Ammonia

[fishyfish123]

My son has a 29 gallon tank since January, after cycling he got a blue acara ( 2.5" long ) and 6 of a tiger barb, he all of a sudden has a spike in ammonia of 1ppm, he has fake plants, a piece of Driftwood from the local fish store, he has a filter with a sponge, biomax and purigen in it, he added ammonia remover to the filter as well now but it is still reading 1 ppm. Can anyone help point us in the direction of how to find the source of ammonia? he is not overfeeding them so I don't believe it is a bunch of uneaten food, he also does partial water changes on a normal basis.

 

[Aiken Drum]

The tank isnt cycled, or not cycled sufficiently for the number of fish you have.

How did you cycle the tank?

You now need to do what is called a fish in cycle and do more frequent water changes. Do you know how to do a fish in cycle?

Ammonia removing removing products will prevent your aquarium from cycling. If the ammonia is removed you will starve the microbes that are responsible for the nitrogen cycle and once the ammonia removing product gets used up the ammonia will start to rise.