South American Cichlid High Ammonia Level

Question
I maintain a 29 gal South American Cichlid tank with 7 fish- a blood parrot hybrid, jack dempsey, two green terrors, a convict, a mangananeuse, and a firemouth. I also have 3 placos in the tank as well. The tank's bed is made of black sand and I have a filter meant for a 50gal tank and plenty of artificial lighting (not sunlight). The problem is that my ammonia levels are a little on the high side and I'm not sure how to bring them down. They aren't a cause for concern yet, but they aren't at what one would consider "safe". I have a carbon filter in my filter and also am currently using ammo chips, but nothing seems to be helping. Do you have any suggestions to decrease my ammonia level before it does become a cause for concern?

Answer
Hi Ashley,
How long has this aquarium been setup? If its been less than about a month or two it could be that the biofilter is not yet established sufficiently enough to deal with the amount of waste produced by the fish. This would be especially likely if these cichlids were added too soon to the aquarium not long after it had just been setup.

Of course, there are also other possible causes for ammonia to show up. And this may take some investigative work. Test your tap water just in case. Also, make sure to check the water conditioner you are using. Many water conditioners remove ammonia as well as the usual chlorine and chloramine and can produce a false reading on your test kit. The water conditioner label usually indicates what test kit reagents it is compatible with.

The aquarium may also have a weak or overwhelmed biofilter. That is quite a lot of fish for a 29 gallon aquarium and it will need to have plenty of large partial water changes to keep up with the 'bioload'.

For ammonia problems, the very best thing to do is big water changes to dilute it down. Cichlids and plecos are tough creatures, but they can only tolerate ammonia for so long without long-term damage done. Simply do a 50% water change and retest the water quality. You may have to repeat these water changes until the water conditions stablilize.

You can also use a water conditioner like Ammo-lock to neutralize ammonia in emergency situations such as the fish are behaving very stressed and the ammonia has spiked. But try not to rely on chemicals alone.

I do hope this helps and best of luck!
Karen~