Ammonia : (

Question
QUESTION: We started up a new 55 gal tank about two and a half weeks ago. This was not our first tank, just an addition. We filled it with rocks, a few live plants, treated the water, and let it set for a week or so.

   We then added a few small opaline gourami, a few small bala sharks, and 2 small dojo loaches. We added a liquid plant food for the plants, and regular water stresser and bacteria introcuders. We've used these products before in other tanks succesfully. two weeks later we realized the ammonia was high, around 0.05 . We added another dose of bacterial based ammonia treatment, and waited 5 days. 5 days later the ammonia level was encroching on 0.7, so we changed out 30% of the water, cleaned the tank, and bought some Ammo-lock... which was guaranteed to eliminate ammonia. Now a week later the ammonia levels are bordering on toxic. I have no clue what else to do, two of the gourami died from a secondary (fungus), assumedly from the high ammo levels, and im fearing that the other fish are in danger since one of the loaches has a swollen white belly. Any idea what I can do here? We dont want to lose anymore fish, and we've set up and maintained several larger aquariums and never had that problem. could it be one of the types of plants or the plant food? The live plants are the only new factor for us.
  

  Thanks

ANSWER: Hi Shane!
Aww that's terrible.. It is really a bummer when you set up the tank and add the fish and find out the ammonia level is just too high.. This is exactly what happened to my first tank. I am sorry about the situation. :[

The problem you have here, I think, is that you put too many fish at once; and putting ammonia lock was the wrong thing to do when the cycle was not finished. Any ammonia removing product may treat the ammonia temporarily, but it does not let the tank cycle fully. It is because the beneficial bacteria "eats" ammonia and nitrite, the harmful bacteria, so by putting ammonia treatment, there is nothing beneficial bacteria can feed. so then the beneficial bacteria cannot colonize, and without the beneficial bacteria, ammonia level can rise very fast. I never use any ammonia supplement. As long as you cycle the tank the right way, and keep the tank balanced whenever you add new fish (or anything that can cause ammonia to rise), the tank should not need any ammonia supplement.

You mentioned that the live plants are only new factor you youguys, but I doubt that it is the live plants because the live plants are excellent source of biological filter. I am not too sure about the plant food, though. I usually don't use plant food because I usually have large number of fish in the tank, so their waste is enough food for the plants. If the plant food is just supplement, it might be fine, but if it is some kind of nutrition for the plants (waste/food?, not quite, but you know ;]), it is possible that it might have caused the ammonia level to rise. It sometimes can happen for slow growing plants because they don't consume as much waste (in your case, maybe the plant food?) as faster growing plants. Therefore, more waste product turn into ammonia.]

other fish are in danger since your ammonia level is that high. I would move the dojo loach into a jar, since they can live without heater, and move the bala sharks into quarantine tank (if you happen to have one). My safest choice would be to restart the whole tank. I guess you can try to cycle the tank like this, but for my experience, it did not work; and I had to completely change the gravel, filter, everything and start all over again. So here is my best recommendation.

Take out all fish you have, and remove the water. Change the filter sponge; and you may or may not wash the gravel. Here is the risk: if you wash the gravel, it would be completely safe-it is like starting a new aquarium, but if you don't wash the gravel, either the ammonia level will be too high, or the tank will cycle faster.

Re-setup the tank with gravel conditioned water and plants, and keep it going. Since we do not know whether the plant food is the cause of high ammonia, do not put any in aquarium. you can keep it this way for a several days to wait for the tank to stabilize a bit. After a several days, you can finally add fish. I like to cycle my tank with danios, and they will do well with your other fish as well. If you would like some smaller variety, you can put 3-6 zebra danios, and if you like larger variety, you can get 2-4 young and smaller giant danios. The giant danios will grow to about 4 inches. Keep it this way with only 3-6 fish) for 4-6 weeks. Do weekly change of water around 10-20%. Do not put any ammonia supplement!! The ammonia should spike in a several days and will decrease within 2 weeks. But then you will need to wait for nitrite to be at 0 too. Once ammonia and nitrite are at 0, wait a several days until it stabilized completely. Then at this point, you can begin adding some fish. Even though your tank is bigger, do not put any more than 3 of 1 inch fish at once. That can cause ammonia to build again. For bigger fish such as bala sharks and gourami, put only 2 at once. Add once per week and no more than 3-4 of 1 inch fish at once. You can add up to 55 of 1 inch fish if you are changing water every week/every other week.

I hope this information helped. Let me know again if anything goes wrong.

Good Luck!
Barb

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks for the reply Barb, I appreciate it. After asking you last week I changed 50% of the water in the tank and dropped the PH, was I didnt realize had crept up to 7.4. I also added some rocks from  a friends several year old tank, just a ziplock bag full, hoping that it would spread something beneficial. A few days later we still have the same ammo level, and the PH keeps climbing as well. We're just going to dump it all tonight. Thanks for your insight, it's appreciated!

Answer
using old gravel always helps :]
if the pH is keep increasing, try putting some driftwood. It helps keep the pH down, and your bala sharks, gouramis have them in their natural habitat, so they will surely like to have them in their aquarium!

good luck!
Barb