emergency water situation

Question
After just doing an ammonia test, I found ammonia content high, so I added ammo lock, AmQuel, and changed the filter. In the past hour, the water has fogged, and the 2 goldfish are getting ill. I took out ammo chips, which were in a bag in filter, thinking maybe they were clogging the filter more.
  Last week I did 25% water change and vacuumed tank. PH has been low, but fish fine. This is the first time I am getting this reaction. HELP.

Answer
Hi Joan;

Elevated ammonia levels are from excess waste. You can make a daily water change of up to 25% to help them until we can figure out what's going on. Vacuum the gravel and don't remove anything from the filter right now. The beneficial bacteria that grows in the filter is not doing it's job for some reason so disturbing it would suppress it's action further. If the ammo chips have been in the filter for longer than a week or so, it has absorbed all the ammonia it's going to absorb anyway. You could put some new ammo chips in and see if it helps.

Goldfish are very messy guys that need lots of room and good filtration in order to thrive. The filter may be too small and/or the tank too small for two goldfish. If they have grown larger since you first put them in the tank or have overfed them recently, it would explain why all of a sudden the ammonia has spiked. Goldfish need a minimum of 10 gallons per fish to reach an adult size. The smaller the tank, the more likely there will be ammonia problems. Too small a tank, inadequate filtration and overfeeding also cause low pH. All goldfish tanks need at least a 25% water change and vacuuming every week to keep things stable. Here is a good page on goldfish to help you more;

http://www.firsttankguide.net/goldfish.php

Followups welcome...

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins