what to do to get rid of ammonia????

beenbag497

beenbag497

Member
these are my parameters....
ammonia .25
nitrates between 15 and 10 ppm
nitrites o ppm
how do i get rid of the ammonia and trates??
( i already have some algea in there and three hermits.they have been in there about a week and theyre doing fine
)
 
saltwaternewb

saltwaternewb

Member
Is your tank cycling? How long has it been up and running? How much rock and sand do you have and was it cured when you put it in the tank? If you are in the beginning stages of a cycle then you do nothing, let things run their course. Thats the whole point. If this is not the case and your having a spike for an unknown reason, I would say first step would be to do a water change. Then you need to try to find the cause of the spike. Are you feeding your livestock? If so, possibly overfeeding? Is everything accounted for? Nothing perhaps in the corner dead and rotting away causing your water problems?
 
bigarn

bigarn

Active Member
.25 ammonia could just be your test kit. Some kits give a constant .25 reading. If you get the same reading after water changes I'd say that's it. As for the nitrates .... I wouldn't even worry with those readings.
 
beenbag497

beenbag497

Member
Originally Posted by SaltWaterNewb
Is your tank cycling? How long has it been up and running? How much rock and sand do you have and was it cured when you put it in the tank? If you are in the beginning stages of a cycle then you do nothing, let things run their course. Thats the whole point. If this is not the case and your having a spike for an unknown reason, I would say first step would be to do a water change. Then you need to try to find the cause of the spike. Are you feeding your livestock? If so, possibly overfeeding? Is everything accounted for? Nothing perhaps in the corner dead and rotting away causing your water problems?
i have 25 pounds of base rock and five pounds of live rock to populate the base rock,15 pounds of live sand,ive had my tank set up since the 29 of december,and im not feeding my livestock(and i dont think anything is in the corner rotting
 
m0nk

m0nk

Active Member
Originally Posted by beenbag497
i have 25 pounds of base rock and five pounds of live rock to populate the base rock,15 pounds of live sand,ive had my tank set up since the 29 of december,and im not feeding my livestock(and i dont think anything is in the corner rotting

You say your tank has been setup but did you fully cycle the tank? It should be fully cycled (ammonia spike, then goes to 0, nitrite spike, then goes to 0) before you consider adding any livestock. If you add livestock prior to the full cycle, they will likely die, or suffer some sort of damage. Also, the cycle ends up taking longer because there is no nitrifying bacteria to break down food and fish/invert detritus, so the ammonia builds up and doesn't go away properly.
If your tank was fully cycled, and now you're seeing ammonia and nitrites, get your livestock out into a fully cycled tank and let this tank go through the mini-cycle that is in progress. Or, you can try one of those products that handles ammonia, but personally I don't like putting any chemical into my tank that I can't test for.
 
beenbag497

beenbag497

Member
Originally Posted by m0nk
You say your tank has been setup but did you fully cycle the tank? It should be fully cycled (ammonia spike, then goes to 0, nitrite spike, then goes to 0) before you consider adding any livestock. If you add livestock prior to the full cycle, they will likely die, or suffer some sort of damage. Also, the cycle ends up taking longer because there is no nitrifying bacteria to break down food and fish/invert detritus, so the ammonia builds up and doesn't go away properly.
If your tank was fully cycled, and now you're seeing ammonia and nitrites, get your livestock out into a fully cycled tank and let this tank go through the mini-cycle that is in progress. Or, you can try one of those products that handles ammonia, but personally I don't like putting any chemical into my tank that I can't test for.
well the girl at the fish store said that if i got the base rock,live rock,and this stuff that puts bacteria in the tank then i could put fish in the fourth day(which of course i didnt)
 
m0nk

m0nk

Active Member
Originally Posted by beenbag497
well the girl at the fish store said that if i got the base rock,live rock,and this stuff that puts bacteria in the tank then i could put fish in the fourth day(which of course i didnt)
That's actually not a good way to do things; you should fully cycle the tank prior to putting in any inhabitants. The bacteria will work short-term if you absolutely need to store a fish in a QT or something, but for a stable tank you need to have a real cycle. Just for future reference, now that you have an account here, ask questions like that here instead of at your LFS; they will likely just want to make some money from your business and repeat business, where we aren't after your money.

You should probably do a water change, if you haven't done one in the past couple days, and watch the ammonia levels. Have someone else test your water too, to make sure you're not picking up something that isn't there.
 
beenbag497

beenbag497

Member
Originally Posted by m0nk
That's actually not a good way to do things; you should fully cycle the tank prior to putting in any inhabitants. The bacteria will work short-term if you absolutely need to store a fish in a QT or something, but for a stable tank you need to have a real cycle. Just for future reference, now that you have an account here, ask questions like that here instead of at your LFS; they will likely just want to make some money from your business and repeat business, where we aren't after your money.

You should probably do a water change, if you haven't done one in the past couple days, and watch the ammonia levels. Have someone else test your water too, to make sure you're not picking up something that isn't there.
well i actually saved ALOT of money by doing that(because i went in to get fully cured live rock but she talked me in to doing that
)
 
m0nk

m0nk

Active Member
Originally Posted by beenbag497
well i actually saved ALOT of money by doing that(because i went in to get fully cured live rock but she talked me in to doing that
)
That part likely did save you some money, yes, though in the end, buying the bacteria, come in for fish over and over cause some of them died, etc, may have cost you more money in the end....
 
beenbag497

beenbag497

Member
Originally Posted by m0nk
That part likely did save you some money, yes, though in the end, buying the bacteria, come in for fish over and over cause some of them died, etc, may have cost you more money in the end....
????
 
m0nk

m0nk

Active Member
Originally Posted by beenbag497
????
IMO, they gave you bad advice to start your tank. If you rush to get inhabitants in the tank without a proper cycle the biological filtration won't have time to establish and in the end your tank could crash someday.... thus dying or dead inhabitants.... that you might eventually decide to replace at that same LFS. Since you're at a point where you don't have a heavily stocked tank, you might just want to sit back and let things progress with a mini-cycle, if that is in fact what's happening here, and ghost feed on occasion, letting the biological filtration have ample time to establish over the course of the next few weeks before adding fish. That will add to the stability factor and benefit your tank in the long run.
 
beenbag497

beenbag497

Member
Originally Posted by m0nk
IMO, they gave you bad advice to start your tank. If you rush to get inhabitants in the tank without a proper cycle the biological filtration won't have time to establish and in the end your tank could crash someday.... thus dying or dead inhabitants.... that you might eventually decide to replace at that same LFS. Since you're at a point where you don't have a heavily stocked tank, you might just want to sit back and let things progress with a mini-cycle, if that is in fact what's happening here, and ghost feed on occasion, letting the biological filtration have ample time to establish over the course of the next few weeks before adding fish. That will add to the stability factor and benefit your tank in the long run.

thanks alot,when and what do you suggest i feed them????
 
saltwaternewb

saltwaternewb

Member
By ghost feeding I think he means adding a small amount of fish food which will go uneaten and cause ammonia to form in your tank which in turn will cause more bacteria to form to eat said ammonia which is a good thing. So you are basically starting a real cycle to grow the bacteria colony that you need for your tank to survive.
 
beenbag497

beenbag497

Member
Originally Posted by SaltWaterNewb
By ghost feeding I think he means adding a small amount of fish food which will go uneaten and cause ammonia to form in your tank which in turn will cause more bacteria to form to eat said ammonia which is a good thing. So you are basically starting a real cycle to grow the bacteria colony that you need for your tank to survive.
oh yeah i didnt mean feed '"them" i meant ghost feed it.
 
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