Too much ammonia in fish tank?

Question

I have a 30 gallon freshwater aquarium. It has two zebra fish, a silver dollar fish, a sunburst, two neon tetras, a guppy, a frog, a scissors tail and a cory cat in it. I do a partial water change almost every 10 days. I have had it set up for about a month now. I test almost every day for ph, nitrate, and ammonia levels. The ph and nitrate levels are great. The ammonia levels are always high though. I have four ammonia bags in the tank (to help control the ammonia). I feed the fish twice a day fish flakes. There is never any left after 5 minutes of feeding. I also give them a treat once a week of freeze dried brine shrimp cube. Why do you think the ammonia is always high? I have tried ammonia lock to help control the ammonia, but it doesn't seem to be helping. I have two filters in the tank and both hang on the back. What do you think could be causing the ammonia problem? I also add aquaium salt with every partial water change. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Your tank is still probably cycling. This can take about two weeks upto a month. Try doing a 25% water change every week, add some biospira bacteria (you can get thiss from a pets store) and put in a water conditioner called Prime. This really helps. Also, buy a filter with a Bio Wheel, it costs about thirty dollars but it'll take down your ammonia levels to zero.

Answer 2

Ok, first of all, congratulations on actually taking the time to care for your tank. Not many people are willing to spend the time to do water level checks as often as you are.

Depending on how new your tank is, you may still be cycling. Don't worry, this is normal. It takes time to cycle. My first tank took about two months, but that was because I added all of the fish at once. Although the fact that your tank is showing nitrate levels is a bit confusing - has the nitrate level been steady since day one, or have you hit a spike? Do me a favor and test your tap water directly out of the tap. I know mine reads about 10ppm of nitrates right out of the tap, so that may be the nitrates you're seeing yet.

First of all, your ammonia bags that you have in there may be hindering your biological filter's ability to convert the ammonia into nitrite. As crazy as it sounds, even though you're still getting high readings, there may not be enough ammonia in there for the bacteria. I would remove at least three of them. Once you start seeing levels go down, you can remove the last one.

You're not overstocked yet, but that silver dollar is going to get BIG! I got mine two months ago - they were still babies then; they're three inches each now. And they're still growing. They get to be about six inches all the way around. But they're so cute, aren't they?

Ammo-Lock will detoxify the ammonia for your fish, but it still allows it to be a form that the bacteria can "eat" to get rid of it. It WILL still show up on your tester! That was one of the worst things for my first tank. I freaked out thinking my fish were going to die, and they did - before I added the Ammo-Lock. After I added it, no more fish died. That stuff is GREAT! Though, there's always a better product... If it doesn't seem the Ammo-Lock is working, try Amquel or AmquelPlus (just make sure it's not the pond kind).

Try doing a 20-30% water change weekly. That'll help cut down on any extra ammonia and nitrites. Make sure when you do your water changes, you don't clean your decorations or anything else. Vaccuum only about half the gravel each week (like, do the right half one week, and the left half the next).

See if your local pet store stocks BioSpira. This is the only product that has live cultured bacteria in it to create something of an "instant" cycle. Unfortunately, PetCo and PetSmart don't carry it, so you're probably better off looking in your smaller mom and pop shops. It needs to be refrigerated, though. So if you see it on a shelf, it's not good anymore. If you want, you can try some Cycle by Hagen. My fiance swears it works, but I think it was just coincidence that it appeared to work.

Also, you really don't need to add the aquarium salt. In fact, you really shouldn't. Most of the fish in there, excluding the sunburst and the zebras, are scaleless, and they do not tolerate salt well. Frogs especially are not tolerant.

Feel free to join the boards at http://www.flippersandfins.net There are lots of helpful people, even a real honest-to-God doctor.

Good luck!

Answer 3

Of course you have an ammonia problem, you have 10 fish in a tank thats too small for ONE. The pH is crashing because of the waste they produce, adding baking soda is masking that, but they water is actually more toxic now. So stop messing with that. Change the water. Yes you will have to do this every day as your tank is so overstocked. But that will at least keep the fish alive while you organise a new home for them. Long term, maybe 200gallons. Yes they do grow that big, and are very messy fish. Ian

Answer 4

This just sounds like you've added fish to your tank faster than the bacteria that break down ammonia can get established. (Search for "cycling tak" on the web.) Be sure you filter is rated for your tank, and avoid changing filter bags as often. Personally I use a filter bag that can be opened, dump the old carbon, refill and rinse the bag off in my vacuuming bucket that's filled tank water. In the future try not to add more than 1 fish a week early on.

Also it sounds like you are slightly over feeding. You should be feeding them once a day what they can eat in 5 minutes. Or twice a day what they can eat in 2 minutes. Your fish will happy over eat and produce more waste.

Lastly are you vacuuming your gravel weekly with a cheap passive gravel vacuum?

Answer 5

How long have you had this setup? It takes months for a tank to find equillibrium, good bacteria needs to develop that can break down the ammonia, in the first months you will definitely see spikes. You have a lot of fish for that little tank, and you are feeding more than necessary. More food = more poop = more ammonia. If all fish are adults, you can cut down to feeding 5 times a week total. Fish don't find food in the wild every day, and it is very common for them to not eat, even for a week at a time. The food reduction itself should help, and another thing that helps is adding plant life to your tank. Plants go a long way to regulating your tank.

Answer 6

do you use a vacuum when you clean your tank? if you dont vacuum your tank once a week then the waste sinks to the bottom (under the gravel) and that is what makes the ammonia higher than it should be. I had that problem once and I just emptied my tank out (putting the fish in a bowl) and cleaned my gravel with warm water in a 5 gal bucket. since then I make sure that i clean the gravel really well along with a 50-75% water change. keep in mind: the more fish you have the more waste there is & the higher your ammonia levels will be.

Good luck, man!!!

Answer 7

As I'm sure you know, there are additives you can purchase that can treat the water for the ammonia (and most city tap water DOES contain a certain amount of ammonia and ALWAYS needs to be treated for it).
I had a pretty good Aquarium shop in my area where I would get my supplies and I was able to take a sample of water from my aquariums (like in a Zip-Loc bag or jar) to them for testing. Then they would recommend what treatments I needed to give the water.
You might try that.

Answer 8

have a 55gal. 20gal. 30gal. tanks with freshwater fish in them and have very little maintenance's on them, but had the same problem. I asked the man where I bought my fish at the same question.He asked me what kind of things I put in my tank, when I told him seashells he told me to take them out right away and no more then a quarter of a inch of gravel on the bottom of my tanks.That seamed to clear up my problem pretty well.Don't over crowd your tank with to-many fish. Good Luck it helped me a lot.

Answer 9

Are the filters large enough to handle the 30 gallon capacity? And have you cleaned the filters or changed them?