My fish were acting normal, showing off their colors, and even spawning when I went to do a weekly water change in my new tank. Afterwards, I checked my ammonia, ph (8.2), nitrates, etc and ammonia was at 2ppm after the change. I changed about a third of the water in my 40 gallon before I checked so it was even higher before that. At first, I thought it was the Prime I used but after testing tap water with prime it showed only a brownish tint so it wasn't that. I added more Prime to detoxify the ammonia and more stability. A day later the ammonia was at 2ppm and I changed the water again to get it back down to .75 ppm. I had changed the pads a few days before because it was gross after just a week. I have 19 fish that were all added at once a week before (Not my idea) and I used Seachem Stability to mini cycle it quickly. Do you think I disrupted the tank too soon after adding fish? Too many fish? They used to get fed two times a day or more with tons of treats for the first week but I talked to the family that was spoiling them and now they get fed flakes once a day and a treat twice a week. Do you think this could be the side effects of the period of overfeeding? There is a lot of poop sitting in the sand from it and I am getting a gravel vacuum asap to clean that up. Is there anything more I can do to stabilize my tank?
