New Tank - ammonia issue.

[stlouis4]

New to this forum and in need of help!
We set up a 45 gallon freshwater aquarium about 2 months ago. Probably over stocked too soon and began losing fish. We had a test for everything except proablyu the most important, ammonia. By the time we had lost several fish and went back to the pet store for help, the ammonia levels were high so we started using Ammonlock and reduced feeding..the ammonia continued to climb, we did 20 % water changes every other day for over a week. The same thing ammonia off the charts. In desperation while we still had 6 fish we emptied the entire take, rinsed the gravel, plants....and started over. Two days later the ammonia was on the rise again. At this point we were only feeding once a day, no more than 2 or 3 flakes of food. Now a week later, ammonia is right back to being off the charts. We are down to 3 fish. Nitrates/Nitrite still reading 0 and ph is 7.2. I have had tanks years ago and never encountered these issues. The only thing that I know is different is that our water runs through a water softener. The hardness reading is as soft as it gets. Any help would be greatly appreciated

[nwnittany]

stlouis,

I think you are basically back to starting at ground 0 with a new tank.

I'm also a newbie and appreciate what has happened to you.

I think you are going to need to 'cycle' your tank. If you already know about cycling, then just skip the next few paragraphs. If not, you will need to spend a few minutes reading a few articles about it.

Basically, cycling is preparing your tank to handle the biological load of keeping fish (ie, taking care of uneaten fish food, fish poop, and other waste). To do this, your tank needs a good amount of bacteria. These bacteria take a few weeks to grow, but once you've established the bacteria, it will basically regulate itself as long as you perform the usually weekly maintenance.

There's a great forum on this site to discuss cycling and there are a couple of very good stickies (in red) that you should read. Look here (http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/aquariumforum/forumdisplay.php?f=111) (..how to deal with ammonia.... cycling...)

Not to discourage you, but I think you should prepare yourself for maybe a month or two of having no or just a few fish (depending on if you do a fishless or fishy cycle). During the cycle, you'll need to test your water daily, and if you use fish to cycle, you will need to do a lot of water partial changes. Once cycled, you should be able to slowly add fish (don't add too many too quickly, or you won't have enough of the good bacteria to keep up with all the new waste).

There are some great and very seasoned people on this board who can help out. They normally need a few pieces of information from you. Things like:

- size of aquarium (got this part)
- water parameters (ie, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, temperature)
- type of equipment (filter, filter media heater, airstone, etc)

I'd recommend getting a liquid test kit, but if you can't strips will do. In any case, you will need something to test your water quality since this is how you measure the progress of your cycle and tell you when you can add more fish.

Hang in there. A lot of us have been in your shoes

[nwnittany]

...hit send a bit too soon.

Ammo-Lock will help reduce the toxicity of the ammonia and still leave it available for the bacteria to consume and propagate your cycle (a good thing). But, it will still show up in your water tests as ammonia. In other words, it will still look like you have a lot of ammonia in the tank even though it isn't toxic ammonia. So, don't necessarily panic if you still have ammonia readings.

[oldhead]

Sounds like you guys never let the tank cycle. During this process the ammonia level rises and as the natural bacteria colony esatablishes itself it drops to zero(put basically). Adding fish and especially too many too soon wel result in a massive spike which can and usually does lead to the death of all inhabitants. I would read the free e-book here on the site to gain some understanding of this process if I were you. It should help quite a bit. And the thing with dumping the tank and cleaning everything only caused the cycle to begin all over again which is why the ammonia rose again.


**EDIT**- nwnittany already beat me to it! Good luck!

[abaigael04]

I think what happened was you started cycling then when you rinsed everything off (in tap water or tank water??) you rinsed off all the beneficial bacteria and started over again... you will need to cycle the tank. You will need to do water changes probably every day to keep the water safe if this is what is happening. I like Prime - does same thing as ammo - lock I think... These i a TON of information on cycling just search around a bit... GL!

[oldhead]

Oh yeah and I almost forgot. Welcome to the forums! :thumb:

[stlouis4]

Thanks for all of the advice...I think it may have been the possible fals positive from the ammonia loack that had us so desperate, we just could not imagine how it kept rising when certainely the fish load was greatly reduced :c11: and we had reduced feeding to barely nothing.
I just downloaded the book and will read this one, I have read many articles on cycling but obviously missed something. So we are back to the beginning and we shall see if the 3 remaining survivors make it through the cycling.
Also I forgot to mention another thing that went wrong was that one of the fish developed "mouth rot"??? so in an attempt to cure him we treated it with some Jungle product. It recomended to remove the filter meduim for 4 days, that may have sealed the deal. The fish did survive that issue, but has subsequently succumbed to everything else goin on in this tank.

[Lady Hobbs]

Your tank never went thru a cycle. It may have just started but then you broke it down, cleaned everything and started again so now you're back to the beginning. Read about cycling and you'll understand what you need to do now.

[nwnittany]

Also I forgot to mention another thing that went wrong was that one of the fish developed "mouth rot"??? so in an attempt to cure him we treated it with some Jungle product. It recomended to remove the filter meduim for 4 days, that may have sealed the deal.

Maybe one of the experienced members can chime in here. I've read that you should remove any carbon from your filter when medicating the tank (since the carbon will absorb it and potentially release it later). But, I've never read that you should remove the filter media (ie, the biological media).

(didn't intend this to be a 'whither the carbon' thread....just trying to clarify if you should ever remove the biological media).

[terrapin24h]

couple things i see based on your writing:
1--You were starting a cycle then you broke the tank down. Now you have to start it all over. You did NOT use ANY soap to clean anything, right?

2--Your ammo lock product fooled you into thinking your fish were in danger and they weren't. Ammo lock products lock the ammonia in the water up so that it cannot bind to the fish's blood stream. It's still in the water and bacteria can still eat it, but it won't suffocate your fish(good thing). At the same time, your ammonia readings on your liquid or drtip test kit become useless. I'd suggest that you use ammo lock, and do a 10-15% water change daily. After about a week or so, start testing for nitrite, and you should see the building up, though you may see a spike(My nitrite spiked overnight, not cool!)

3--Soft water==bad. your std issue FW fresh is going to want a fairly neutral ph; 7-7.4 but will tolerate ph in the high 6's. If your water is soft, your ph will tend to slide towards the lower end of scale, and you will need to add hardening agents to the water to buffer the ph. Now that you have the tank rebuilt, keep an eye on your ph(it can fall fast once the buffer is shot) Is there any faucet in your home not run through the softener(outside hose bib maybe) that you could use? Otherwise, you're going to get real friendly with baking soda :) About 1/2 tsp per 10 gal will bump up your hardness and raise your ph into the 7 range. Too much and youll shoot towards 8(been there :) ) If your ph gets too low, rumor has it that your cycle will stall. IIRC, some softeners can also remove trace elements from the water that fish need. Soft water is great for laundry, skin, and dishes, but not fishes.

keep checking in with us and you'll have it licked in no time, well about 8 weeks anyway ;)

--chris

[stlouis4]

It sounds like the general concensus is that we were almost there, when in my effort to save the fish I started over.

No I used no soap. They do say on the bottle of ammo lock that it will continue to register, but they don't say that it will go off the charts. It appeared to get much worse. I also bought some Microbe-Lift Nite-Out II. Do you think I should use that or the Ammo lock along with the water changes?

Yes I had thought about bypassing the filter. We asked someone at the fish store and they said the softwater was not an issue, but as you said and I had read about it not buffering properly.


couple things i see based on your writing:
1--You were starting a cycle then you broke the tank down. Now you have to start it all over. You did NOT use ANY soap to clean anything, right?

2--Your ammo lock product fooled you into thinking your fish were in danger and they weren't. Ammo lock products lock the ammonia in the water up so that it cannot bind to the fish's blood stream. It's still in the water and bacteria can still eat it, but it won't suffocate your fish(good thing). At the same time, your ammonia readings on your liquid or drtip test kit become useless. I'd suggest that you use ammo lock, and do a 10-15% water change daily. After about a week or so, start testing for nitrite, and you should see the building up, though you may see a spike(My nitrite spiked overnight, not cool!)

3--Soft water==bad. your std issue FW fresh is going to want a fairly neutral ph; 7-7.4 but will tolerate ph in the high 6's. If your water is soft, your ph will tend to slide towards the lower end of scale, and you will need to add hardening agents to the water to buffer the ph. Now that you have the tank rebuilt, keep an eye on your ph(it can fall fast once the buffer is shot) Is there any faucet in your home not run through the softener(outside hose bib maybe) that you could use? Otherwise, you're going to get real friendly with baking soda :) About 1/2 tsp per 10 gal will bump up your hardness and raise your ph into the 7 range. Too much and youll shoot towards 8(been there :) ) If your ph gets too low, rumor has it that your cycle will stall. IIRC, some softeners can also remove trace elements from the water that fish need. Soft water is great for laundry, skin, and dishes, but not fishes.

keep checking in with us and you'll have it licked in no time, well about 8 weeks anyway ;)

--chris

[cathy_n]

I just wanted to add that ammonia apparently becomes more and more toxic to fish as pH rises. Your pH was reading 7.2, so that may have been a tiny contribution to the overall problem with fish loss.

Good luck starting over! I am cycling a tank with fish in it myself (grumble) and I am watching the ammonia like a woman possessed.

[Luna]

Two days later the ammonia was on the rise again. At this point we were only feeding once a day, no more than 2 or 3 flakes of food. Now a week later, ammonia is right back to being off the charts.

I think one important thing you may be missing with the ammonia levels is the fact that fish keep producing ammonia wastes. The only thing that will keep that low on your test readings are daily water changes. Ammolock, as you now know, will only keep the ammonia from harming the fish, but won't prevent it from being detected by the tests. I, personally, would rather do the water changes. They're not that difficult and I know exactly how much ammonia is "available" to harm my fish.

I'm curious. If you reduced your feeding "down to" a few flakes once per day, what were you feeding before? Most recommendations I have received say that feeding should only be once per day. In fact, you can go as long as five days without feeding your fish. (I know from experience... unintentional experience.) Reducing the feedings as much as you can will really help. Try limiting it to at most every other day.