I just got a fish aquarium and my ammonia levels are high. What do I do??

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
No Nitrite is good, but we also need to know Nitrate. Very nice looking tank!
Please, don't confuse Jim. We need not to know nitrate at least for a month from now :)
 
Exellent! Your ammonia looks more like 1-2 ppm, not 0.5 ppm, from that photo.

Do you have Prime or AmmoLock? If you don't, it's alright, you might not need them anyway. We will know after we do the next procedure.
 
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You need to bring down ammonia to 0.25ppm or less for a fish in cycle. An ammonia binding water conditioner is needed if you do not use an ammonia test that shows toxic ammonia like Seachem Ammonia alert does. Seachem Ammonia Alert sits inside the tank, and will show toxic ammonia readings. The API ammonia test will only show total ammonia (toxic + non-toxic ammonium).

if you choose to only use the API ammonia test, test ammonia in the morning and later in the day, so you can gauge how fast it is rising.

No at the moment
 
mg/L = ppm. Plug in 2 ppm, to be safe, in the first window.

Then pH. What's your pH?

Then temp in celsius. celcius = 5/9 times (farenheit - 32), for instance 70 F = 21 C
 
Here's a link for the toxic ammonia chart broken down total ammonia vs PH vs temperature . Find the chart with the proper total ammonia reading

Total (NH3+NH4)-Nitrogen Concentration (mg/L) what do i put for this?
 
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