Ammonia at .50

[ErinF90]

I have a 46g bow front with a marineland 360C canister filter. I have 5 glass catfish, 6 Odessa barbs, 2 Bolivian rams, 3 panda cories and 6 half black plates. I check my ammonia, nitrites and nitrates every week and ammonia and nitrites are always at 0. Today however ammonia is at .50ppm, nitrites still at 0 and nitrates at 10. I did a 50% water change this morning. I haven't added any new fish for about a year. One of my Odessa barbs had dropsy, so I removed her this morning. Could this have caused the ammonia? Haven't cleaned out my filter in about a month and when I do I always rinse in old tank water. Please help

 

[rmiller]

Did you add any medication to the tank for the dropsey?

Check your tap water for ammonia too. Your water supplier may have changed something. If there's no ammonia in the tap follow the steps to do a fish in cycle.

 

[Rivercats]

A sudden spike in ammonia can be caused by many reasons. Check ph to be sure it's above 6.5, also check tap water after aerating it for 24 hours before testing ph. Over cleaning a filter, stirring up a lot of detris in the gravel while gravel vacuuming or even planting, a dead fish, ammonia suddenly in the tap water. These and several other reasons can cause it. You just need to do the WC to hopefully bring it down and see if it goes up again or if that takes care of the problem. You just have to go down the list and rule out possible causes.

 

[molliwopp]

Some great suggestions here with one small thing to add, the last ammonia spike i encountered was caused by my filters flow being restricted.

 

[ErinF90]

Thank you everyone for the responses! I didn't medicate my tank for dropsy, and checked my tap water, no ammonia there. Will check my pH and that of my tap water, I don't check the pH as often as I should, not sure why. Will also do another 50% water change today and see how it does. Fish still appear to all be acting normally so far.

 

[ErinF90]

Oh yeah and I will check my filter for any obstructions!