Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate High

[judyh]

My six month old 75 gallon tank has BIG problems with ammonia level at 8.0 ppm, nitrites at 0.50 ppm and nitrate at 20 ppm. I have cleaned my filter, did a 50% water change, added Ammo Lock, Stability., and Stress Coat. I am at a loss of what to do next. We’re losing 3-5 fish a day for the last 4 days. I’ve stopped feeding them for the past two days and have vacuumed the sand substrate. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[Aiken Drum]

Either you have crashed your cycle, or your cycle never established or something new is causing ammonia and your cycle hasnt caught up yet.

Is the ammonia and nitrite something new or have you always been seeing those levels?

Is your filter sufficient for the size of your tank?

What is your stocking? Are you over stocked?

Maybe something died and you havent noticed and its still in there decompossing?

[judyh]

Originally Posted by Aiken Drum

Either you have crashed your cycle, or your cycle never established or something new is causing ammonia and your cycle hasnt caught up yet.

Is the ammonia and nitrite something new or have you always been seeing those levels?

Is your filter sufficient for the size of your tank?

What is your stocking? Are you over stocked?

Maybe something died and you havent noticed and its still in there decompossing?

Answers to your questions...

New levels; always good till now
Fluval FX4
4 Discus, 8 Glow tetras, 12 neons, 3 Peacock cichlids, yellow spoo pleco, and 3 ninja loaches. A third have died and all have been removed.

I think I over fed them and now need to figure out how to get those levels down. I’m going to buy Prime and do water changes twice a day. Any suggestions? Thank you!

[Aiken Drum]

The only way to remove ammonia is through your cycle or water changes. Prime might detoxify a small amount of ammonia for a short period, but its not a solution to your issues.

Continue checking water parameters and do water changes as needed depending on what you find.

Something must have crashed your cycle. Have you done any tank maintenance? Cleaned the filter? Changed sponges or other filter media? Added any medication? Used a different product?

8ppm of ammonia is way too much for fish to live in. This will be causing long term health issues. You need to bring it down. Im presuming you have low pH with your discus fish? If so, thats good as ammonia is much less harmful at low pH.