Holy ammonia levels batman!!!!! (pic)

[scubasteve06]

I'm surprised everything's still alive but get some of that filter media from your friend and I'd put it inside your filter to seed the other one but you could just let it sit inside the tank too.
Edit: I'd run bio balls in your fx5 along with the mech filtration it has. If you want for selection you can get the bio balls you can fill with chemical filtration aids, but most will say they are unessacary.

 

[jcardona1]

I though bio balls were crap if they are submerged? Even then, pot scrubbies have almost 4x the surface area/cu.ft. when compared to bio balls (96 v. 370).

Now I'm just confused And yeah, the fish are alive and doing extremely well. Like I said, theyre always active and eager to eat

 

[ziggy2]

I wouldn't use bio balls in the canister. You might not have enough scubbies, but I would add some Ehiem media it's great.

 

[octofasciatus]

We got stuff in the UK called Ammo chips, they are made in the US so I guess you can get them (probablly another name) and they neutralise it just fine. Just remember to change 25% water twice a week and it should be tickety boo. I'm not too keen on using some products that claim to remove nitrite / ammonia etc, it's just not natural and it cant be good. You could take half your filter media from a mature tank and bang it in the new filter this will speed up the "natural" biology of things.
Hope it works out

 

[jcardona1]

Yeah I'm running out of ideas. I'm gonna start with the big W/C's and grab some media from my friends wet/dry.

I'll retest my water again tonight and post pics of all the parameters...

 

[BushFishRox]

I think if you are going to go with the pot scrubbies you should have 12+ a tray; if you can find it I would go with the original Hagen Bio Rings; they are courser then the Bio Max leaving more surface area for BB...

 

[the_deeb]

I'm still not convinced it's not some sort of false positive. It's seems really unlikely that your fish should be behaving normally with ammonia levels that high - I would think they'd be suffering from serious ammonia burn.

Fish behaviour can be a pretty good readout for things.

 

[jcardona1]

I'm still not convinced it's not some sort of false positive. It's seems really unlikely that your fish should be behaving normally with ammonia levels that high - I would think they'd be suffering from serious ammonia burn.

Fish behaviour can be a pretty good readout for things.

What do you mean? You think the ammonia reading might be wrong? Well when I got home today from work, I tested ammonia again on this tank and my small 30g. 30g once again read 0 (yellow) and this tank was the same dark green color. And the fish seem like they couldnt be happier, especially the TB, GT, and JD.

I myself thought everything should have been dead with the ammonia reading I got...

 

[jcardona1]

I think if you are going to go with the pot scrubbies you should have 12+ a tray; if you can find it I would go with the original Hagen Bio Rings; they are courser then the Bio Max leaving more surface area for BB...

Damn how did you get 12/tray? I barely managed to stuff 9 in there. What's you layout?

 

[jcardona1]

Ok, I just tested all of my water parameters again and ammonia is still the same. Haven't done a water change yet, will do one tomorrow morning. ph reading was maxed out on the low range so I tested it on the high range and noticed that my ph has gone up. To show my test kit isnt screwy, I tested my tap water, notice how its zero/yellow. Based on this test, I'd say my current parameters are:

ph:8.0 ~ 8.2
ammonia: 6 ~ 7ppm
nitrite: ~0.75ppm
nitrate: < 10.0ppm

tapwater ammonia: 0.0ppm (last pic)

Do these readings look unusual?