Hi, I have just moved all my fish from a 75 litre tank to a 200 litre tank, I moved all my ceramic noodles from the old tank and as much water as I could. The tank has new gravel, rocks etc.

2 days ago the ammonia was reading .01 ppm and last night it was reading 5.0 ppm!!! I did a 40% water change and got it down to 2.0ppm.

My question is, should I be doing a big water change... say 80% or should I do smaller ones daily?

I also have some of those pads in the filter (sorry no idea what they are called) that are meant to remove ammonia from the water, I put them in before it spiked though so I can't see that they are doing much.

Thanks

Hi bedazzled. Most fish will handle a large waterchange better than they will handle ammonia. I would do a 50% change daily until it's over. Remember that after the ammonia has finished spiking you will get a nitrite spike also.

Hi bedazzled. Most fish will handle a large waterchange better than they will handle ammonia. I would do a 50% change daily until it's over. Remember that after the ammonia has finished spiking you will get a nitrite spike also.

Thanks mark

I was hoping this wouldn't happen but I guess it was inevitable, Happens every time I change tanks lol

Do you rate ammolock as any good?

Don't think there is any where open I can get any from today any way

I've never used Ammolok so I can't say how effective it is but I think it converts the ammonia to something else which doesn't harm the fish (ammonium?) but will still show on a test kit as ammonia.

Cool, thanks Mark

Better bugger off and get me hose out lol

Better bugger off and get me hose out lol

Me too....Sunday is tank maintenance day in my house

Well that water change dropped it a little bit, a few days of 50% changes daily should see it right, then I need to go and get a test kit for nitrite

Thanks again for your help Mark

Happy to help. I know I've recieved plenty myself from this forum 8)

The only water test ive got is ph

The only water test ive got is ph

I started with just a PH test kit but saw an ammonia kit on special and grabbed a bargain, but I figure now I have a bigger tank and intend to have more expensive fish in there it is worth spending the extra money to make sure things are just right for them

Howdy!

I'm a little bit new to the fish keeping world (First Post, woohoo!). I've done a bit of reading and understand the importance of cycling and how the cycle works. I've started out with just a small tank and 2 small goldfish, to see if i'm any good at it.

My problem is ammonia related, hence not starting a new thread. My problem is this: After 5-6 weeks, I thought it was a good idea to do as many others do and regularly test the water with test kits. My pH came out fine, however ammonia is sitting between 0.5-1.0 (across a week, readings haven't changed) even doing frequent 20-30% water changes. Nitrites are 0 and so are Nitrates. I've not changed the filter media and can't seem to figure out what is causing the nitrifying bacteria to not grow and gobble up the ammonia! Wondering if anyone might be able to throw a little light on this for me? Thanks in advance and I look forward to being able to return the favour as I get more experienced

Hmmm... now that's a puzzle.

It's very encouraging to see you've been reading up on the subject and understand what's going on though - congratulations on an excellent start!

Could you first please give us some more information to go on:

- What size is your tank?

- What kind of filter are you using (and what media is in it)?

- What kind of fish do you have (and how many, and how long have they been in there)?

- If using tap water for your water changes, are you using a chlorine remover?

Those are all the relevant questions I can think of that might shed a little light on the matter. Hopefully your answers to one or more of them might give us a clue about what is going on with your tank.

Oh, I almost forgot... WELCOME!

:bounce:

Hi SolitudeX. Welcome to the forums.

I don't know why your bacteria hasn't set up house yet and I'm inclined to advise you to be patient...it's something that I've learned is important in fishkeeping :lol: but I was wondering if you've used any of the products you can buy that kick start the bacteria population? I don't use it but it may help you to get things going sooner.

HTH

Haven't read all your replies but sounds like you've killed most of the bacteria in the filter. Stuff happens.

Reduce feeding or do not feed at all.

It's not the ammonia you want to be scared of, its the nitrite peak that WILL follow and likely be more severe. Ammonia hurts fish but if they're in trouble you can see it and do something about it, nitrite just seems to kill overnight. For ammonia I just do water changes as often as needed as long as the fish look ok. Its the nitrite that gets my pants in a twist.

There are varying opinnions. Some say leave it, let the bacteria go nuts, this gets you long term results in a short time period but I found I ended up with lots of dead fish despite water changes. So its my personal preference to get some Nitrizorb (not Nitrazorb) or similar product that will pull the nitrite out of the water. What I do is leave it in until nitrite is 0, then remove, and put in whenever nitrite is detectable on my kit (checked it once or twice a day). This means there is always enough nitrite to encourage bacterial growth without creating excess that'll kill the fish and eventually the bag will never need to go in to the water anymore.

Opinnions vary, but after my last really big move I completely follow my last paragraph now if nitrite shows its ugly head.

Hey there,

Wow - thanks for all the replies and advice! Lets see:

- What size is your tank?

I started out small (I know, beginner mistake!) My tank is about 30L but got given it by a friend, with filter.

- What kind of filter are you using (and what media is in it)?

Its a hang on the back style filter that has 300L/H rating and uses carbon and some kind of wooly material to act as physical filtration and has whats named a "bio cartridge" as explained by my friend. I can't see any brand or model as is, might be underneath where I can't get at!

- What kind of fish do you have (and how many, and how long have they been in there)?

Well I did start off with 2 fantail goldfish, but a friend is going away for 6 months and so he gave me his blackmoor. Keeping the "suggested" 1" fish per "gallon" I didn't feel I was overstocking. But I could be wrong, we can't believe everything we read after all.

- If using tap water for your water changes, are you using a chlorine remover?

In short, yes - I got API StressCoat and StressZyme (I understand also helps the biological filter start - this probably answers MarkLB in a sense)

At first I thought I might be over feeding - so I cut back until I felt fairly happy about it, but that was only in the first week and I would have thought by now some good guys would have moved into the tank! Hope this info helps you guys to help me

Two more questions for you SolitudeX....How big are the fish and when was the Blackmoor added to the tank?

I'd get rid of the carbon from the filter. If its old it may leeching junk back into the tank.

The fish are actually still quite small - i'd say about an inch long if that including tails, the black more is slightly larger, maybe 1 1/2" and he was added roughly 4 weeks ago.

I don't keep the fish you have but I think you may need a bigger tank.....from what I understand those three fish will soon outgrow a 30 litre tank and they're heavy waste producers so I think they may be polluting the water faster than the bacteria can process it.

I'm also wondering if the filter has enough bio media to sustain a large enough bacteria population??

Goldfish need big tanks as they are very messy and produce a lot of waste. Your tank will be too small for them. A 3ft tank is minimum for 3 goldfish, preferably 4ft (250L)

Do you rate ammolock as any good?

After using it in my sisters ginormous tank we discovered that

Ammolock is really good for:

* Nothing

* Killing 25cm clown loaches

* Killing Black Ghost Knives

we will never have another bottle in the house. We were getting really high ammonia readings using the test kits and no matter how many water changes we were doing the readings were off the chart. After being sold the ammolock by the LFS, she treated the tank and woke up to dead fish the next morning.

Turns out the readings she was getting were ammonium NOT ammonia but the test kits are unable to differentiate between the two.

After using it in my sisters ginormous tank we discovered that

Ammolock is really good for:

* Nothing

* Killing 25cm clown loaches

* Killing Black Ghost Knives

we will never have another bottle in the house. We were getting really high ammonia readings using the test kits and no matter how many water changes we were doing the readings were off the chart. After being sold the ammolock by the LFS, she treated the tank and woke up to dead fish the next morning.

Turns out the readings she was getting were ammonium NOT ammonia but the test kits are unable to differentiate between the two.

My LFS told me that ammolock converts the ammonia to ammonium and that it will still read as ammonia but it won't be harmful to the fish.

I have used it in the past in conjunction with water changes but I was not sure if the ammolock worked or if it was just the water changes doing the job which is why I asked.

I never lost any fish in the other 2 tanks I used it in.

This time I decided to try sort it out with just the water changes and it has worked well, 1 more change this morning and it should bring it down to zero I have had no losses so I am very happy

Like I said, watch for the nitrite peak that will come after an ammonia peak. Thats what usually kills fish. Goldfish are quite hardy so you might be ok though.

After using it in my sisters ginormous tank we discovered that

Ammolock is really good for:

* Nothing

* Killing 25cm clown loaches

* Killing Black Ghost Knives

...

Oh my goodness! A 25 cm clown loach would be like one of the family! What a dreadful thing to happen!

Oh my goodness! A 25 cm clown loach would be like one of the family! What a dreadful thing to happen!

Certainly was. His "small" 20cm friend was up there in the family stakes as well. Really cool fish and my sister was gutted when she lost them.