high ammo issues

[flitabout]

I am having issues keeping my ammo down. 3 weeks ago my sword and 2 platys both dropped fry. After that I lost all but the one platy within days after that. Well I have only lost 2 of the fry they are all in the main tank a 37g tall. It has all been going fine until the other day when I started noticing what I would consider a massive ammo spike. I measured a 1ppm ammo nitrite is still 0 and Nitrates have been holding steady at around 10-15ppm. I am thinking that the high ammo is from the fry there are at best estimates around 50. What do I need to do to get the bb built up enough to handle this load until the babies are bigger. I am getting 2 ten gallon tanks later this week so I know that will help. Would bb in a bottle be worth a try to get the levels down? I still have some. I am doing water changes daily its just getting old doing massive daily water changes and I am almost out of prime and I won't be able to get more until the end of the week. My closest lfs is an hour away as is the nearest walmart. So i can't even get any kind of water conditioner until then. Help!!!​

 

[Rivercats]

Check your tap water to see if it suddenly has ammonia in it. It can happen. Do you use Prime? If so you can use it to neutralize ammonia. But WC's are the best thing to do to keep ammonia down unless that is where it's coming from. A few fry wouldn't cause an ammonia spike so something else is going on.

 

[flitabout]

I'll check the tap my ph spiked this month too in my tap so it wouldn't surprise me.

 

[flitabout]

Well I ran the ammo on a glass of water my kids left out from last night and my ammo is .5 out of the tap. Is it common for tap water parameters to change so much in such a short time? When I tested the tap back at the beginning of August it came out to:
0-Ammo
0-Nitrite
0-Nitrate
7.4-7.8 Ph
Now it's
.5-Ammo
0-Nitrite
5-Nitrate
8.8 Ph

 

[Rivercats]

Yes tap water can do that depending on it's source. Heavy rains and other environmental factors can all cause fluxuations in the water.

 

[flitabout]

We haven't had much rain recently. It's really frustrating I seem to be doing more harm than good everytime I do a water change.

 

[mrvincent]

Personally, if I increase bio load, I put some BBs in my filter bio part. I use Nutrafin Cycle, I pour it in the filter and it work well.