Higher Ammonia after 80% PWC???

[jamesrm]

Alright,
So when I get back from vacation, my ammonia was around 3.0 No sick fish, but I immediately dosed ammo-lock and started preparing my PWC supplies. (I have to use buckets as I am at my worksite)

After an 80% change, dosing with water treatment and a bacteria supplement, I tested all levels again, and now my ammonia is reading 5.0+. I am not sure if that is correct. All fish look healthy, and I am wondering if that is a false positive from the ammo lock.

Needless to say, I am going to do another 80% PWC when the temp and water stabalizes a bit more.

I am running an XP3 in a 30 gal tank. 150w heater and large airstone.

Any thoughts?

 

[Zagz]

When you say water treatment do you mean dechlorinator? Also from what I remember using ammo-lock can give you false readings. Also how long after the pwc did you test? It should be a minimum of 2 hours. Have you tested your tap water for ammonia? What kind of test kit are you using?
I personally find ammo-lock a waste of money, pwc's work much better. Also bacterial supplements unless containing live bacteria, like biospira, will not move your cycle along any faster. IMO one of the biggest money wasters out there,

I'd suspect that you have gotten inaccurate test results. If you tested right after the pwc, I'd retest and see what your results are. No doubt in order to keep your tank going you will have to do water changes quite often, possibly daily to keep ammonia to 0ppm. Your fish can show problems after being exposed to high ammonia, even if it isn't right away.

 

[SparKy697]

This has come up before and if I remember correctly some of the advice was to first test your tap water and see what kind of reading you get.

How old is you test kit?

Are you using a liquid test or strips?

Does your water contain high levels of chloramines? I believe that is what a liquid test is actually reading.

If nothing else take your water to a lfs and ask them to test it for you. I have to admit I would expect to see devastation in the tank if you had 3 to 5 ppm of ammonia in the tank.

 

[malkore]

is your ammonia test kit one bottle of reagent, or two?

because if its one bottle, you have a nessler type kit, which will detect non-toxic ammonium as deadly ammonia.
and most all dechlorinators, as well as ammo-lock, bind ammonia into ammonium to make it 'safe'.

the two bottle kit, that also takes 5 mins to develop results instead of being instant, will work with all types of dechlorinator.

 

[jamesrm]

It is the 2 bottle kit. I have resolved myself to daily water changes (sometimes twice) and it seems to be coming down. I don't know how I managed to kill all of my bacteria, this has to be a new full cycle.

 

[TomK2]

What I know about aquarium test kits can be found at:

http://home.wowway.com/~tomstank/index_files/page0018.htm

Test strips are worthless, so use a salicylate based ammonia liquid reagent test, which is a two bottle test. I have never had one, but I beleive the nessler test is one bottle or test strips. The nessler test uses brown as an indicator color, if your liquid kit is yellow and green, it is salicylate. A nessler test goes false high after the "ammonia binders" are used.

Test your tap water. A positive ammonia test in tap water means you have chloramines in your municipal water supply. Or you have well water with fertilizer run off in it?

I have seen ammoni tests test positive when just contaminated with organic debris or food particles. Repeating the test seems wise.

Old test kit?

Some serious organics (food?) were dumped in while you were on vacation and overwhelmed your bacteria? Undiscovered dead animal decaying in the tank? How long were you gone and who took care of the tank?

Decimation of the nitrifying bacteria?