The ammonia indicator in my aquarium is still showing "warning" even after two partial water changes, why?

Question

It's a 12 gallon aquarium...I changed out four gallons yesterday and three gallons today.

Answer 1

If your tank was starting to cycle itself again, you wouldn't be seeing the ammonia go up, but the nitrites. In a new tank, the nitrites start going up immediately and after about a week or two, the ammonia starts to go up. Chemicals like Cycle can help to speed up this cycle and chemicals that remove chloramines can also help.

With a 12 gallon tank, you should be doing about a 3 gallon water change every other week and changing your filter once a month. Be sure to change the filter on a week that you are not doing a water change.

If I were you, I would start by adding some water conditioner that removes chloramines. Then, check your ammonia indicator. They don't last a long time, so it could be that your indicator isn't working correctly. While it's nice to have the indicator in the tank to keep you informed regularly, it would be a good idea to also have some test strips or drops so that you can check weekly to be sure that your indicator is still giving you the correct reading.

If you have fish in the tank and the ammonia is that high, you will soon be seeing red streaks on your fish from ammonia poisoning.

Emptying your tank and scrubbing everything is a good way to kill all the beneficial bacteria in your tank (which you don't want to do!!!) and completely stress out your fish.

Answer 2

Geez, most of these answers really suck....

First, those suction cup indicators, aren't very accurate. Best bet is to get an ammonia test kit, even the strips are better then those. You'll want to do weekly water changes once the levels get normal, not monthly. What you're doing is fine, it's dilluting the levels in the tank for the fish. Now, are you just starting the tank? If so, then it's cycling. Once the ammonia is 0 ppm, nitrites 0 ppm, and some nitrates, it's cycled. You can pick up some Prime made by Seachem, it'll help detoxify the ammonia, nitrites, nitreates to a safe level without affecting the cycle. It also removes chlorine/chloramine from tap water when you do your water changes. With that size tank, the bottle will last a loooong time. Here's some links for fish forums, do a search for cycling a fish tank. Will give you all the info on what to do. Good luck.

http://www.aquariacentral.com/

http://www.aquariumboard.com/forums/home.php

http://www.fishforums.com/forum/

http://www.about.com/

Answer 3

It takes more than one or two water changes to reduce the ammonia in your aquarium. And really, all water changes are doing is temporarily reducing the ammonia so it will harm your fish less while the underlying problem gets worked out. If your tank is still going through its cycle, you'll have to keep doing 10% water changes (about a gallon) daily whenever the ammonia or nitrite is high until it cycles. If that isn't the issue, maybe you are feeding too much or have added too many fish at once, in which case you need to decrease feeding, or in the case of an increase in fish, do water changes until the nitrifying bacteria catches up to the bioload.
If your water stays at the same ammonia level when you add new water, and doesn't temporarily decrease, there is a chance that your water is treated with chloramines instead of chlorine. Chloramine is a compound of ammonia and chlorine used in some tap water, and regular dechlorinaters won't remove it. You will have to buy a water conditioner specifically made for removing chloramine. An easy way to find out if your tap water has chloramine instead of chlorine is to test your tap water with an ammonia tester. If ammonia is present, it is treated with chloramine.

Answer 4

I have 2 goldfish in a 10 gallon tank also. Instead of doing a 35% water change on time each week, I do it 2 times. I do a 10% water change on Wednesday and wash the filter, and then another 25% water change on Saturday or Sunday and clean the glass.

Answer 5

if you have many fish in that aquarium this could be the problem, and you have to change not all the water because when you clean your aquarium the amonia level will be low then it will rise to reach a very high level, don't panic, simply wait for the bacteria in your aquarium to do its job when the new bacteria is there the ammonia level will be low again.
this may take one week.
if your fish is big and many be careful this is not good. and don't ever clean all your aquarium without doing medical treatment to the water.

Answer 6

You did way to many water changes.... You shoud do a 10%water change a month..... Or you could do 1 gallon a week until amonia levels are down....

You see what happen is by doing 7 gallons of water in less than 2 days you have destroyed some of the benifial bacteria in your tank.... Your tank is now recycling and will go through the whole process again....

Here is what you can do..... Turn of the lights in your tank, Stop feeding and stop using any supplements.... do this for about 5 days..... Do the best you can to look for anything that may have died and decaying in the take..... Do not stir up the gravel/sand or move anything around inside your tank.... Clean your filter out....

I do not know what you have as far as fish and what type of aquirium you have.... DO NOT DO ANYMORE WATER CHANGES for at least a week......

Do me a favor..... Send me an email and let me know what is going on with your tank....... You can hit up my 360 page....

Answer 7

What water are you using? Maybe that water has high concentrations of ammonia. Maybe the indicator is broken, or needs to be cleaned/replaced?

Answer 8

Clean the entire tank with water with no chlorine in it. The gravel also and anything else that might be in it. Is the tank at full capacity or maybe overstocked? You may have to do more frequent water changes.

Answer 9

what kind of fish do you have?