serious Ammonia problem in tank

I have a Rio 125 freshwater tank a couple of months now. My first fish were 6 red eyed tetras and everything was ok. After talking to a worker in an aquarium section they said adding more fish was fine. I put 11 neon tetras in there too. The trouble was the brown algae was getting a lot worse and the same guy recommended a pleco algae eater to solve the problem. I knew about ammonia levels and all that but being a newbie just went by what the guy said... Anyway the neon tetras were the first to die off one by one, now 3 red eyes are dead too, so I have 3 red eyed tetras and one pleco left. I've being doing water changes to try and reduce the ammonia levels but it just won't go down, there is no nitrite being converted, just high levels of ammonia, and now I don't know what to do. The water I put back in during a water change has no ammonia in it, I checked that too. The testing kit I'm using is the nutrafin test kit and it's still in date. The filter is the one the tank came with, the Juwel Bioflow.

If you need more info let me know, I'll check this every day, thanks!

Hi where are you based? doing water changes (unless its 50-75% will not dilute out Am) you need live bacteria, very good product called Safestart by Tetra, will start good bacteria growing. You also need to stop feeding, they will be fine for a wk or so with no food... have you changed any of the sponges? the black sponge is carbon and should be changed every 4-6 wks.

How do you go about cleaning the tank? As serratus said the carbon should be changed every 4-6 weeks but the bio media (usually green sponge) shouldnt be replaced unless its falling apart... Also if it needs to be cleaned use tank water... tap water kills the bacteria.

If you have a common pleco your gonna have hard time keeping the ammonia down as it grows.. they are poop machines, do you know what type you got?. Siamese algae eaters are much better for controlling algae.

Keep up the daily water changes and try get the bacteria growing... If you know somebody with a tank you can put some of there filter gunk(bacteria) into your filter or use the product serratus suggested...

Sorry to hear of your bad luck, always a royal pain this sort of thing.

Good advice above, what you can also do in an ammonia emergency is get ammo lock, from API and use small amounts to remove most ammonia from the tank.

The pleco and his waste is what really pushes the levels up

If I had ot use it, never have luckily, I would take out a bucket of water from the tank treat it with the correct dosage of ammo lock and pour it back in, if you do this gradualy you can get on top of the ammonia but still leave some for the bacteria to consume while slowly lowering the ammonia level without stressing the fish too.

Otherwise, vac all the pleco waste up every day when changing water will help, I have had to do that in a new 54L, fresh pleco waste creates plenty of ammonia and if it has been munching on an algae problem than he is creating a lot of waste even if only a 2" pleco. Reduce feeding also to a minimum for the duration of the ammonia problem.

Expect a nitrite spike after the ammonia levels start to fall, a real plant in there or some kind will help you with Nitrates, which are feeding your elgae problem and the cause of the whole problem as this is why the pleco was added, some floating plant maybe as the pleco will eat the algae but the nitrates will still be high, this can kill new fish added from lower nitrate conditions or severely shorten their life span.

Good luck, I am in Finglas if you want some established media to speed things up.


Mark

I would read up on the nitrogen cycle first before doing anything else. Its clear your tank has not cycled, this explains the high levels of ammonia in the system. Now that the tank is loaded with ammonia, the cycle should begin but as Serratus mentioned you should add some of the comercial bacteria to get it going. Oh, and if I were you I would have a word with that guy in your LFS...

Jay

Thanks for all your posts, I think I've gotten through two bottles of Ammo Lock already and everytime I did a water change I put Tetra Safestart in it and Aquasafe, do you think it's better if I put the tetra safestart directly onto the sponges??
I change the first white filter pad once a week and the carbon I've changed once and needs changing again so going out 2moro to pick up another one, unfortunately the green and blue sponge I replaced with fresh new ones (I know I know, big mistake!) so must have lost any good bacteria I had right there, when I'm cleaning it I have a gravel cleaner to clean the gravel bed and the glass I just use some filter pad and wash with the water I remove so I think I have that bit sorted out anyway....

Viperbot wrote:

I would read up on the nitrogen cycle first before doing anything else. Its clear your tank has not cycled, this explains the high levels of ammonia in the system. Now that the tank is loaded with ammonia, the cycle should begin but as Serratus mentioned you should add some of the comercial bacteria to get it going. Oh, and if I were you I would have a word with that guy in your LFS...

Jay

Yeah I read up on the cycle before I even bought the tank (ammonia to nitrite to nitrate and so on)but I'll read up on it again, and I think the guy in the shop needs to read up on it too and everything else, it's only afterwards I thought how could he advise me so badly and cause so many fish deaths...