Ammonia Issue

[jayson417]

Hello,
I noticed on Friday my fish were breathing kinda heavy, On the advice of my Local fish guy i was told to feed my Puffer fish and my foxface two times a day. Once in the morning and once at night. Now my ammonia is through the roof at 1.5. Will my fish die? I bought Ammo Lock and did a 5% water change but it still isnt budging.
Size: 55 Gallon
Fish: 3 Damsels , 1 dogfaced puffer, 1 star's and strips puffer, 1 fox faced and 5-10 sorted hermits.
PH: 8.1
Ammonia: 1.5
Nitrate: 50
Filter: Fuval 305 and Aqua clear 50
Help! I'm afraid the fish will die.

 

[drdingo21]

I'm no expert. But you need to do a way larger water change. 20%.
you need to get it down. In a hurry

 

[jayson417]

Completed the 20% change and put in 10ML of Stress Coat.
Are there any other steps i should take? I now reduced feeding to once a day.

 

[mantisman51]

I've kept fresh, brackish and marine puffers for years. If you feed them once a day it is plenty. Many puffer keepers feed their puffers every 2-3 days. That is WAY too huge a bioload. One puffer with the rest of the fish is a big bioload, but in my experience, not unreasonable. Puffers are very bad about eating messy and alot of uneaten food will get into your canister. Personally, I wouldn't keep more than one puffer in a 55g and alot of puffers get to 18" and will outgrow a 55g within a year or two.

 

[wattsupdoc]

The ammolock will convert the ammonia to a non toxic state. Your test will still read it. The problem is you've got more decomposing food or waste than you have bacteria to process it. IF you have enough surface area for the bacteria to eventually grow, then you will be able to process that amount of food. But if there's not enough anaerobic bacteria (I suspect there's not as you have a canister) then your nitrates will be higher. Feed less is the solution. Better filtration will help dramatically. Now the ammonia is likely to still be climbing, you'll need to compensate for this by doing water changes and adding the ammo lock appropriately to accommodate what has been changed and or the amount the ammonia has risen. Do this by adding it to your new SW and aerating very well the new water before, during and a while after adding. It will catch up. Limit your feeding during this time to only every 2-3 days, possibly even 4. Your fish will be fine with that temporary schedule.
In the future whenever you add a fish, gradually over 2 weeks increase the amount of food you are feeding. Very little increments more each time. Split it so that every couple days or so you are adding a small portion more, but no more in the end than you will be feeding. Doing this prior to the fish's addition would be best. While it's in QT waiting to make it to the DT.

 

[jayson417]

I Appreciate the help.
My puffers are not very large at the moment.
Stars and Stripes: 3 inches
Dogface : 1-1/2 inches
and Foxface : 2 inches
I have the Canister fuval 305 and the aqua Clear 50 i just added.
Do you think thats enough?

 

[jayson417]

Hello,
After doing my 20% water change the ammonia is still at 1.5-2.0 and wont budge. Help please
Steps Taken so far:
20% Water Change
Added Ammo Lock 4.5 Caps or 45 ML's
Added 45ML's of Stress Zyme
Is there anything else i can do?

 

[flower]

Originally Posted by Jayson417
http:///forum/post/3022427
Hello,
I noticed on Friday my fish were breathing kinda heavy, On the advice of my Local fish guy i was told to feed my Puffer fish and my foxface two times a day. Once in the morning and once at night. Now my ammonia is through the roof at 1.5. Will my fish die? I bought Ammo Lock and did a 5% water change but it still isnt budging.
Size: 55 Gallon
Fish: 3 Damsels , 1 dogfaced puffer, 1 star's and strips puffer, 1 fox faced and 5-10 sorted hermits.
PH: 8.1
Ammonia: 1.5
Nitrate: 50
Filter: Fuval 305 and Aqua clear 50
Help! I'm afraid the fish will die.
There has to be something already dead in the tank, or you added too many new critters at once. If it is a dead thing...you have to find it to get things back on track.
Yes do a 30% water change, no larger or you will create a bigger problem getting rid of the good bacteria that helps stabilize the tank.

 

[jayson417]

I think your right, i added two fish within a week of each other before my bacteria was enough to handle it. As of now the fish are swimming around and active but i don't know how much longer they can go.
I'm at work so i cant get home to do a water change. But once i do ill get it going.

 

[flower]

Originally Posted by Jayson417
http:///forum/post/3023105
I think your right, i added two fish within a week of each other before my bacteria was enough to handle it. As of now the fish are swimming around and active but i don't know how much longer they can go.
I'm at work so i cant get home to do a water change. But once i do ill get it going.
If you already did a 20% don't do more than a 10% each day until it settles down and the bacteria develops enough to handle the new bioload.
I would get a purigen pad to run in the filter if you can. It helps with all kinds of problems with water. Activated charcoal will help clear toxins too. As for ammonia however

but it won't hurt.
Keep us posted.

 

[jayson417]

So i inserted a Poly Filter Pad into both my Fuval and AquaClear to see if that helps. Its been about 12 hours now and the ammonia is still very high.
Also did a 10% Water change last night.
Any Idea's?

 

[flower]

How old is your test kit? Do you have one of those stick on the side of the glass monitors?
Unless something is dead...even a few extra fish shouldn't do that kind of spike.

 

[soulsigma]

What type of water are you using? and make sure that your test kit is compatible with the ammonia product you are using , to avoid a false reading.
If you are using a RO/DI water filter check the filters as they may need replacing and check the filters in your cannister filter and give them and the can a good cleaning. Check your tank for anything dead or decaying and give your substrate a light vacuuming, then do a W/C and see what happens.

 

[wattsupdoc]

Water changes wont do anything to harm the beneficial bacteria.

You can do very large changes if you like, just make sure that the parameters are all matched very well. However if your adding the ammo lock you will still see ammonia and it will accumulate in the DT until it begins to be processed faster than it can be produced. Keep adding the ammo lock, doing water changes and you can get some bottled enzymes to help out. I have used Cycle with good results. It's bacteria in the bottle it'll help. Be sure with any product to follow the directions EXACTLY...

 

[wattsupdoc]

When you clean your filters do it in used SW ONLY. Fresh water can destroy the bacteria on your filters. Also if you change the filters, do them at different times. Not all at once if possible. If you just changed out both your filters and have new filtration then you just eliminated some of your existent bacteria. Changing the pads was not a good thing at this point and bad advise also.

 

[jayson417]

Thanks for the help.
I should have explained it better. I didnt touch any of my filter media i added this thing the LFS called a poly pad and he said it would take all the crap ( Chemicals,Amonia,Copper, and more) out of the water.
I did clean my aqua clear but not my fuval. its bbeen the same since day one. When i opened the Fuval i did notice a bunch of brown stuff all over everything" perhaps uneaten food".
Also if my live rock died that would make it jump correct?
I bought two brand new testing kits for ammonia. The complete kit for 39$ and the single kit both are brand new. I used tap water and put it into a huge rubber made container with an air stone and filter for 12-36 hours before using it also mixed some water conditioner.

 

[cleve_seahorse]

When was your tank set up?

 

[jayson417]

Hello,
I setup my tank a little over 4 weeks ago. Everything was going fine no issues at all then wammie ammonia goes up and up and up and at first i thought the tank was just cycling but it hasn't come down in almost a week now.
I added some new bacteria cultures from the LFS and hopefully that will work if not i just got done setting up my rescue tank ( 46 bow) and that will be my life boat.

 

[wattsupdoc]

If you move them to a newly set up tank they will be in this predicament all over again. If you are using the ammo lock as is directed, the ammo is of no or little consequence. But it still shows up. It can take 2 weeks for ammonia to begin to decline.

 

[jayson417]

Yea that's what i figured. Between the Poly Pad and Ammo Lock and the Water Changes i think I've done all i can do. At this point I've slowed feeding down to once every other day and just going to let it ride. I have a protein skimmer on the way so that should help some.
Thanks for the advice