycle all over again but it will be quicker hopefully. Get the ammo down and let ur filter rebuild.