- 36 Gallon Freshwater Tropical Community Tank been running for 6 weeks
- 5 guppies, 5 zebra danios, 1 snail, 2 ghost shrimp, 4 corydoras, no live plants
Using API Test Kit, today:
Ammonia is at 0.12 (between yellow and green tint)
Nitrites is at 0
Nitrates is at 5
pH 7.8
Yesterday Ammonia was at 0.2 (closer to green tint, but not quite there, not yellow)
Nitrites were at 0
Nitrates were at 5
pH 7.8
I did a 70% Water Change yesterday and did not feed. 2 days before that I did a 50% water change because Ammonia was at 0.12 (halfway between yellow and the green tint of 0.25).
3 days ago I changed my feeding from twice a day consumed in 3 minutes, to twice a day consumed in 1 minute.
I use Prime and Nutrafin Cycle at every water change (following instructions to treat the whole tank). I read that as Prime dechlorinates your water, it produces ammonia, at the same time binds this ammonia into a non-toxic form.
I also tested my tap water for Ammonia a few times and it was bright yellow, clearly 0.0 Ammonia.
Why is my ammonia still high? Is this normal? How long does Prime's "non-toxic" ammonia stay non-toxic? How long does it take to convert chlorine into ammonia? Am I testing "too often"?