Very high ammonia levels(+8)

[JK47]

I have not heard anyone discuss your feeding/schedule. How much/often are you feeding? This can have HUGE impact to the ammo being produced especially considering nothing is removing it but WC's. You should seriously consider reducing feeding if you have not already.

I agree you should put the fish in the 125 with the current filters. The waster volume alone will displace the amount of ammonia until you tank cycles and potentially save your fish. You will need to obvisouly add much larger filtration in the near future but it can't be worse than that much ammonia in 30 gallons.

 

[suprakid95]

i have the tetra's in the 125 to start the cycling process the 125 has two hang on filters rated for 70 gallons and one fluval 404 would that be enough? also my feeding habits are i usually feed the bass pellets one at a time until it stops eating and i take that one out once a day. and i put enough blood worms in the tank for the catfish for them to finish it within 5 minutes. since the blood worms float it takes them about a minute to get up there and actually start eating i do it in the dark so they wont be afraid to come up and eat. as far as the pleco i feed it cucumbers and hikari wafers every two days or so the wafer i leave in the tank the cucumber i pull out after about 10-15 minutes.

now after the major water changes i did two days ago my ammonia would still go up to toxic levels, but its been two days since i have done a water change and the ammonia is at 0, but i am having a nitrite spike the water changes to purple (5.0+) almost instantly. would you guys reccamend i keep doing 50% water changes until both ammonia and nitrite levels are where they should be?

 

[suprakid95]

and as far as the bass out growing the tank eventually i plan on starting a new stand first and then an aquarium sometime in the summer as i am trying to buy a house right now. but that is a topic for another thread

 

[suprakid95]

any help?

 

[sushiray]

any help?

how did you make out? I see no one responded since your last post.

if still on-going or just fyi for future ref., I would say yes to daily w/c up to 50% at least 7days str8. thereafter, maybe 25-50% every few days but at least 3x's per week.

But 1st-ly I suggest doing a 75-80% w/c & scrubbing any algae off (u didn't mention if you had any but just in case).

be sure to condition (most use Prime vs. all other products out there) & keep added fresh water close to same temps.

also, you may need to clean out your filter's sponges & rinse other media in tank water (may have a big build up).

hope that helps out with your levels.

 

[sushiray]

I apologize for not reading all the postings, I read your 1st post then went to the last post.

so if I may add, maybe your bio-media BB has been reduced/killed off some how?

seems like it would be a cycling issue since it was a new-ish tank set up. but if your fish have been surviving then your bio-media should have picked up a bit by now.

maybe add "cycle" or similar after a major w/c.

hope it turned out ok.

 

[suprakid95]

well i moved the fish to the 125 gallon tank 2-3 days after my last post, just for their safety and the tank has been up for a month now and it was completely cycled almost a week after i had started it. I gave my old tank to my brother's wife and gave her a filter from my 125 gallon since i had way more filtration then i needed. it didnt needed to be cycled because it was cycled with the 125 and it is running strong for about a week now. thanks for all the help I will post pictures of the new tank and the new setup for the old tank.

 

[tcarswell]

I tested someone's water for them once with my API ammonia test and it did the same thing. Turned black. I mixed 1/2 their water with 1/2 fresh tap water and it did the same thing. I had to dilute it down literally *4* times before I got a reading of super dark green (8). I never could convince them to change things or that their water was lethal, I was pretty frustrated. Their fish didn't look good, fin rot, bad color, etc. But he thought they looked fine because he doesn't have any one else's fish to compare to. In his case he had cat litter boxes sitting around by the tank and I really think that was where the ammonia was coming from. I don't know why the fish were alive and I don't know his updated situation. Somehow it's possible for fish to get used to living like that.

Glad it worked out suprakid!

Just curious how would a cat litterbox affect the ammonia in the tank ? I am in no way trying to sound facetious im just curious.