Ammonia .5 ppm

Hey people,

I have a problem, im new to this hobbie and i have 8 kerri danios and a betta in a 35 litre aquarium running two months.

I have a fluval mini filter with a piece of polyfilter in the filter and one hanging around the tank.

My ammonia is .5ppm and has been since last night. My fish are not showing any sign that it bothers them but im sure it does.

How can i get this ammonia down? i dont want my fish to die...

Hi,

the following are things that I would do:

Do a large water change;
Use prime, at the recommended dose rate (it helps to 'neutralise' ammonia until such time as you figure out what caused the spike);
Don't feed your fish for a few days, until the ammonia issue subsides (as they'll die from ammonia long before they starve).

Also consider what caused the ammonia spike in the first place. Possibly consider:

• Overfeeding (my own nemisis);
• Filter not strong enough to manage the current bioload;
Adding too many fish, too soon for the filter to be able to cope;

• Filter recently cleaned (over cleaned or cleaned in tap water rather than tank water during a water change);

Thats what I would do, but I'm sure more experienced users will be able to advise you better.

What do you think might be the cause yourself?

Helen

yeah , prime is great stuff and lasts for ages .. IMO easily the best water conditioner on the market

Hi Sean

I replied to Your eMail on the subject
Hope it helps





Des

Ammonia readings need to have the pH and temperature of the water being read to get an idea of what the ammonia reading really is (and also the type of kit is required).

If you don't have the pH and temperature then you have no idea of what the ammonia reading is in the tank.

I would not use any liquid additive to lock-up ammonia as most decrease the oxygen levels in the tank, and you may well still get high ammonia readings.

If the actual free ammonia is 0.5 mg/l in the tank then you'd need to do a 95% (minimum) water change to get it to a level of safety for even tough fish........BUT doing such a massive water change is dangerous and should not be done.

Having said that, I do not believe that the level of ammonia in the tank is 0.5mg/l at all if the fish are still alive.

What is the pH?
What is the temperature?

from that I will work out how much ammonia you have in the tank (it will be quite close to the real value).

The best way to reduce such a high ammonia safely is to use an ammonia adsorbing zeolite resin....cheap enough.

You should do a 50% water change (carefully) anyway just to help move the ammonia into a safer region.

Increase surface aeration (add an airpump or get the filter to agitate the water more).

Reduce feeding.

Add something like Tetra SafeStart or other 'bacteria in a bottle' product.

Then, check that your filter system is working properly....that means does the filter have the appropriate bacteria growing on it.

ian

Hey des, got no email buddy? was it replied to on youtube or email?

ill give you all the stats in about an hour igmillichip thank you, i have an api testing kit

Gilly wrote:

Hey des, got no email buddy? was it replied to on youtube or email?

email



Des

As Ian suggests, Tetra Safestart is good. I've 60 mills here for free if you want.

Dave

Thanks DJK ill pick some up in the morning and hopefully that should help. Thanks for the kind offer

hey igmillichip and anyone else i did my test there .

ammonia - .5ppm
Nitrate- 0ppm
Ph-7.8
Nitrite-0ppm

What do you make of that? my fish look great for the moment?

Gilly wrote:

hey igmillichip and anyone else i did my test there .

ammonia - .5ppm
Nitrate- 0ppm
Ph-7.8
Nitrite-0ppm

What do you make of that? my fish look great for the moment?

Hi Gilly,

I need the temperature really.

But, in assuming that you have a tropical set-up, and assuming you have it at the normal upper temperature of a tropical set-up, I calculate that the level of free ammonia (unionised ammonia) in your tank at pH 7.8 is about 0.025

That is because the type of test kit you are using is very likely to be a Total Ammonia kit (it measures ammonium plus ammonia).

Now, that value of 0.025 is the absolute upper limit that I would allow for even tough fish.

Ideally, it should be zero on your test kit......the total reading of 0.5 in an alkaline pH is teetering on the edge of a big risk:
if your temperature increases or the pH increases then the level of free ammonia at 0.5 total will go way above 0.025 free ammonia.

For more on this, here is a link to an article I did.

www.irishfishkeepers.com/index.php/artic...ammonia-calculations

In that is a link to a spreadsheet in google documents.....you may download the xl spreadsheet and enter you temp and pH to get the true close estimate of free ammonia (free or unionised ammonia being extremely toxic to fish whereas ammonium is less toxic).

ian

My temperature ranges from 22-25 degrees celcius, i use a elite heater and it does not keep a constant temperature.

Thanks dude ill try do that now

Just curious mate,is that .50ppm or could it be .05ppm?

Ger

Im trying my best to make sense of all those equations. Maths was never my strong point.

.50ppm dude , thats what its saying on my colour chart on the api testing kit

Ha join the club with the maths.......ah right so it's the 3rd colour down on the chart,the reason i asked is,i had an API kit for a while and it always gave me a very slight reading (.05 roughly going by the colour chart) for Ammonia in every tank i had....after a million back breaking water changes,severe paranoia,numerous trips to the LFS for tests (which were always zero),i changed my kit and i am thankfully getting a big fat zero ever since.......I'd be following Ian's advice mate and i wish you well!! oh and the rest

Ger

It sure is the third colour down but its so hard to tell between the third and fourth me thinks. I think ill be ok for the moment, two capfulls of "cycle" biological fish loss stuff straight into the filter and 2 pieces of polyfilter with daily 20% water changes might help? the frustrating thing is the fish look great.... including the Betta. No signs of stress. Betta even swims against the filter current for the craic and they hate currents

No need to worry about the maths.....the on-line xl spreadsheet that you can download has a simple box to enter values and the equation does the working out.

The maths and chemistry of this is actually quite advanced stuff when it comes to deriving the equations. It is beyond that normally taught on a chemistry degree.

But.....if anyone is interested in the maths and chemistry behind this.....then simply ask.

ian