ammonia spike--need advice

[littletank]

Hello. I have a 2.5 gallon fry tank that has been running for a little over two months. I cycled it with gravel from my 10 gallon and a little Biospira. Water readings have been perfect for a solid two months until this week. I've got an ammonia spike of .50.

It's totally my fault. I let two and half weeks go by with no gravel vac or water change. I know shame on me! If you can forgive me for crime, please read on in order to help me.

Okay, so I did a gravel vac and water change today and it still reads .50. I did two more gravel vacs and still .50. Remember, this is just a 2.5 gallon tank. Why hasn't the ammonia level dropped after almost all of the water has been changed? The gravel is completely clean, and I don't want to vaccuum it again because I'm afraid i'll suck up all of the biobugs.

Oh, there are 4 platy fry in there ranging from 2 and 1/2 months old to 2 and 1/2 weeks old and an apple snail. Also, there are some pest snails in there that "came with" (unnoticed) a fish from the lfs. These snail are very small but are breeding like CRAZY. They drive me NUTS!

Anyhow, what do you suggest I do to get the ammonia right in there? Do more gravel vacs and or water changes or add some gravel from my 10 gallon to add more biobugs?

Thanks for you help,
littletank

 

[bzbee]

What are the parameters straight from the tap?

 

[SteveM]

I had similar troubles with a 1G I was using to hold a pregnant ghost shrimp - I was doing 50% water changes every day and the ammonia was not going away.

I threw in some hornwort and that was the last I saw of any ammonia. Even with the pathetic little incandescent bulb that came with the 1G tank the hornwort grew like a weed.

I guess there are also chems you can dump in there to deal with the ammonia, but I've never tried them so I can't comment intelligently.

 

[megos1]

What are your other water peramaters??

 

[frog girl]

I' with SteveM. Annacharis or hornwort suck up ammonia but it would be good to let us know what else your water is doing & if you have ammonia coming from the tap so we can address the root of the problem.

 

[littletank]

Thanks for all your replies. Oh, and frog girl, I really like your Eintstein quote!

About the fry tank--I added some gravel from my 10 gallon last night. I tested the ammonia today and it's 0 now. So that worked. Oh and nitrIte is 0 too. I'm out of nitrAte "tester drops". Will check that soon.

However, I never thought about checking the water straight from the tap. So, I just did, and guess what?? It reads .50.!! That's crazy! I wonder how long my tap water has had ammonia in it? Good thing I have a water filter connected to the kitchen sink (our drinking water). I'm assuming that it filters out ammonia. I'm going to test that in a minute.

I use the water from my bathtub tap for the tanks and that's the water that has .50 ammonia. Since the nitrite is 0 in both tanks, I'm guessing there's no nitrite in the tap water.

So what do I do about this ammonia in my water? Is it bad for me and my family? And how do go about doing water changes now? If i start using the filtered water the pH will get all messed up right?

Many thanks,
littletank

I should have thought to check the tap water. Duhh!