Help!! 0.5 ammonia!!

[sallyjano]

Once your biological filter is sorted out, the .5ppm ammonia from the tap is enough to safely ignore. The filtered water will lose some of its buffering capabilities and change the pH but it should be okay to use.

Will change the PH how? Higher or lower? Right now it's about 7.2. I don't want it to go higher as I know that intensifies the toxicity of the ammonia.

Thanks

 

[Mebbid]

Will change the PH how? Higher or lower? Right now it's about 7.2. I don't want it to go higher as I know that intensifies the toxicity of the ammonia.

Thanks

It will likely drop it slightly. But it can also remove the buffers from the water (kH) and cause bigger pH shifts in the day / night cycle

 

[sallyjano]

Oh boy.....so then now I just don't know what to do. Don't want it to go higher as then the ammonia is more toxic........

 

[mrvincent]

Just add a bit remineralized RODI water with seachem equilibrum, so you won't add ammonia for this water change, and the ph will drop a bit if you don't put too much equilibrum in that RODI.

 

[sallyjano]

But I don't have RODI water. The filter I am referring to is just a regular household spout next to the kitchen faucet.

 

[mrvincent]

There's some RODI at the grocery usually... Or distillated water do the job too.

Anyways, according to this chart, your 0.5 ppm ammonia at 25C° at PH 7.2 is not toxic.

 

[sallyjano]

There's some RODI at the grocery usually... Or distillated water do the job too.

Anyways, according to this chart, your 0.5 ppm ammonia at 25C° at PH 7.2 is not toxic.

Oh wow I hadn't found that chart!! Awesome thanks!! Very helpful.

Didn't realize you could buy RODI water.....thought you have to have one of those filter machines at home!! Total rookie here.

Anyway based on that chart I think I will just keep feeding light and keep an eye on it. Hopefully it will cycle soon and this worrying will be over

 

[mrvincent]

Oh wow I hadn't found that chart!! Awesome thanks!! Very helpful.

Didn't realize you could buy RODI water.....thought you have to have one of those filter machines at home!! Total rookie here.

Anyway based on that chart I think I will just keep feeding light and keep an eye on it. Hopefully it will cycle soon and this worrying will be over

Yes it will cycle by itself, you can add BB in bottle to help.

In my case I have a RODI unit at home, because I have a saltwater tank and I need a lot of RODI water, like two gallon/week for evaporation + 5 gallon for water change each two weeks, so I have to produce 9-10 gallons/two weeks. It will cost a fortune overtime if I didn't bought this.

 

[sallyjano]

I have added the BB in a bottle though I've read most people don't seem to think it's worth it, but hey I've done it anyway just in case.

Any idea how long a 10g to 60g cycle may take (with the old filter/media in place)?

 

[mrvincent]

I have added the BB in a bottle though I've read most people don't seem to think it's worth it, but hey I've done it anyway just in case.

Any idea how long a 10g to 60g cycle may take (with the old filter/media in place)?

It's case to case... It will be faster with the old filter media to help, probably 3 weeks max.

For the BB in bottle, some people say it's not worth it because it didn't worked for them. You must purchase a bottle where the expiration date is far from now, you must make sure the bottle have not been froozen or overheaten, all these are factors that will affect the product effiency.

I had great luck with Nutrafin Cycle, now I bought Seachem Stability, it was cheaper, but I don't know if it work well as all my tanks are cycled. It helped a bit my reef tank I think.

I cycled a new 29g without old filter media with Nutrafin Cycle, and ammonia-> nitrite was done in 6 days, and I never saw any nitrite spike. So in ten days the cycle was complete...

I cheated a bit, I dosed this product directly into the filter bio max.

 

[sallyjano]

It's case to case... It will be faster with the old filter media to help, probably 3 weeks max.

For the BB in bottle, some people say it's not worth it because it didn't worked for them. You must purchase a bottle where the expiration date is far from now, you must make sure the bottle have not been froozen or overheaten, all these are factors that will affect the product effiency.

I had great luck with Nutrafin Cycle, now I bought Seachem Stability, it was cheaper, but I don't know if it work well as all my tanks are cycled. It helped a bit my reef tank I think.

I cycled a new 29g without old filter media with Nutrafin Cycle, and ammonia-> nitrite was done in 6 days, and I never saw any nitrite spike. So in ten days the cycle was complete...

I cheated a bit, I dosed this product directly into the filter bio max.

Wow I hope it's not 3 weeks - not sure who is more stressed.....me or the fish!! Am hoping for closer to the 6-10 day mark!! I am only on day 4......

Re the bb bottles - yes I had read about the heating/cold issue. So when you buy them you have no clue if that's happened or not......but I do have a bottle of it so will use it.

 

[mrvincent]

Wow I hope it's not 3 weeks - not sure who is more stressed.....me or the fish!! Am hoping for closer to the 6-10 day mark!! I am only on day 4......

Re the bb bottles - yes I had read about the heating/cold issue. So when you buy them you have no clue if that's happened or not......but I do have a bottle of it so will use it.

That can't hurt to add dead BBs, that's the worst case. The best case your cycle will be a lot faster. If you don't see the fishs gasping at surface or having sudden strange behavious, you should not worry.

You placed them from a 10g to 60g, so they should have a slower behaviour, I mean swim slower, better, they should feel better. Do you see that or not ?

My neons were really looking to thrive when I upgraded their setup if I compare how they were acting when they were in the smaller one...

 

[sallyjano]

That can't hurt to add dead BBs, that's the worst case. The best case your cycle will be a lot faster. If you don't see the fishs gasping at surface or having sudden strange behavious, you should not worry.

You placed them from a 10g to 60g, so they should have a slower behaviour, I mean swim slower, better, they should feel better. Do you see that or not ?

Re the BB - yes that's what I thought too so I will keep using it.

Re the fish behavior - yes actually I do think they are more mellow for the most part. Although 1 of the neon tetras and the other tetra were swimming frantically for a short while. Not now though.

So will I always see either gasping or change in behavior if they are struggling? So if they look normal they are ok?

 

[enrgizerbunny]

Oh wow I hadn't found that chart!! Awesome thanks!! Very helpful.

Didn't realize you could buy RODI water.....thought you have to have one of those filter machines at home!! Total rookie here.

Anyway based on that chart I think I will just keep feeding light and keep an eye on it. Hopefully it will cycle soon and this worrying will be over

It's on the aisle with the distilled water, usually labeled as "drinking water" in most stores.
Some grocery stores have a dispenser, but I'd head to organic markets looking for that.

RO/DI water (or RODI as we commonly forget the slash around here) stands for "Reverse Osmosis/Deionized" It is actually two different types of filtration, that both result in almost pure water. My local natural foods market sells both for $.50 a gallon. Or that was the price when I worked there...6 years ago.

Aquafina and Dasani bottled water are both bottled tap water that has been filtered by reverse osmosis. Along with every other bottled water that doesn't say "spring water" on the label.

 

[mrvincent]

Most drinkable bottles has been remineralized, you can see it on the bottle content analysis. If it's not 0ppm everywhere, then this is not pure water.

RODI or RO is filtration through reverse osmosis membrane, distilled water is filtered via evaporation. Both are almost the same at final.

What you want is pure water that you remineralize with a product like Seachem Equilibrum. You must not put RODI water directly to the tank without mineralizing it, or it will create huge PH drop.

I think you just can use normal drinkable water like aquafina and don't remineralize it. For sure there's no ammonia in it. I would put it in the tank very sloooooowwwly, just because the parameters are not the same as what there's in the tank.

 

[sallyjano]

Thanks for all in info re RO/DI water and other types of water however since that ammonia chart I was sent shows that .25 or .5 is not toxic at 74 degrees and 7.2 PH I think I will just leave it alone for now and just keep monitoring.

I am a 110lb female with a bad back - lugging 30 gallons of water of any type from a store is not appealing! So as long as it stays below .5 with the same temp/PH I will just leave as is unless it gets higher.

Sound reasonable?

 

[mrvincent]

Yes ! Just monitor ammonia/nitrite spike and do a massive WC if it get too high.

Just monitoring fish behaviour is good, if you see them all gasping at the surface, then you have to do an emergency water change. Depending on your bioload, this should not happen, don't add any new fish during this process.

When your tank will be established, you'll change 50% of the water, ammonia will raise between .25 - .5, then two days later it will be at 0.

 

[sallyjano]

Yes ! Just monitor ammonia/nitrite spike and do a massive WC if it get too high.

Just monitoring fish behaviour is good, if you see them all gasping at the surface, then you have to do an emergency water change. Depending on your bioload, this should not happen, don't add any new fish during this process.

When your tank will be established, you'll change 50% of the water, ammonia will raise between .25 - .5, then two days later it will be at 0.

Once again......thank you!! Invaluable help on this forum.

 

[sallyjano]

Just thought I would report back. I am happy to say my latest ammonia test is a glorious yellow.....0 ammonia!!

The fish look great and were so happy to get a feed today!!

 

[mrvincent]

Chill !!! As you can see your tap ammonia quickly convert into nitrates, that's a sign of good cycle. Nitrites are about 0 too ?