Ammonia poisoning?

[Maxiharls]

Hi so I’ve recently added a new Oranda to my tank which caused a ammonia and nitrite spike, I’ve been testing the water every day and trying to get it balanced out. But this morning the new fish has developed large red patches at the base of dorsal fin which has gotten worse throughout the day. I’m unsure if this is burn caused by ammonia or if there is another problem at hand.

 

[squirrilah fish]

Can you get direct sunlight to your tank?

 

[Maxiharls]

Can you get direct sunlight to your tank?

Unfortunately no, sunlight only hits the back of the house, the tank is at the front.

 

[squirrilah fish]

If the ammonia is spiking, that means your system doesn’t have enough bacteria to process the ammonia to nitrate.
That’s not uncommon if you’ve added another fish, or overfeed.

Fish have immune systems to combat whatever is ailing them.

So maybe you just need to boost your beneficial bacteria.

Don’t change the filters at all, gently stir the substrate, but don’t clean or suction anything out, (it’ll settle) and don’t fead or add any food for at-least 2 days. (Fish will be fine)

You could turn the temperature up a degree or 2, and give it a day.

Monitor the ammonia, if it’s still spiking, then you’ll need to add some prime, and/or do a water change. But it might just be as simple as letting the system catch up.

Because you’ve had the spike in ammonia, you’ll want to watch for that spike in nitrates, the only way to remove nitrates is to do a water change, but you don’t want to change more than 1/4-1/3rd of your water at once.

If the fish has an alignment. Give it time to heal. Sometimes it can take a month, but the important thing is to keep the water consistent and steady for your guy.

If you’re bacteria is still establishing, and that’s nitrates are spiking. You may need to do a small water change everyday for a week or two to let your system catch up, but it will catch up.

 

[Maxiharls]

So I’ve checked the water today, there’s no ammonia but my nitrites were 20 ppm and nitrates 40ppm. I did a 25% WC. Stirred the substrate as you said. I added water conditioner and quick start which is meant to help boost beneficial bacteria. The fish seem more active since the drop in ammonia. But there is now some scale damage due to flashing.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Are you sure your nitrite is 20ppm? Most tests only go up to 5ppm. I doubt anything would survive very long in 20ppm nitrite. Nitrite will do a lot more harm and a lot quicker than ammonia poisoning. I would be changing more than 25% water.

So I’ve checked the water today, there’s no ammonia but my nitrites were 20 ppm and nitrates 40ppm. I did a 25% WC. Stirred the substrate as you said. I added water conditioner and quick start which is meant to help boost beneficial bacteria. The fish seem more active since the drop in ammonia. But there is now some scale damage due to flashing.

 

[Maxiharls]

Whoops I meant 2 ppm. I done 25% as many places different people on similar forums have advised I do 25% every day to try and build beneficial bacteria. It seems all the problems I am having are revolving around that.

 

[Aiken Drum]

I wouldnt be happy with fish living in that high a nitrite concentration. 25% water change would only reduce 2ppm down to 1.5ppm. I would want it below 0.5ppm.

And from reading your other post, your nitrite went from 0.25ppm to 2ppm in a day? So the problem is that the nitrite is rising quicker than a 25% water change is removing it. If that trend continues I would be doing 50% water changes or 30% water changes twice daily.

 

[Maxiharls]

Ok that makes sense, I’ll test again tomorrow and do a 50% change. How long do you recommend to wait after a water change to test again? I am not able to test the waters in the morning due to work which stresses me out as I’m not home till like 6pm. I feel this is a long gap between testing and water changes, while my water is fluctuating as much as it is.

 

[squirrilah fish]

I wouldnt be happy with fish living in that high a nitrite concentration. 25% water change would only reduce 2ppm down to 1.5ppm. I would want it below 0.5ppm.

And from reading your other post, your nitrite went from 0.25ppm to 2ppm in a day? So the problem is that the nitrite is rising quicker than a 25% water change is removing it. If that trend continues I would be doing 50% water changes or 30% water changes twice daily.

I’m sorry, but I don’t agree here. I don’t think the tank is producing Nitrites faster than the system can handle,

He had an ammonia spike, and therefor will have a subsequent nitrite spike, because there isn’t enough beneficial bacterial.

It’s unlikely the nitrites will continue to be as high once the Nitrogen cycle is caught up and established. What the spike tells me, is the ammonia is starting to be processed, and the nitrates are being processed.

You need both to cycle, because it’s two processes involving different bacteria.

My concern is changing that much water that often is going to stress out the fish, and potentially do more harm than good.

Don’t get me wrong, Nitrites are bad, but a stressed-out, already I’ll fish is just as bad.

I maintain, don’t fead AT ALL, for 2-3 days, and feed very sparingly when necessary. Uneaten food will cause waste spikes also.

If you’re doing 25-30% a day, that will reduce those nitrites sufficiently, in a sufficient amount of time, as long as those beneficial bacteria are now doing their job.

If you decide to do double water changes to remove that nitrite faster, just be conscious of the fish, and do it in the most relaxed, calm, and gentle way possible.

 

[Maxiharls]

I’m sorry, but I don’t agree here. I don’t think the tank is producing Nitrites faster than the system can handle,

He had an ammonia spike, and therefor will have a subsequent nitrite spike, because there isn’t enough beneficial bacterial.

It’s unlikely the nitrites will continue to be as high once the Nitrogen cycle is caught up and established. What the spike tells me, is the ammonia is starting to be processed, and the nitrates are being processed.

You need both to cycle, because it’s two processes involving different bacteria.

My concern is changing that much water that often is going to stress out the fish, and potentially do more harm than good.

Don’t get me wrong, Nitrites are bad, but a stressed-out, already I’ll fish is just as bad.

I maintain, don’t fead AT ALL, for 2-3 days, and feed very sparingly when necessary. Uneaten food will cause waste spikes also.

If you’re doing 25-30% a day, that will reduce those nitrites sufficiently, in a sufficient amount of time, as long as those beneficial bacteria are now doing their job.

If you decide to do double water changes to remove that nitrite faster, just be conscious of the fish, and do it in the most relaxed, calm, and gentle way possible.

Today is the second day of not feeding them, luckily my fish are confident and greedy which allows me to hand feed them the pellets. So no extra waste is lurking about, when I next feed them. I’m going to test the waters when I’m home from work, and depending on the results depends on if I’ll do a water change, as I agree with stressing fish out. I believe is causes then to be susceptible to more diseases and so on. Which is the last thing I need.

 

[okapizebra]

Large water changes are not stressful so long as the water is temperature matched. What is stressful is the fish's gills burning every time they breathe from high nitrites. If you see nitrite higher than .25 I would do a water change. If at 2.0, do a 75%. If 1.0 do a 50% etc. Nitrite bacteria seem to take longer to grow than the ones that eat ammonia, so I would not simply wait it out until they've caught up as it could be long enough for the nitrites to do damage to the fish.

 

[squirrilah fish]

Large water changes are not stressful so long as the water is temperature matched. What is stressful is the fish's gills burning every time they breathe from high nitrites. If you see nitrite higher than .25 I would do a water change. If at 2.0, do a 75%. If 1.0 do a 50% etc. Nitrite bacteria seem to take longer to grow than the ones that eat ammonia, so I would not simply wait it out until they've caught up as it could be long enough for the nitrites to do damage to the fish.

Oh I got you, I must have missed where he said it was at .25, ya thats bad. I’ve never had that except when I was very new, and I stocked a tank practically the same day I set it up.

I don’t like doing big water changes. But I’m also dealing with adjusting my waters PH, and hardness.

 

[Maxiharls]

Oh I got you, I must have missed where he said it was at .25, ya thats bad. I’ve never had that except when I was very new, and I stocked a tank practically the same day I set it up.

I don’t like doing big water changes. But I’m also dealing with adjusting my waters PH, and hardness.

So I’ve had the tank for nearly 2 months, it’s an upgrade from a smaller tank. It was absolutely fine, it’s now out of control since I got the new fish. I know there’s normally an imbalance when introducing a new fish. But this is wildly out of control. I’ve done a 70-80% water change today as I saw no change in the nitrite. Which is obviously not good. I’ve not fed them for 2 days. But the new fish is still pooing. I only ever hand feed my fish, and it has literally only had 2 small pellets a day (when I was feeding them). I don’t like pouring food in as I can’t keep track of the waste in my tank or how much they’re eating, I’ve had so many swim bladder problems in the past due to over feeding. I’m stumped on what’s gone wrong, but it must have been something I’ve done and not realised. Unless I need a bigger filter.

 

[squirrilah fish]

So I’ve had the tank for nearly 2 months, it’s an upgrade from a smaller tank. It was absolutely fine, it’s now out of control since I got the new fish. I know there’s normally an imbalance when introducing a new fish. But this is wildly out of control. I’ve done a 70-80% water change today as I saw no change in the nitrite. Which is obviously not good. I’ve not fed them for 2 days. But the new fish is still pooing. I only ever hand feed my fish, and it has literally only had 2 small pellets a day (when I was feeding them). I don’t like pouring food in as I can’t keep track of the waste in my tank or how much they’re eating, I’ve had so many swim bladder problems in the past due to over feeding. I’m stumped on what’s gone wrong, but it must have been something I’ve done and not realised. Unless I need a bigger filter.

It could be going through a secondary cycle, which is not uncommon.

 

[Aiken Drum]

From your other post, it looks like your tank is 100 litres and it says your issues started when you added the oranda goldfish, but its unclear if you added the goldfish to an already stocked tank. Are there other fish in the tank? The goldfish is pretty much on the limit for a 100 litre tank.

You have also mentioned your filter is a fluval U2. While a U2 is rated for 110 litres, goldfish are very messy and i would want to double the filter capacity for them. It could be that the U2 simply doesn't hold enough filter media to cope.

 

[Maxiharls]

From your other post, it looks like your tank is 100 litres and it says your issues started when you added the oranda goldfish, but its unclear if you added the goldfish to an already stocked tank. Are there other fish in the tank? The goldfish is pretty much on the limit for a 100 litre tank.

You have also mentioned your filter is a fluval U2. While a U2 is rated for 110 litres, goldfish are very messy and i would want to double the filter capacity for them. It could be that the U2 simply doesn't hold enough filter media to cope.

So I got one oranda already in the tank, then added this new one. I asked the shop before buying another fish, and they said 2 would be ok, but he wouldn’t recommend any more than that. This shop isn’t just a pet store, its specifically for fish so I trusted what he said.

As for the filter, I agree with this, I originally had a 40L tank, with the u1 filter and felt this couldn’t cope. And had to upgrade to the U2. Now I have a 100L I may need to upgrade the filter again.

 

[Aiken Drum]

If you a planning on upgrading your filter, i would suggest a canister. A fluval 207 would give sufficient media capacity if you like the fluval brand or maybe an eheim classic 250 if you want to spend a little extra and have a little more media.

If you upgrade, run your new filter alongside your old filter for 2 or 3 weeks before removing the old one. This will enable your new filter to establish some beneficial bacteria before it is doing all the work.

So I got one oranda already in the tank, then added this new one. I asked the shop before buying another fish, and they said 2 would be ok, but he wouldn’t recommend any more than that. This shop isn’t just a pet store, its specifically for fish so I trusted what he said.

As for the filter, I agree with this, I originally had a 40L tank, with the u1 filter and felt this couldn’t cope. And had to upgrade to the U2. Now I have a 100L I may need to upgrade the filter again.

 

[Maxiharls]

If you a planning on upgrading your filter, i would suggest a canister. A fluval 207 would give sufficient media capacity if you like the fluval brand or maybe an eheim classic 250 if you want to spend a little extra and have a little more media.

If you upgrade, run your new filter alongside your old filter for 2 or 3 weeks before removing the old one. This will enable your new filter to establish some beneficial bacteria before it is doing all the work.

Thank you for the advice, my dad used to have loads of tanks years back and he also recommended eheim. It was the only brand he used. I’ll investigate them.

 

[Maxiharls]

So done another test, no change in nitrite and ammonia is now .25. I done 70-80% water change added nitrite remover, ammonia remover and beneficial bacteria. The redness on the fish has gone down significantly, but still flashing. Today is day 3 with no food, but fish are still pooing. Think they’re eating the moss balls, as the poo is green.