The amonia level in my fishtank is high, how do i regulate it?

Question

Tank has been running for about 6-8 weeks. I had 4 mollies in it, 2 died, One after giving birth. All of my other levels are fine.

Answer 1

What is your actual reading? A tank at 6-8 weeks should be near the end of the cycle and ammonia should be already well cleared out. If you are not reading nitrite, but were before, most likely you're seeing the effects of excess food or plant decay that wasn't there before, and there isn't enough bacteria on hand to oxidize it. Reduce your feedings, and do a partial water change for the time being, small to medium amount, and check again tomorrow.

You can also get help on this and other topics by using the link on my profile, full staff on hand to handle any of you fish needs and questions.

JV

Answer 2

First of all, don't use any chemicals, they do more harm then good
Have you checked your nitrite and nitrate levels as well?
Nitrite and Ammonia levels are suppose to be at "0", and the nitrate levels are suppose be around 1-20ppm, depending on what fish you have
You don't have any nitrate readings until your tank is cycled, because nitrites convert into nitrates

Anyway, if you test these 2 you know if your tank is cycled or not

As for the high ammonia, you should a 50% waterchange right away, and follow up with 25% waterchange every 3 days until your ammonia levels are at "0"
Don't take the fish out, do it with a gravel siphon


After that keep up with weekly tank maintenance, that means partial waterchange of 25% with a gravelsiphon


Hope that helps
Good luck


W

Answer 3

Ammonia = fish pee. And uneaten food. There are chemicals on the market (Amo-Lock, Ammonia Removers) that claim to remove this problem but all they really do is prevent existing ammonia from being able to harm your fish. They don't technically remove it. In fact, the only thing that can really do a good job removing ammonia is YOU. Regular water changes. If your ammonia is high, take out about 50% of the water. Yesterday or sooner. Ammonia is highly toxic. People ask me all the time how often they should change their water, and I say, "If you lived your whole life in one room, and had to pee in there, too, how often would you want someone to clean it for you?" The good news is, you're probably well into the cycling process, so ammonia shouldn't continue to be as big of a problem after the next 4 to 6 weeks.

The molly that died after giving birth was probably extra stressed- it's hard work having all those babies! If you want to keep mollies and have them do well, there are three things you must know:

1.) They need warm water. 80 to 82 degrees.

2.) They need salt in their water. 2 Tblsp. per every five gallons.

3.) They need a higher pH. 7.8 or so.

Answer 4

The best way to regulate ammonia is by doing weekly gravel vacuumings. Chemicals that are sold to reduce ammonia do a terrible job and generally destroy your tank's water quality. Also, live plants will help, but not solve the problem by any means.

Nosoop4u

Answer 5

There is something called the nitrogen process and cycling the water in an aquarium. When you use fish for the cycling process, fish die, especially mollies which can be very sensitive to certain things. It is more humane to cycle your tank without fish, get the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates in check and then add your fish, but as you have fish, you will need to do it the old, traditional way. Your mollie died because she was already stressed with giving birth and having the toxic water added on top of it was more than she can handle. I'm surprised that your tank hasn't cycled after 6-8 weeks, as that is the typical, standard time it takes, but, regardless, you need to read up on the nitrogen cycle and what you need to do to bring your water into healthy parameters. To start with, do a 50% water change and siphon all of the gunk out of your substrate and cut back on your feeding and remove any dead plants if there are any. Then test daily.

Answer 6

Do you have a filter system? Is it enough for your size of tank? Perhaps a trip to the pet store is in order. There are chemicals that you can add to the water to lower the ammonia as well as different filtering options that you can get.

Answer 7

There are multiple ways.

First one is to do a 50% water change every day until it goes away.
Second one is to use chemcals, but those usually ruin the balance of your tank.
Last way is to add live plants. It'll take a while foor them to absorb the ammonia, but they will do it gradually.

~ZTM

Answer 8

gravel vaacumings can cause an ammonia rise because of beneficial bacteria leaving in the mud which convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate.

the best way to control ammonia levels are lots and lots of plants because ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are working as fertilizers.

Answer 9

you clean out the tank with a siphon and change 20% of the water each week. and it dosent sound like you filter it working all that well, i would check that. you can also get some fish safe chemicals at you local pet store that will help ragulate it.

Answer 10

do a 50% water change