Ammonia mega high and still white water!

[deano1978]

Guys i am having a nightmare, i had to do a 50% water change as my ammonia spiked to stupidly high levels. I just don't know what do do the water is still a milky white after nearly 6 days i thought it was a bacterial bloom but can it be if the ammonia is so high???? Help i just feel like giving up, white milky water and mega levels of ammonia HELP PLEASE !!!

[Rue]

...other than frequent, large water changes until your biological filter kicks in...I have no ideas...

...do as much as you have to do...50% a day - or even 75%...

...otherwise your fish will die...

[Willyleigh]

Hi there, how long has the tank been set up?

What fish have you got in there?

What are the levels of ammonia/ nitrite?

What is your care routine for the tank?

[RobbieG]

...other than frequent, large water changes until your biological filter kicks in...I have no ideas...

...do as much as you have to do...50% a day - or even 75%...

...otherwise your fish will die...

Absolutely - change as much water as you can as often as you can til you get the ammonia under control. You can worry about the milky color afterwards if it continues (getting the ammonia stable/tank cycled will probably go a long way towards clearing this up)

What are your water parameters PH / Nitrate / Nitrate etc?

[deano1978]

i have 8 zebra danios, the tank has been running 3 weeks now i have been doing 20% water changes daily because of the ammonia. the ammonia is now above 8.0.ppm which is stupid, the water is still milky white. i have been adding ammovec and nitrovec daily which apparently is the best thing we can get in the uk for cycling tanks and reducing ammonia. do you have any idea which zeolites i can purchase in the uk cause i have no idea. we sell what they call ammo chips is that the same thing???

[deano1978]

ammonia 8.0ppm

nitrites 0.50ppm

nitrates 20ppm

PH 7.5

[kufan]

ammonia 8.0ppm

nitrites 0.50ppm

nitrates 20ppm

PH 7.5
I could be wrong, but it looks like you are starting to peak on your cycle. If that is the case, your ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites should start dropping soon. Make sure that you are testing your water daily. If it starts to drop off, then your tank is almost complete with it cycle.

As far as the color, I wouldn't worry about it until you get your tank completely cycled.

KU

[deano1978]

i hope your right i just don't wanna mess it all up. what should the readings be then for nitrates and nitrites in a cycled tank?

[cocoa_pleco]

at 8ppm maybe use ammo-lock?

[hungryhound]

i hope your right i just don't wanna mess it all up. what should the readings be then for nitrates and nitrites in a cycled tank?

In a cycled tank you should have readings similar to this

ammonia = 0ppm
nitrites = 0ppm
nitrates = 20 to 60 ppm

actual nitrate concentration is not important, just the fact that all ammonia is being turned into nitrates is.

[deano1978]

if i use ammo-lock will that not mess up the cycle??? what about ammo chips do they work the same way as zeolites?

[cocoa_pleco]

ammo-lock just makes the ammonia harmless to fish. Just keep doing water changes for 2 days, and if its still above 8ppm, use ammo-lock. JUNGLE sells those ammonia-rid fizzy tabs that work too

[RobbieG]

Most test kits will test positive for ammonia that has been neutralized by chemicals. I would continue to use it at the recommended dose and stick with the water changes. Your tank should complete its cycle soon(ish).

After that your water changes will get rid of the rest of the locked (by the ammovec) ammonia.

The milky white water is almost definitely a bacterial bloom - it should fade on its own after your cycly completes. (The bloom is usually a good sign!)

[deano1978]

does the ammovec work the same as ammo-lock then? i wasn't told that at the aquatic centre have a messed up the cycle then?

this is what it says about ammovec

Special blend from purification bacteria. The bacteria develop a natural micro life and a functioning nitrogen cycle within a short time. sera ammovec prevents the enrichment of ammonium and nitrite and safely reduces the concentration of already existing pollutants. As soon as the sera ammonium-test and the sera nitrite-test reveal that the biological system is working, the first living beings may be introduced. sera ammovec should be used once per week and after every filter cleaning or treatment with remedies.Ideal for maturing freshwater or marine aquariums espeacially when used with Sera nitrivec.

[Lady Hobbs]

Stop feeding for 2 or 3 days and only give small pinches. The more you feed, the more food is rotting in the tank causing higher ammonia. Set your temp to 80 and try to aerate the tank if you have a power head or bubbler.

[Mark Lathrop]

Your levels looked like mine did a month or two ago. I did a 50% water change every other day and the tank cycled in a week. Limit feeding as Lady Hobbs said (and also recommended to me).

Do you have a syphon vaccuum? If not, get one. Get that food wasting away in those rocks!

Is your tank near a window? Mine is close to one that gets no direct sunlight, but UV rays still make there way to the tank creating algae blooms that make the water a tad milky after 4-5 days of doing a water change. I like it though as the algae growth makes my otocinclus fat from eating all of it! :) I use water clarifier from Top Fin that seems to clear the water up real nice every once in a while.

[Lady Hobbs]

Mark, I added the background paper to the one side of my tank that picked up the light from outside. Worked great.

Deano, what you are doing right now is the worse part of keeping fish!! Trying to cycle a tank for the very first time using fish is a pain for us and them. No other fish you could buy would still be alive in ammonia levels that high and I'm surprised these danio's have made it. Those levels have got to be burning them.

I think I asked you before if you would check for ammonia with water right from your tap and make sure that doesn't contain ammonia. Did you do this?

With your ammonia reaching such high levels, you will see it start to drop soon. It can happen in just a day but then you will have very high nitrites and have to go thru the same thing waiting for that bacteria to produce to eat away the nitrites. You will still have to do water changes to keep that from getting too high, as well. Then the nitrites will suddenly drop, as well, in several days and you will finally have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and high nitrates. Do a large water change to drop the nitrates and you are done with your cycle. FINALLY!
thumbs2:

You can then add a couple fish but not too many at one time. Just 2 or 3 and in a week, two or three more. You can't add a whole bunch at once because the bacteria you have will not take a large load all at once.

About the product you were talking about above, that is just an aid in the cycling process. There are lots of those out there and many don't work. Some do. I have used Stress Zyme myself but I can't honestly say if it did anything or not.

I haven't read this whole thread but I can guess that you have a small tank. That's the reason your ammonia levels have gotten so high. Small tanks make for higher levels due to the water volume. The larger the tank, the easier it is on the fish.

Now that you've gone thru all this, you realize how much easier it is to do a fishless cycle, I bet? Instead of waiting for days for the fish to produce ammonia, you are adding a high amount right from the first day and your cycling gets started much sooner and is over much sooner with no water changes.

Just do nothing to this tank....... no cleaning, no changing out the filter.......nothing......or you will set that cycle back. Make very sure you are using dechlorinated water, as well, as water with chlorine will kill the bacteria keeping it cycling. Treat the water before putting it in the tank.

And when this tank is finally cycled, you need to be very careful cleaning for several weeks, as well. Tanks can lose their cycle very easily when they are new.

Good luck and hang in there. You are on your way.

[deano1978]

lady hobbs & anyone else who can help,

i have done a 10% water change this morning and have done another water test the results are

Tank Size 35 gallons

8.0 ppm ammonia

7.5 ph

0.1 ppm nitrite

20 ppm nitrate

the ammonia is worrying me more than anything should i do a 50% water change. the milky water has cleared though. Is there anything else i can do about this ammonia should i even be doing the water changes? sorry for being a pest guys.

[NeonJulie]

You're getting great advice, and the bottomline is to reduce the number of ammonia, by water changes. That's the best thing to try, you need to be changing a lot more water.

When I did my fishless cycle, I had cloudiness for probably 10 days. It was unbelievable. It can be caused from a bacteria bloom (which is good, although it means there's so much bacteria it doesn't have enough places to colonize so it hangs out in the water), but the ammount of ammonia you're talking about could actually be lethal not just to the fish, but to the bacteria itself.

When we fishless cycle, if we add too much ammonia and we end up above 6 ppm, we do a big water change. Numbers in the 8s and so on can begin to kill off your bacteria and retard your cycle. I don't know how those other products work in terms of protecting the bacteria from such high ammounts of ammonia, but I would definitely not risk it. By the time you go to the store, pick out a box, read the instructions and begin dosing, you could probably have a water change whipped off?


EDIT: 10% water change in a situation this high is not going to be enough.

If you do a 50% water change, you might be able to drop it to 4-6ppm. That's still very high!

If you do another 50% water change, you may be able to drop it 2-3 ppm.

If you do another 50%, you might be able to get it to 1-1.5 ppm.

Then you'd have to do another 50% water change to get it to .75-1ppm and then ANOTHER 50% to get it to .35-.5 .

...and where you really want to be is .25 ppm for the sake and health of the fish. (Although products like Prime are typically accepted to assist the fish in dealing with ammonia.)

The point is, you need to UP the amount of water changes, and UP the percent. In a 35 gallon, a 10% change is 3.5 gallons. But I imagine that after the water change and you tested... you probably hardly saw any difference in the number of ammonia.

[Lady Hobbs]

I agree. Change out 50%. And make sure ammonia is not in your tap water.

[deano1978]

guys is that going to mess up the cycle? i don't wanna muck it up any more than it is already.

[deano1978]

hi just been to the aquatic centre and they have told me to leave the tank and not to do any water changes as the tank will not finish its cycle. i do not know what to do now as i don't want the fish stressed if i do these 50% changes should i do them daily or not? please help everyone is saying something different.

[NeonJulie]

It's a pretty well known and established fact that water changes don't hurt the cycle. If you don't dechlorinate the water, if it's too hot, maybe.

Otherwise, wouldn't everyone who does weekly water changes forever be killing the cycle?

The bacteria doesn't live in the water column - your cloudy water is a perfect example. It lives on everything else inside the tank.




I have not seen an expert on any forum who says not to do water changes at lethal amounts of ammonia. What is the reason they are recommending you not do it? What are the facts backing up the statement?

I guess those people have never smelled an open bottle of ammonia before. I can't imagine what it must be like to sit, breath, drink in high concentrations of it, without even fresh air to mix in there - when you can't get away either.

In the end, it's your call. It's like going in the bathroom, closing the door, using the facilities for a week without flushing and sitting in it. Ew.

[jttt3]

Make sure your water conditioner nails chloramines as well, as my tap water goes to 0 ammonia after I add the conditioner that treats chloramines (chlorine+ammonia) that most water treatment plants are putting into the tap water these days. Your ammonia test kit will see the chloramines as ammonia.

[RobbieG]

You HAVE to keep up the water changes or the fish will die.
Can you get a product called Amquel? It will neutralize the ammonia without disturbing the cycle.

The advice about not feeding the fish for a few days and vacuuming the tank is good advice.

The bacterial bloom shows that there is plenty of bacteria in the tank - any bacteria that gets sucked out when you change the water or vacuum is basically extra. The bacteria in the water shows that there is more than the tank can "handle" right now

Were the Sera products kept refrigerated at the shop? They may be no good if they weren't.

[Mark Lathrop]

hi just been to the aquatic centre and they have told me to leave the tank and not to do any water changes as the tank will not finish its cycle. i do not know what to do now as i don't want the fish stressed if i do these 50% changes should i do them daily or not? please help everyone is saying something different.

It probably will finish its cycle without the water changes...but all of your fish will be dead by the end of it. From experience from only a month ago, 50% water changes until the levels were less toxic helped keep my fish alive, and even seemed to move my cycle along immensely.

Get a syphon vaccuum so you can clean your rocks and syphon 50% of the water from your tank into a bucket. I syphon with my fish in the tank because it's just as much stress on them to net them, place them in a tiny container in filthy water, then re-net them and put them into water that is 50% new. My fish are actually pretty used to the syphon now, and my platy follows it around looking for food the syphon doesn't pick up and shoots into the water so he can eat it.

I wouldn't even worry about ammonia killing chemicals and such personally.