Serious Ammonia spike

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doviiman

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Apr 12, 2007
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Ok so i purchased the API master test kit to start testing ammonia, and my readig seems to be pretty much off the charts as far as high. My Ammonia says reading up to 8 wish is drak green. Fish seem to be fine, but knife seems to be breathing rather hard compared to the other fish. Unfortuantly this is just a holding tank so overcroding is part of the problem but i am trying to cycle water at least twice a week. Is the any harm in doing a 50% water change daily until Ammonia drops? Nitrite at 0 and nitrate around 40 and PH around 7.2..
I have started using ammonia lock to aid the problem
 
Great, thanks, I am on my second day
 
Is there a filter on the tank? How long has it been running? Keep doing large (50-80%) water changes with a good ammonia locking water conditioner until you have zero ammonia. Even if the fish make it through this trial by fire you may find them susceptible to disease down the road.
 
Tanks is a temp holding tank, been running for about 2 months there are three Magnum 350 canister on the 125 gallon tank, no wet dry or sump. Today would be the thrid day of water changes. I was using API ammonia lock, but have switch to Seachem's Prime, but looks like seachem has a better product i could have used called AM lock I think.
Over crowding is probably part of the issue as I have 9 fish between 3 to 10inches in there. I am hopefully that the daily water changes will lower the Ammonia, ans I have not fed the fish for two day now. I will test Sunday to see if it makes a difference
 
Prime is good but it assumes you have the filtration available to process the ammonium. It is the most concentrated liquid conditioner though. You may just want to get some seachem safe (powdered form of prime), 1 kg will treat 200,000 gallons for under $30. Since this is a holding tank you can just add a few tsps of safe per day and then do a large water change on the weekends.
 
Your api test kit reads total ammonia. That is ammonia (NO3) and ammonium (NO4). To have a high reading like you have and the fish appear ok sounds like the kit is registering a positive ammonium result. NO4 is mostly harmless, but what it is saying then that your bio filtration in your current tank is not up to scratch as the NO4 is normally rapidly consumed by bb in your bio media.

The product ammo you have been using works by converting NO3 to NO4. Works the same way as Seachem Prime.

Overstocked holding tank with no bio filtration is going to continually give you issues unless your willing to do frequent water changes.
 
rhodes_96 said:
Your api test kit reads total ammonia. That is ammonia (NO3) and ammonium (NO4). To have a high reading like you have and the fish appear ok sounds like the kit is registering a positive ammonium result. NO4 is mostly harmless, but what it is saying then that your bio filtration in your current tank is not up to scratch as the NO4 is normally rapidly consumed by bb in your bio media.

The product ammo you have been using works by converting NO3 to NO4. Works the same way as Seachem Prime.

Overstocked holding tank with no bio filtration is going to continually give you issues unless your willing to do frequent water changes.
Click to expand...

Yes this I figured , so it looks like I am going to spend a grip on ammonia lock products until my main tank is established.
 
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