Build-up of Ammonia in tank

eyeluvzdatrout · Post by **eyeluvzdatrout** » 11 Sep 2004, 12:17

I have two pictus cats in a 10 gallon hexagon, and although one was a little bruised up from what was either a heater burn or a bite mark, they're doing very well. However, my tank has recently been building ammonia to no avail and I'm not sure what to do about it(4.0ppm).

I have an established, 'cycled' aquarium. The tank includes a basic top-mount model topfin(whisper) activated carbon filter, an inch of epoxy coated gravel and a few dispersed clumps of micro sword. The plants are doing fairly well, with some(note just a bit) of decaying stems. I feed them nightly with about a third of the standard cube of frozen blood worms. These are just little guys.. not quite three inches yet, so the food appears to be adequate--bloats the stomach even.
And I change about 15% of the water weekly with distilled water to keep things soft and acidic.

Also, I'm curious as to what effect ammonia build-up has on water chemistry.. i.e. pH.. anything at all?

Post by **Shane** » 11 Sep 2004, 16:55

Your water changes are inadquate for your stocking levels which is why you are having waste products build up. I would recommend 50 percent water changes every week. You do not need to use distilled water unless there is something very wrong with your tap water. Even then, the distilled water needs to be mixed with some salts.
-Shane

eyeluvzdatrout · Post by **eyeluvzdatrout** » 11 Sep 2004, 21:32

The tap water is exceedingly hard and slightly alkaline. It's just easier to use distilled and level out the water chemistry than deal with the hard water. What do you mean by adding salts.. is there a product and dosage you'd recommend?

Post by **Shane** » 11 Sep 2004, 22:53

How are you getting hard water in Seattle? I have been visiting friends and fish stores all over Seattle for the last week and am amazed at the quality of the tap water. Possibly the best in the US for tropical fish keeping. I attended WWU in Bellingham years ago and we had perfect water there too.
Pure distilled water is very bad for fish. If you need to mix, use 50/50 tap and distilled. There are several salt mixes available. I have never used one as I just mix tap water with distilled/rain water/RO, melted snow or whatever I am using for soft water.
-Shane

eyeluvzdatrout · Post by **eyeluvzdatrout** » 11 Sep 2004, 23:18

I'm not actually located in Seattle anymore, as I just moved to the suburbs. The tap water quality is good for drinking, but like I said.. it's hard water or all the test kits I've bought are complete shams. It's also surface water, unlike most of the area which is fed by aquafers and is consequently of much better quality. It's so good, a lot of people pump well water out in the country without a significant filter or a second thought... but that's unfortunately not the type of water I'm dealing with.

I'll try the distilled 50/50 mix with tap water for my next water change, but I'm still not entirely sure what you mean about adding salts--would that make my water brackish?

Post by **Barbie** » 11 Sep 2004, 23:19

The fact that you're showing ammonia in your tank means the filter is NOT established and working properly. It takes approximately 4-6 weeks for the bacteria colonies to establish that digest the waste your fish put off and take it from ammonia, to nitrite, then nitrate. The presence of ammonia shows that your filter is either inadequate for your feeding levels, or your filtration has suffered a die off of the bacteria. I would reduce what you feed to what the fish can eat in 30 second every other day, and do a 30% water change twice a week until your ammonia and nitrite are back to 0, if it was me.

Fish do MUCH better in water that is stable. Distilled water will not stay stable, as it has no buffering capacity to keep your pH from falling as the fish put off acidic waste. Your tap water in Seattle is actually too soft, IME for good stability without frequent partial changes. I definitely agree with Shane. Slowly acclimate your fish to tap water changes and do them frequently and your fish will be much happier in the long run.

Barbie

eyeluvzdatrout · Post by **eyeluvzdatrout** » 12 Sep 2004, 07:57

Well, Shane had said previously that it's due to overstocking. So it's not overstocking, it's just not cycled?

If I could go back to the person that sold me my fish and aquarium, I'd have a bone or two to pick because nothing seems to make sense. I was told wait a week to cycle the aquarium, use tap water, and add conditioner.

On the plus side, I noticed something today. My filter absorbed quite a bit of the frozen bloodworms I've been feeding my fish. So, I removed the element, cleaned it, and stuck a piece of very porous sponge over the strainer to prevent it from happening again. However, that sort of defeats the purpose of the activated carbon element located in the upper portion of the filter. I think it's quite possible that all the excess food stuck to my filter element was responsible for at least some of the ammonia build-up. Any thoughts on how to avoid this? Should I get a different filter design?

Post by **Barbie** » 12 Sep 2004, 17:40

Yep, the trapped food would definitely be creating some of your problem. The prefilter sponge won't defeat the purpose of the carbon, as the water still flows over it. Start doing 25% tap water changes every few days, and only feed the fish what they eat in 30 seconds every second two days until your filter catches up. Hard tap water is not going to be a problem for your fish, unless they are terribly delicate. Just acclimate them to it slowly with the partial changes. When I was in Kansas City, I had water with a kH of 17 degrees and I quit trying to figure out the gH when it got over 25 degrees, no kidding! Stability is FAR more important, and fish can adapt to what you have available. Frequent small changes are far more beneficial than making sure you exactly match the parameters their ancestors were discovered in, in most cases, IME.

In an established aquarium, overstocking causes a build up of ammonia that the filter can't take care of. In your case, your aquarium is too new for the bioload you are putting on it with all the food you're adding. Yes, fish put off ammonia, but if you don't feed them much, it's a considerably smaller amount. Fish can go up to a month without food, but even a day in high ammonia levels can do them in. Far more people kill them with kindness than ever risk starving them!

You might see if you can find BioSpira locally. It's a bacteria product that's kept refrigerated, made by Marineland that will help start your beneficial bacteria colonies. I had tested many types before that came out and was totally unimpressed with the results. BioSpira works great. I had to suddenly ship my fish down from Anchorage when I moved, and they went into uncycled tanks with BioSpira without a single loss.

Barbie

Post by **Shane** » 12 Sep 2004, 17:56

I did not say that it was overstocking. I said that your water change schedule/amount was inadequate for your current stocking level. You can get away with 15 percent weekly in a 10 gallon with 5-7 neon tetras, but not two pictus cats. A couple of suggestions:

1) If you have bloodworms stuck in the filter, it is from overfeeding, not a bad filter design.

2) A filter is starting to establish itself after a week, but needs 4-6 weeks to become fully established. After the first week, you normally begin adding fish slowly and allowing the nitrifying bacteria colony time to expand as each new fish is added.

Adding small amounts of salts will not make your water brackish and specific salts for soft water fish (such as Discus) are available at most stores. All water (except rain, snow, RO, or distilled) contains some salts and minerals. The total content of these minerals is the General Hardness (GH) of your water. Water with a high dissolved mineral content (like in Spokane) is called hard, while water poor in mineral content (like on the west coast of Washington State) is soft. Whether water is hard or soft has to do with mainly with the geology of the area.

The second measurement of hardness (and the most important I believe in your case) is the level of Carbonate Hardness (KH). KH is the measure of minerals and charged ions, other than Ca and Mg, present. Seattle water has almost no measurable KH. KH is key as the presence of carbonates and bicarbonates determine the water's buffering capacity. Buffering capacity is the water's ability to keep its pH stable.

I have a feeling that you somehow purchased a bad test kit as hard water on the west coast of WA State pretty much goes against the laws of nature (not to say that there never exceptions). Regardless, I am sure that your KH is almost nil.

OK, so what is going on in your tank and why did I provide all this prelude? I think that by adding distilled water during water changes, you have lowered your water's already low buffering capacity. There is a very good chance that your pH is currently super low as the water can not buffer itself. Whenever pH drops below 5.5 Nitrosomonas, the bacteria that break down ammonium are greatly reduced.

Bottom line, adding distilled water to tap water that already has a poor buffering capacity has most likely caused the pH to drop drastically. The pH drop has in turn killed off the Nitrosomonas and thus your ammonia level is through the roof. The overfeeding has just exacerbated the waste level build up.

Follow Barbie's advive and get on those water changes. Not knowing the current pH, I would go with 10 percent daily changes every day for a week and then 30 percent every other day for a second week. Also, feed less than what you are feeding now every other day as Barbie recommended.
-Shane

eyeluvzdatrout · Post by **eyeluvzdatrout** » 12 Sep 2004, 20:58

Okay, I think this is all starting to make a little sense. BTW, I really appreciate the feedback from both of you.

As for the bloodworms, it doesn't matter how much I put in there.. a few would always make it to the strainer because it's a large open strainer that sits about midway down a 10 gallon hexagonal tank--which looks nice but it's becoming apparent to me that rectangular would have been the way to go. So, unless there's some fantastic filter design out there, the only option really was the foam because the worms stay to the outside of the foam for the fish to find and gobble up later. And they do find every worm in the tank. Interestingly, I was told these fish eat just about anything, but I found that they wouldn't eat flake food.

The problem I see with the foam piece is that it collects debri that would normally be stuck to the activated carbon element and easily removed from the tank. So, I figure I'll just have to remove/replace it once and a while, then wait a night for the normal filter to suck everything up. So much for automation and easy maintenence.

My test kit, which I now know is accurate from buying another test kit of a different variety, is a 5 in 1 strip from mardel. It tests for nitrates, nitrites, alkalinity, hardness and pH. At first, since I used tap and distilled to start the tank, the alkalinity was low, the hardness moderate and the pH slightly low. I just checked it this morning and everything was about the same except the pH is now about neutral, so I added a "pH stabilizer" which I presume modifies the alkalinity. In addition, there are now slight readings of nitrates and nitrites where they were reading nil at first. I also tested for ammonia, which has dropped significantly. You'll have to forgive me as all of the water chemistry information I received when I bought my aquarium was either too vague or incorrect. I spent most of yesterday browsing the web for information. :/

As for the bacteria product to assist in cycling, I bought a bottle of "stress zyme" from the pet store when I purchased my aquarium and have added it as instructed. I'm assuming that the pH was too low to sustain the bacteria colonies as Shane said, but it's apparently working now. These are hardy fish, no doubt, and I'm sure they'll live through a nitrite spike if the ammonia clears up.

I'm also sure you'll feel compelled to chastize the "stress zyme" product because no refrigeration is needed, but it's all I have and I don't think I've seen the marineland product anywhere.

Currently, as long as the trends continue, the only issue I see is hardness which I'm thinking about modifying by using peat when my aquarium is stabilized.

coelacanth · Post by **coelacanth** » 12 Sep 2004, 21:27

eyeluvzdatrout wrote:As for the bloodworms, it doesn't matter how much I put in there.. a few would always make it to the strainer because it's a large open strainer that sits about midway down a 10 gallon hexagonal tank

Do you defrost them first? This will make sure they sink quickly. oYu could also turn off the pump for a couple of minutes while they reach the bottom where the fish are (don't forget to turn it back on again), less chance of them getting swirled up by the return current.

eyeluvzdatrout wrote:The problem I see with the foam piece is that it collects debri that would normally be stuck to the activated carbon element and easily removed from the tank

Activated carbon is not in any way to remove particulate detritus, it'll work far better if it is receiving water which has already been mechanically filtered. As you are planning, I would use a coarse sponge over the intake (but be sure to wash it out on a regular basis, you can use tap water for this as you are not looking for any bacterial action in this, purely a mechanical prefilter)

eyeluvzdatrout wrote:My test kit, which I now know is accurate from buying another test kit of a different variety, is a 5 in 1 strip from mardel. It tests for nitrates, nitrites, alkalinity, hardness and pH.

I have to say I don't much like those test strips. The results can be difficult to interpret, and they are never going to be as accurate as using separate tests for each parameter.

eyeluvzdatrout · Post by **eyeluvzdatrout** » 13 Sep 2004, 01:31

I don't mean that the activated carbon removes the debri, I mean it normally collects on the element which contains the activated carbon. It's some sort of fibrous material, almost sponge like, and it does a good job of retaining large pieces. I would turn the filter off while feeding, but it's an inexpensive filter that requires maybe 5-10 extra minutes of my time to get going again each time I restart it and I wouldn't want to forget to turn it back on so I'm kind of hesitant to go that route. I'll just stick with my foam and I think it should do the trick.

As for the test strips, well.. perhaps they're not the most ideal, but I haven't seen a problem so far and I used a "vial and drop" kit to test the ammonia as well as the hardness recently and I must insist that my water is hard! Remember, it's surface water from a local lake, not the usual aquifer water that most people use.

Post by **Barbie** » 13 Sep 2004, 04:14

Don't add those buffers directly to your tank water, in the future. Your tap water is going to be fine, just acclimate them to it and stop making chemical soup in there. As long as your tap water has some buffering capacity, the pH will stay stable enough, just the way it comes out of the tap. When you add additional buffers, you risk bouncing the pH around and stressing the fish out even more. Nitrites will be your next near fatal experience for your fish, so drastically reduce your feeding levels or risk killing them with kindness. They can go weeks without food, but you can quite literally kill them with even one occasion of overfeeding, seriously.

The stresszyme is a waste of money, IMO, as the bacteria that are supposedly in stasis just seem to add to the ammonia levels in the tank, rather than reduce them significantly at any point, IME. The BioSpira actually accelerated the cycling process in my tank and kept the levels from getting very high. Otherwise I just recommend doing the water changes as your levels creep up, not adding more fish, and feeding every other day, what they eat completely in 30 seconds or less. Your fish WILL eat flake food, they're just spoiled and have no need to with the abundance of other types available to them.

Barbie

eyeluvzdatrout · Post by **eyeluvzdatrout** » 13 Sep 2004, 04:58

I'll continue looking for the "biospira" product, but no luck so far. I've only seen cycle and stresszyme.

As for the flake food, maybe if I coerced them somehow to eat it(:/ ?), but I tried for at least a week to feed them flakes and I can say pretty safely through my observation that they wouldn't eat them. I would like to feed them flakes.. it'd sure be a lot cheaper than frozen bloodworms. Then again, I understand these fish appreciate live food and I thought about setting up a brine shrimp tank in the future. The aquarium disease is bound to put the hurt on my pocket book it seems.