SOS!! Ammonia!!

[batang_mcdo]

Need help!!
when i got home. my silver arowana has white slime all over his body
its commed with 3 superreds.
I tested for ammonia and it was 1 mg/l .
i must have overfed them with mp yesterday.
any advice? how much water should i change?

help please.

currently making 30% water change and using anti chlorine and Aqutan.
ph is lower than 6 i think. tested and its much more yellow than my test kit can detect which is 6.0

Fish load is 2 12 inch asian arowanas ,. 1 20 inch asian aro. 1 20 inch silver aro.
and 10 adult silver dollars.
filtration is 1 eheim 2250. 1 4 ft Overhead filter and a 15 gal sump tank.
bio media are ceramic rings foam bio balls and filter floss.


must have overfed yesterday

need advice.

Its 10:"30 pm here and there are no open lfs
any thing i can do? after changing 30% water the ammonia seems to still be the same?

 

[Nick660]

You'll probably need to do at least 30% water change daily, more if possible, until things stabilize.

Regarding the pH problem, you probably have very low KH in the tank which has caused a pH crash. This can be rectified by water changes if your supply water has an adequate amount of KH, i.e. 4.5 or greater. Alternatively you can add bicarbonate of soda to increase KH but this may also cause pH to rise rapidly so go carefully.
Here's a useful calculator for this purpose http://www.dataguru.org/misc/aquari...da+(Teaspoons)=2.03&SKH=4&EKH=8&pHChange=0.10
Please research first if you are not familiar with water chemistry. Big pH swings will obviously cause more stress to your fish. I would see if water changes alone can improve things first.
Adding salt may also help.
Low pH will inhibit the growth of beneficial bacteria which no doubt has also added to your problems.

Good luck.

 

[Ianab]

As an emergency measure... change more water. A 30% changed will only drop the 1ppm reading to 0.7. It may still read the same on the test.

Also check the tank to make sure there is nothing hidden and rotting behind the decorations. Old food or a dead fish? This will be adding to the ammonia as fast as you can remove it.

Check the filters are working properly, but dont fool with them if they are, you dont want to upset things any more by cleaning them out now.

Dont feed the fish for a couple of days, that will temporarily reduce the ammonia going into the tank.

Use a water treatment like Prime (I'm not sure if the ones you have will de-tox ammonia or not?) But Prime will convert ammonia into less toxic ammonium. It still shows on the tests as ammonia, but it shouldn't kill the fish, and will eventually get processed by the filters.

Good luck, hope you can get the tank back to normal before you looses any fish.

Cheers

Ian

 

[guppy]

You'll probably need to do at least 30% water change daily, more if possible, until things stabilize.

Regarding the pH problem, you probably have very low KH in the tank which has caused a pH crash. This can be rectified by water changes if your supply water has an adequate amount of KH, i.e. 4.5 or greater. Alternatively you can add bicarbonate of soda to increase KH but this may also cause pH to rise rapidly so go carefully.
Here's a useful calculator for this purpose http://www.dataguru.org/misc/aquari...da+(Teaspoons)=2.03&SKH=4&EKH=8&pHChange=0.10
Please research first if you are not familiar with water chemistry. Big pH swings will obviously cause more stress to your fish. I would see if water changes alone can improve things first.
Adding salt may also help.
Low pH will inhibit the growth of beneficial bacteria which no doubt has also added to your problems.

Good luck.

Very good advice here. Marine salt will help more than aquarium salt in this case but it is a temporary fix, Melafix may help against the skin infections you are liable to be facing.

 

[batang_mcdo]

asked someone to make another water change earlier. was able to bring down ammonia to .5mg/l . ph at 6.0
problem is my silver aro still not good my other aros seems to be lethargic too.
I added API Ammlock already. now can't decide what to do next 1 of my black barred silver dollar has developed cloudy eye.

need advice badly since i easily panic
Planning to buy API stressZYME. anything else i can do?
btw if ammonia is gone do i have to watch out for nitrite?
not really sure if my tank is cycling again?

i'm worried if i bring up ph ammonia will be deadlier?
will look for rotting food

another question. so melafix can be used with ammolock?

 

[Nick660]

asked someone to make another water change earlier. was able to bring down ammonia to .5mg/l . ph at 6.0
problem is my silver aro still not good my other aros seems to be lethargic too.
I added API Ammlock already. now can't decide what to do next 1 of my black barred silver dollar has developed cloudy eye.

need advice badly since i easily panic
Planning to buy API stressZYME. anything else i can do?
btw if ammonia is gone do i have to watch out for nitrite?
not really sure if my tank is cycling again?

i'm worried if i bring up ph ammonia will be deadlier?
will look for rotting food

another question. so melafix can be used with ammolock?

It sounds to me that things are going in the right direction i.e. ammonia coming down and pH coming up gradually. Keeping going with daily water changes, as you have been doing, should hopefully continue this progress.
I wouldn't start feeding again either until things settle.

You are correct in thinking that at higher pH there will be a higher percentage of free ammonia but the Ammolock should counteract this.
Here's a really nice article and calculator regarding free ammonia http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~piwc/w3-research/free-ammonia/nh3.html which you may find interesting (and hopefully reassuring).

Out of interest, what is the pH and KH of your tap water supply.

Personally I wouldn't bother with the StressZyme. IMO salt and/or Melafix would be useful though.

Yes, you probably need to watch for nitrite also. Obviously the water changes will hopefully limit it's impact though. I'm not sure if Ammolock will also detoxify nitrite but it may well. I believe that Seachem Prime does.

Good luck

 

[batang_mcdo]

It sounds to me that things are going in the right direction i.e. ammonia coming down and pH coming up gradually. Keeping going with daily water changes, as you have been doing, should hopefully continue this progress.
I wouldn't start feeding again either until things settle.

You are correct in thinking that at higher pH there will be a higher percentage of free ammonia but the Ammolock should counteract this.
Here's a really nice article and calculator regarding free ammonia http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~piwc/w3-research/free-ammonia/nh3.html which you may find interesting (and hopefully reassuring).

Out of interest, what is the pH and KH of your tap water supply.

Personally I wouldn't bother with the StressZyme. IMO salt and/or Melafix would be useful though.

Yes, you probably need to watch for nitrite also. Obviously the water changes will hopefully limit it's impact though. I'm not sure if Ammolock will also detoxify nitrite but it may well. I believe that Seachem Prime does.

Good luck

thanks for the advice this morning my silver doesn't seem to be shedding slime. but still quite weak. I'll test the ph with a ph tester which can test below 4.
Not sure about kh , but ph from tap wate4r should be 7.5, i'm not sure if ph is too low. but it happened before my ph went down to 3 , i'm not sure why this happened. I do 30 - 50 % water change weekly.

I've added melafix also last night but only at half dose. and added salt about 1tbsp pero 10 gal
hopefully my fish are able to recover and i'm able to correct the cause of this.
will post update again when i get home

 

[Nick660]

pH 3 Sounds to me like your water company could possibly have added some sort of disinfectant or chemicals to the water around the time when you did a water change . Or possibly contamination has entered the pipes from another source.

I've had problems with sudden changes to supply water chemistry in the past and now I always test it before every water change. I find the pH and KH also fluctuates quite a lot depending on how much rainfall there has been and the water levels in the reservoir. I can get a pH ranging 7.0 - 8.0 and KH ranging 2 - 9 °dKH.

 

[batang_mcdo]

pH 3 Sounds to me like your water company could possibly have added some sort of disinfectant or chemicals to the water around the time when you did a water change . Or possibly contamination has entered the pipes from another source.

I've had problems with sudden changes to supply water chemistry in the past and now I always test it before every water change. I find the pH and KH also fluctuates quite a lot depending on how much rainfall there has been and the water levels in the reservoir. I can get a pH ranging 7.0 - 8.0 and KH ranging 2 - 9 °dKH.

Just bought a ph tester earlier todday and it can go upto 4.5, i tested my water and its ph is at 4.5 but i suspect it to even be lower
asked my wife to buy baking sode, but she forgot to bring it home
anything else i can use to safely raise ph ? i added some corals into my 15 gal sump.

also redose a little ammolock and melafix.

btw how can i prevent ph crash from happening again? btw i have big driftwoods in my tank.

 

[Nick660]

The coral is a start to add carbonate buffering. The reason I prefer bicarbonate of soda is that you can calculate exactly how much you need to raise KH and pH and by how much, and get a more immediate effect. Make sure it is plain bicarbonate of soda and not baking powder which has other ingredients. Dissolve the required bicarb in a small amount of water before adding it to the tank - don't add the powder directly to the tank. To be safe I would aim to raise pH by no more than 0.4 per day, preferably only 0.2 to be ultra safe. Depends on how much of an emergency it is. Are your fish breathing hard for example?

Is the driftwood a recent addition? This may well be a contributary factor making your water acidic. If so, I would remove it and maybe test it in a bucket of water to see what it does to the pH.

If you keep crushed coral, or even better crushed oyster shells, in your sump that will help to prevent further pH crashes. Main thing is to keep KH at least 4.5 or higher.