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

[thebiggerthebetter]

Ok yeah ill buy some prime today and start medicating them and only feed a tiny bit. I just have one peacock bass that eats everything and he gets a round belly fast and doesn't let anyone else eat lol

use a divider out of light diffuser grid or some such to separate the bossy one out

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[Jim bean 20055]

use a divider out of light diffuser grid or some such to separate the bossy one out

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Ok I will

 

[The Masked Shadow]

Just wanna get notifications from this thread

 

[Jim bean 20055]

So just dont do anything unless amoia levels get too high

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Ok yeah ill buy some prime today and start medicating them

You are medicating, or rather treating water, not fish.

wait so dont treat with prime unless it hits 4 ppm on the API test?

No. Chloramine discussion was more toward using tap water as a reference in your ammonia testing. You can more safely use bottled water for this. Your tap water is disinfected by the city by either chlorine, chloramine, or ozone. It'd be good for you to know which one and in what concentration, so you use your water conditioner, which gets rid of these, wisely and correctly, and money-efficiently too.

should i get fluval ammonia removal pads?

No. Please, for now follow exactly what Rocksor and I have said.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

So just dont do anything unless amoia levels get too high

Just as Rocksor said - use either his charts or my calculator to make sure your FREE AMMONIA (not total ammonia measured by the API liquid test) is under 0.05 ppm, better yet under 0.02 ppm!

Plus meausre nitrite. It is detoxed differently from ammonia, as I said e.g. with table salt.

 

[Jim bean 20055]

ok i will

I wont do anything unless it gets to 4ppm and then i will add prime

I use tetra plus when i do water changes

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

I wont do anything unless it gets to 4ppm and then i will add prime

No. You either add Prime or Ammolock... OR do a water change...

... when the procedure I showed you on the website - you remember? plug in your test result in ppm, then pH, then temp - get FREE ammonia number. If it is over 0.05 ppm or even over 0.02 ppm, then you do WC or agent addition.

If you wanna find out what API test result corresponds to 0.02 ppm or 0.05 ppm of free ammonia, then use the charts (or calculator again).

Your head is spinning. API measures TOTAL ammonia, which consists of two parts - harmful free ammonia and benign ammonium or ionized ammonia. The former, that is the free ammonia at your pH and temp is a tiny fraction of the total. Only 0.013 ppm out of 2 ppm as we have just calculated with you.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Go back please and reread and rework what we had just done, so it sinks in. As is, you seem to be missing it.

 

[Jim bean 20055]

Oh ok i get it now if it is 0.05 (free harmful ammonia) ppm then do wc or agent addition. And for now check water every day 2 times a day and use calculator to find how much free harmful ammonia. I think i get it now