Ammonia

[Adrienne]

Tested my tank tonight for the first time in about 3 weeks,

pH 6.0, nitrates nil,, nitrites nil ammonia .25 -.5.

Shock, horror!! Have done a 30% water change tonight, also did one on Monday night, tested again, still at .25.

Do I continue on changing it nightly until it goes back to nil. At this stage a 30% change requires me to bucket 150 litres of warm water through the house. Or do I do a bigger change tomorrow, if so will the pH rise as the water comes out the tap at around 7.6.

[Naz_Nomad]

Hi Adodge,

While you're dragging that bucket through the house, you could do a 50% change. However, this will raise your pH more than a 30% will, but will lower the ammonia more. You could try dosing with TLC or similar to give a bacterial boost for your filters too. The trick is to find out why the ammonia has risen - I assume you're still very fastiduous with vacuuming so a dead thing in there wouldn't be a possibility? No plant life trapped in your filter and rotting?. I presume this is in your huge tank with Discus? Won't they be more sensitive to the ammonia than the pH if the shift is minimal?

Good luck with it, let us know how you get on.

[Freakyfish]

At a PH of 6 the ammonia reading is acceptable

Ammonia because more toxic as the PH gets higher

AT that PH I wouldnt even be concerned

How old are your test Kits

I have found they get less accuarte as they get older

Brad

[Stella]

Have you added anything new to the tank recently? More fish = more waste, so the whole ammonia cycle thing needs to readjust the population. Feeding more, or the fish being off their food briefly will also do it.

[Adrienne]

It is my big discus tank - 450 litres with a 80-100 litre sump and also a cf1200 external cannister filter on it. Nothing dead or missing presumed dead, everything seems okay including my one blue ram in there. I did change the filter wool on the sump on Monday night but that was all. The week before I had to change the motor on my external filter because the other one wasn't running properly - sort of on and off so I discovered.

Perhaps I should rinse out the media in that filter and see if that helps?

I'll test again tomorrow night and if necessary change 30-50% (hubby will be home from work so he can carry some buckets - it was his idea to have discus in the first place, not mine!!!).

Test kits about 2 months old.

What sort of things will the fish do if the ammonia is too high for their liking?

[Adrienne]

Could flourish excel affect the ammonia levels in the tank? I have been dosing daily for about 2 weeks.

The only other new things in the tank are black beard algae and an abundance of snails.

[Stella]

Changing the filter wool means removing a big chunk of the nitrifying bacteria. Those bacteria were eating ammonia, so now that ammonia is not being converted hence your readings.

Probably a similar issue with the pump that wasnt working, it killed off a bunch of bacteria. Dead bacteria decompose (eaten by other bacteria), which create more waste products for the good bacteria to eat.

I suspect your problem is solved

I know it is necessary to change the filterwool at times. It does mean a reshuffle of the different bacterial populations each time.

Your test kits will be fine years after the expiry date (I think a FNZAS club did a wee experiemnt, everyone got their test kits together and tested one sample, the new and ancient ones read exactly the same

I don't know anyhting about Flourish Excell sorry.

I suggest just keep up with your waterchanges, monitor the changes and let nature take it's course. Equilibrium will return

[David R]

Changing the filter wool means removing a big chunk of the nitrifying bacteria. Those bacteria were eating ammonia, so now that ammonia is not being converted hence your readings.

If you have problems with amonia levels after changing the filter wool then you must not have enough bio filtration. Yes there wil be bacteria on the filter wool, but there should be enough on the bio media that throwing away the filter wool doesn't matter. I rinse mine under the tap every time I do a water change (every 4-5 days ATM) and throw it away after a week or two.

[Discusguru]

Hi Addriene,

I agree with Freakyfish , I wouldn't lose any sleep over such a small reading of ammonia especially in acidic water. Bacterial multiply slower in acidic water too. Place a small bag of crushed shells or coral to bring the PH up a tad to help bacterial growth.

Adding TLC would help to kick start it too.

ron

[VinsonMassif]

In an acid pH most of the ammonia molecules are turned into ammonium which is less toxic to fish.

at pH of 6.0, 0.15-0.25 percent ammonia/

1 leaving 99.75% of the ratio ammonium. Which I take as negligible.

If in fact your removing of the floss did remove a significant amount of bacteria (unlikely to be significant IMO) then change your floss more regularly thus forcing the bacteria to colonize your media instead. This leaves the floss to be solely mechanical filtration as you intended.

Flourish Excel is reported on many forums as not affecting the nitrogen cycle or pH.

If your fish are not showing any signs of stress then it appears that the negligible amount of ammonia is not affecting them. As others suggested I would keep up regular water changes. Fresh fish love fresh water. Daily water changes will not do any harm.

On a side note over cleaning sometimes initiates a mini-cycle. When too much nitrifying bacteria is destroyed or removed all at once. This can happen if you change the floss, rinse the media and over GV the stones all at once. But it soon returns to normal.

[doch]

i do the same as dave and rinse the fiter wool under tap water to clean it and back in again but change after every 2 weeks

[Adrienne]

so in everyones opinion should I do another water change tonight or not.

the reading appears to be slightly under .25 tonight. just wondering if I should leave it alone at that and let things kick in again.

[Naz_Nomad]

I say do another water change, thats always a good thing to do.

I also reckon a dose of TLC wouldn't go amiss if you've cleaned your filter media, but thats just me.

[Adrienne]

I'll have to look up the stickys in the beginner section to see what TLC is and I'll get some tomorrow.

[Adrienne]

Its not there, whats TLC?

[Discusguru]

it's a bacterial culture to kick start the filter. Something like stress zymes and cycles.

[Freakyfish]

Why do a water change when you have already done so many

Its not going to achieve anything but stress your fish some more

Also washing your filter media under the tap is nearly as bad as replacing it

If your sump is set up correctly then removing the floss shouldnt affect its capabilities at all

Brad