ammonia in tank.?

Question

I have a 15 gal tropical tank. I setup the tank with 4 live plants and let the tank sit for 3 weeks with just the filter and light on. After the three weeks I tested the water. All levels were perfect. I then purchased 3 neon's and placed in tank with some stress out and some bacteria. Three days later I tested water, everything was perfect, So every other day I purchased 1 fish-total now 15 fish for 15 Gal. of water. Everything was fine, as far as test levels. It's been 2 weeks since having 15 fish in the tank. I now have high level of ammonia, I have added more bacteria, and kept up with water changes and vacuming the bottom, and still the ammonia has not even dropped a level, I now have put some ammo lock into the tank, HOW to get rid of Ammonia?

Answer 1

First of all, have you cycled your tank? In the wild, and in established tanks, there are nitrifying bacteria that break down toxic ammonia from fish waste and excess food into less toxic nitrates. In a brand new tank, these bacteria don't exist, so any fish in the tank will produce ammonia, which, not being broken down by bacteria, will kill or weaken the fish. So, it is vital to cycle your tank, nad just letting it run for 3 weeks won't cycle it. Without adding a source of bacteria, even after 300 weeks, it would just still be like regular tapwater.

Also, 15 fish for that tank is too many. If you go by the 1 inch per gallon rule (for the time being, we'll pretend that rule is accurate), then even the smallest tetras grow to 1.5 inches. Anyway, as I say, the 1 inch per gallon rule doesn't work. Fish need more swimming room than that; I suggest you research each of your fish to see what space requirements they have.

Adding bacteria usually does not work. Most of the cycling products like Cycle, Biozyme, etc, are just the dead bacteria. Completely useless. You need the LIVE bacteria, and the only product that has this is Bio-Spira. If you can find it, buy it, and use it :)
Ammolock is not a good product to use at this point. It's good for an emergency, but it renders the ammonia unusable by the bacteria, so it doesn't get you any further in your cycling process.

Eventually, enough bacteria will develop to "eat" the ammonia (when this starts to happen you will see a nitrite spike - when that is complete, you will see the presence of nitrates, which are less toxic). This process takes about 2-4 weeks. In the meantime, to help your fish, do small daily water changes, like 15%, to dillute the ammonia. You can also do one large water change, 60%, every week, until the ammonia and nitrites drop to zero - then you can resume regular weekly water changes.
You should also look into returning some of the fish to your local fish store. You have too many anyway.

Answer 2

Yes they say that 1 inch of fish to 1 gallon of water. BUT remember that is 1 INCH of fish not 1 fish. And you also need to take in account that you have rocks (if you have 15 gallons of water then you should have about 6 pounds of rocks) there is close to 3 gallons taken. If you have plants and then the decor then you are taking up even more of you gallons.

Also you put to many fish in WAY to fast. 1-2 fish a week until you are up to where you need to be. Putting all the fish that you did in at one time you throw the whole tank off.

As someone else said in one of the answers you did not have a bacterial growth. So as soon as you put the fish in the tank you had a spike. I use stuff called Biozyme you can find it at walmart or at you Local pet sore. Its a small yellow container and all you need is a small pinch.

Then you are going to have to do a 10-15% water change every day to get some of the ammonia out. Your tank will get milky (believe me I have done what you are going through). I can not stress this enough DO NOT CLEAN THE ROCKS... just pull some of the water out and replace it. The bacteria is going to grow in the rocks and on the plants and you need that right now.

Once you have gottn this under control then you need to clean the rocks with a fish tank syphon that you can get at walmart or you local pet store. And I can not stress this enough... DO NOT DO A 100% TANK CLEANING. You can do it once a year enless you get a full kill on the tank.

I hope this helps.

You can email me at [e-mail] if you still need help.

Answer 3

To start off, your tank is over loaded. People tend to forget about water displacement. i.e. gravel, decorations, plants but also they forget the fish are going to grow.

High ammonia levels in an aquarium are always due to one of five possible causes: 1) The tank is over-stocked or has been stocked too quickly. The rule is one inch of fish per gallon, (taking into consideration displacement) and the tank should be stocked in small increments every two weeks until capacity is reached. 2) Over-feeding. . The trick in not over-feeding is to make sure that nearly all the food goes INSIDE the fish and not to the bottom of the tank where it will rot. Keep in mind that cutting back on the frequency of feeding has absolutely no effect if the AMOUNT of food being fed is too much. Better to feed more often, but feed the proper amount of food in very small quantities. 3) Chloramine in the tap water used for water changes. Using your Ammo Lock in new water used for water changes will alleviate this problem. 4) Water is being changed but the gravel is not being vacuumed. It is very important to vacuum the gravel when removing old water during a water change to remove organic material that can accumulate and produce ammmonia. 5) There may be a decoration in the tank that is made of an organic material that is decaying. Using non-aquatic plants is a common example. Another is trying to keep live plants without proper lighting so they decay, producing ammonia. One of these five factors is your problem. You should also know that Ammo-Lock and other liquid ammonia neutralizers make ammonia less harmful but do not hide ammonia from most test kits. Only a Salicylate ammonia test kit (Kordon makes one) will test actual free ammonia when ammonia neutralizing liquids are being used.

There are also ammonia lock pads which can slid in with your filter. If the "Chemicals" (Which I don't recomend anyway) don't work, try one of these pads. They are found with the fish supplies and they really do work.

Answer 4

The general rule is 1 inch of fish per gallon. 15 fish at one-inches each for a 15 gallon tank is pushing the limit. That probably explains the high ammonia. I have had this problem before and killed some of my fish. I would change half of the water in the tank during vaccuming and then do a 10% water change for a few days. Also, be sure that you change your filter. You can buy filter types that allow you to load in your own carbon (black) and ammonia (gray) filter material. It looks like gravel. Be sure that your filter also takes care of ammonia.

I would go to the pet store and ask the people for advice. There may be a special chemical you can use to help with the ammonia.

Answer 5

letting the tank sit for 3 weeks did not cycle it. there was nothing there for bacteria to feed on, so when you added the fish, suddenly there was ammonia and the bacteria hadn't grown to eat it up and therefore keep your tank nice and healthy. (did that make sense?) when fishless cycling you need to add household pure ammonia to the filter to kick start it.

you need to do daily 20% water changes and keep a very close eye on the ammonia levels, NOW your tank is cycling. you may lose some fish. maybe feed every other day to try and prevent it overloading too much. it may take a week or two to more to level out.

Answer 6

Ammo lock will give you a false high reading of ammonia. It does not get rid of ammonia, it just converts it to a non-toxic form of ammonia. It won't kill your fish unless in really high levels, but it does still show up in a test. What kind of fish do you have in there? Because unless they are all neon tetras, I guarantee your tank is overstocked.

Answer 7

Frequent water changes, that is the only way I can control it. I've bought all types of chemicals, but I just have to change 1/3 of the water everyday for about 4 or 5 days to make a difference. Once you get itset it should stay at a good level for awhile.

Answer 8

One fish for each gallon of water in a tropical tank is not a good way to measure how many fish you can get. You can have one inch of fish per gallon. You just may have too many large fish. Is your filter appropriate for the tank? your filter may be too small. I hope i solved your problem