I have a new fish tank 125G but my ammonia is at 1.0 what is the best way to fight it ?
What's the best way to fight ammonia?
- Thread starter Brisk
- Start date
water changes.
is there fish in the tank? how long has it been running?
is there fish in the tank? how long has it been running?
Hello; As others have said water changes (WC) fairly often and at a percentage that will get the ammonia levels down. This may be a lot of WC until the tank is cycled.
If the tank is fresh water some aid may be had with the addition of live plants. There is limited information about the tank setup so it is not know what sort of fish or if there is a substrate. There are live non-rooted plants that can survive with many fish. I do not keep saltwater so cannot comment.
That you have added fish after only a week to what must bee a tank that is not "cycled", perhaps a search about "cycling" will be of value.
If you can get some material from an established tank to add to the tank it can speed up the cycling process. A key in cycling is to get the growth of beneficial bacteria (bb) on hard surface of a tank. These BB can be transferred from an established tank. Some filter media, a hand full of gravel, live plants either free floating or in pots and most anything that has been in a aged tank for a few weeks.
Good luck
If the tank is fresh water some aid may be had with the addition of live plants. There is limited information about the tank setup so it is not know what sort of fish or if there is a substrate. There are live non-rooted plants that can survive with many fish. I do not keep saltwater so cannot comment.
That you have added fish after only a week to what must bee a tank that is not "cycled", perhaps a search about "cycling" will be of value.
If you can get some material from an established tank to add to the tank it can speed up the cycling process. A key in cycling is to get the growth of beneficial bacteria (bb) on hard surface of a tank. These BB can be transferred from an established tank. Some filter media, a hand full of gravel, live plants either free floating or in pots and most anything that has been in a aged tank for a few weeks.
Good luck
All good advise, the best way to fight ammonia is to cycle your filter, it comes down to the fact you probably have to many fish in the tank or the fish are to big and are creating to much waste for the filter to deal with at the moment, if you do 25% water change every 3 days and you make sure there is no food waste left in tank, and you have the correct amount of fish in tank for the cycling process,, your ammonia levels should be low during the cycling process. I generally would use about 15 small fish about the size of guppies to cycle 400 litres of water, if you can't balance the tank out by having the correct amount of fish to what your filter can process (removing some fish to another tank) then you will just have to keep doing water changes every time your ammonia is to high, using filter start can help and using bacteria balls in your filter will allso help, using fish to cycle your tank is the best way but you must have the right amount of fish in the tank for the filter to be able to cycle without having high levels of ammonia in tank, the quality of your media in the filter will allso determin how fast your filter cycles, that's just what I have learnt from experience I have cycled alot of tanks and currently have 6 large tanks up and running. Good luck..
Cycling a tank means taking the time to grow a large enough population of bacteria to eat ammonia. This process takes time. It can take from 6-8 weeks, unless you have some already seeded media.
You jumped the gun after a week? Your only hope is daily partial water changes, to dilute ammonia until the bacteria population can catch up.
You jumped the gun after a week? Your only hope is daily partial water changes, to dilute ammonia until the bacteria population can catch up.
