Ammonia in Freshwater Tank

Question
I really have two things to ask. I had a tank with community fish and a separate one with African Dwarf frogs. Both are 10 gallon tanks. I kept losing fish even though I tested the water and couldn't understand why my fish kept dying. The last straw was when I had to leave town for a week and used an automatic feeder. My last two fish were dead when I returned. I mourned each fish and decided I just couldn't keep fish anymore. I really loved them though. So my second question, I've lost 5 frogs in the past few weeks due to high ammonia in the aquarium. That has never happened before and I think that maybe I overcleaned my tank - siphoning the gravel, changing 25% of the water, etc. I bought some ammo lock and keep changing 25% of the water, but it still registering high on ammonia. Should I just leave it be for awhile?  I don't know how to get the ammonia out to save my last two frogs. Thanks for any help you can give me.

Answer
Hi Shereejo:  25% is a lot of water to take out of a smaller tank (under 20 gallons)... It is hard for a small tank to re-grow the proper colonies of good bacteria with a loss of that much volume... this is one of the reasons that the ammonia is up.  Second... Frogs... while very cute... are as messy as goldfish so they should really be kept in limited numbers.  Their mess means more cleaning with leads to low bacteria levels, which leads to chemical issues, etc...  I would try to keep fish again... try to keep just a few... change water 10-15% weekly during gravel vacuuming.  Hope this helps... dave