Long term effects of ammonia poisoning?

[Aqualoon]

An acquaintance (friend of a friend type of thing) had a huge family emergency and was away from their tank for about a month. Had one of their friends take care of their tank (you can see where this is going) while they were away. Well, they came back last night and noticed that nothing was running on the tank...the power strip that has the little flip switch was turned off.

His fish are experiencing signs of serious ammonia poisoning and has already lost a few, said the temp of his tank was 72F when he got home too. He doesn't know how long his equipment has been off for and he can't get a solid answer from the person who was "looking out for" his tank.

We talk shop because we're the only real serious fish keepers in our larger circle of friends and he asked me my advise on it, but I have never experienced this nor as he. He is doing daily water changes, put the temp back up to 82F and has bought some emergency chemicals for ammonia.

My question is, what will be the long term effects to these fish? I know from my limited research that gill damage has happened but depending on how bad it is (I haven't seen the fish, have only heard him describing it) would these fish be better of humanly put down? I must sound like a bad person for even thinking that, but I can't imagine how much these guys have suffered and how much more if it they will be going through before the tank gets recycled.

 

[kzimmerman]

The fact that they are still alive tells me that they will probably be okay. But, some tank paremeters would be helpful, as well as stocking. If it was a food overdose with tack of filtration, a good gravel vacuming and turning of the filters would fix the problem. As an important note, if you are using ammonia neutralizing medications, they do not remove the ammonia. You could add some zeolites to the filter, just remember to take them back out. But, your best bet is water changes. Btw, most tropicals do okay at 72, so no harm from the emp most likely. But, let us know what exactly were dealing with here.

 

[Aqualoon]

I don't have water parameters I'm afraid, I'll ask him for those and exact stock list tonight. He told me that he lost a few loaches and his fire eel and his Sevs looked bad.

All the advise I could give him was WC's to start to get things back on track.

 

[kzimmerman]

Water changes, gravel vac, general cleaning, except the filter pads, unless they dried out, or are impeding waterflow. In the last case, rinse lightly, in the former, replace. The biggest thing is to get any decaying material out of the tank, as that will increase the ammonia. Lastly, if the fish are observed at the surface of the water, gasping for air, lower the temperature some (colder water holds more dissolved 02) and increase aeration if possible.
On the subject of possible long term effects, it depends. If the fish were just subjected to elevated ammonia problems for a day or two, gill damage will be minimalized and you will probably not notice any change. If the exposure went on for longer, the gills were probably damaged more, and could take a while to heal. In short, don't euthenize them. If they survived this long, they will probably be all right if the ammonia bit is sorted out.