# Amonia of 8.0 with living fish???



## startsmall (Oct 17, 2012)

Hello peoples, 

I did my first water tes tthe other day...just to see, I wasn't having any issues but thought I would check it...

My ammonia was reading at 8.0 ppm with the API Master kit for freshwater. 

My question is....

Is that possible?

To maintain 5 healthy LIVING fish in a tank with 8.0 ppm ammonia???:fish9:


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

living possibly,healthy I don't think so.Change water!50% twice daily till under .5(which really isn't considered safe either).How long has tank been set up?How many gallons?


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## Brian757 (Sep 24, 2012)

Holy crap! I would do a 30% water change! Go get some water from your LPS. Get rid of that ammonia. Like coral said, they might be breathing, but happy, not quite.
Are they surfacing for air? How many times did you test? Are they eating?
If you don't get the ammonia out of the tank, the fish will hemorrhage internally and externally, and eventually die.


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## Manafel (Sep 4, 2011)

Before you freak out, monitor your fish, are they acting sick? I don't think fish can live in 8 PPM ammonia. If they seem fine, you might have skipped a step in the Testing process. Is your test kit expired? Are you following the steps exactly?


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## startsmall (Oct 17, 2012)

OK Lots of questions I will try to answer all of them...first the tank is under control now...I did water changes until everything evened out. 

The fish all seemed great, no weird actions, breathing fine, colors were good.

The tank had at that point been up for about 6 weeks it is a 5 gallon with 2 danios, a white skirt, and a odessa barb

The test kit was brand new at this point, I may have missed a step but if I did its becaus ei dont know what I am doing or am reading the instructions wrong, I use the API Master kit 5 ml of water, 8 drops from bottle one, 8 drops from bottle 2, wait five minutes. Tested with the same result about 3 or 4 times.

I am just curious at this point, everything is fine, just wondering how that would be possible.


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## Manafel (Sep 4, 2011)

Did you not shake the vial for 5 seconds after adding the drops and wait 5 min.?


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## Brian757 (Sep 24, 2012)

Manafel said:


> Did you not shake the vial for 5 seconds after adding the drops and wait 5 min.?


I was going to say, I believe on the APIs, it says to shake the vial for 30 seconds. You have to be misreading it. Fish would be dead at 8.0 ppm. I mean, I believe that 8.0 is the top of the ammonia chart on the API kit. Your fish would've died being at that degree. Glad everything is good!


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## gar1948 (Jan 25, 2012)

I hope you repeated the test more than once and double checked instructions. I agree the fish could not survive if that was a correct reading.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

op is off but stated that they tested 3-4 times with same results.I'm not sure fish could live but different poster said 8 last night also.Until tanks cycle I think testing is necessary on a very regular basis.And fish looking fine is usaully how they are before they die without desease intervention(if your levels get even half that high I would say your not that aware of how fish really are anyways)!It is a five gallon tank so to me it is possible to reach extreme level much easier than in larger tank.


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## Brian757 (Sep 24, 2012)

coralbandit said:


> op is off but stated that they tested 3-4 times with same results.I'm not sure fish could live but different poster said 8 last night also.Until tanks cycle I think testing is necessary on a very regular basis.And fish looking fine is usaully how they are before they die without desease intervention(if your levels get even half that high I would say your not that aware of how fish really are anyways)!It is a five gallon tank so to me it is possible to reach extreme level much easier than in larger tank.


That is true. The smaller the tank, the harder to maintain. All water parameters are harder to equalize being that minor changes can change everything. A drop of lemon juice in a 5 gallon tank could put the pH at like 10.0 Bigger tanks are always better :fish-in-a-bag:


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

Sounds overstocked to me, which would help skyrocket the ammonia way up there. The danios are very hardy and its possible they would live in such high ammonia, though it would have adverse effects on them in the long run. I think the tests were either inaccurate or the test is old.


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## Dave Waits (Oct 12, 2012)

I know water-changes are the holy-grail,so to speak, but Korden makes a thing called Amquel that works! Knocked my ammonia-levels down to 0.


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## startsmall (Oct 17, 2012)

Yes I did shake the vial. Forgot to post that.

Test was brand new just bought it came home and tried it out. 

3 times, max on the chart. I cannot explain it. I am thinking something was wrong with the test...that was about 3 weeks ago and all fish still bein fishy...I thought it seemed wrong but wanted some other opinions. 

I used the test recently again on my 30 gallon and it came out a 0 so I need to retest the small tank again after I do a water change tomorrow and see how she reads. 

Thanks everyone for the thoughts....seems it was probably not reading correctly or was a false reading.


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## FishFlow (Sep 13, 2011)

I'd attribute this to luck. I believe your kit is reading accurately. You caught it in time. Glad to hear your fish are healthy.

Water testing should be done frequently with a fish in cycle. When levels get high, do a WC. Once readings are consistantly Amm 0, NO2 0, NO3 over 20, tank is cycled and can relax on testing.


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## goldie (Aug 4, 2012)

startsmall said:


> Yes I did shake the vial. Forgot to post that.
> 
> Test was brand new just bought it came home and tried it out.
> 
> ...


Hello Startsmall
I'm confused. Why would you think the test was reading incorrectly when testing the 5 gallon but, you're getting a nil Ammonia reading when you tested your 30 gallon tank,also if i'm reading all this correctly why leave the 5 gallon untill tomorrow to test. Shoudn't you be doing that right now as there's fish in there& if the Ammonia is nearly off the chart doing 'big' water changes 'now'.
Granted i do find the posts a bit confusing but, if they are being exposed to such high Ammonia they certainly won't be healthy fish inwardly. I'm surprised their all alive.


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

I am with Goldie here. You should be testing the five gallon more. If the ammonia reading was really that high, even if theres no outward signs there can be internal issues. Fish in cycling is very difficult on fish.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

clearing the confusion,but still wondering;the tank(5 g) had been running for six weeks when op did test,that was three weeks ago(although just posted yesterday).Having said their 30g was good (whats next thread), I wonder about op knowledge of cycle.By now(9 weeks in)I would imagine the tank could be good(the fish not so).I will hope op learns about cycle before getting next tank there thinking of(55g).It is beyond me to pay attention to well run tank (lucky twice?) and ignore tank in need ,but a brief understanding of the cycle(and seeding new5g) could have helped alot.To still ignore tank in need is sign of mis guided priorities(along with considering next tank now "what to do what to do" thread) and possibly others opinions is all they want instead of help.I think I followed along accurately but probably will not follow any farther.I wish your fish luck,I think they really need it!


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## startsmall (Oct 17, 2012)

coralbandit said:


> clearing the confusion,but still wondering;the tank(5 g) had been running for six weeks when op did test,that was three weeks ago(although just posted yesterday).Having said their 30g was good (whats next thread), I wonder about op knowledge of cycle.By now(9 weeks in)I would imagine the tank could be good(the fish not so).I will hope op learns about cycle before getting next tank there thinking of(55g).It is beyond me to pay attention to well run tank (lucky twice?) and ignore tank in need ,but a brief understanding of the cycle(and seeding new5g) could have helped alot.To still ignore tank in need is sign of mis guided priorities(along with considering next tank now "what to do what to do" thread) and possibly others opinions is all they want instead of help.I think I followed along accurately but probably will not follow any farther.I wish your fish luck,I think they really need it!


Yes a little misunderstanding here.... Let me try to clear it up. 

I did not ignore the problem, I did the water changes until I got the ammonia level down to 0. I do understand cycling and though I am new to the hobby I have done my research and have a firm grasp on that. 

I was not asking for hlep regarding how to get the levels down, but instead was wondering if anyone with experience with that particular test could weigh in on wether they had experienced anything like that...I use prime with my new water and I had read that it can cause high false readings but I did not know if this was the case or simply something someone wrote. 

My fish are fine and everything is under control atm, I was just looking for imput on the test kit accuracy, and whether or not it was possible for fish to survive in such conditions. 

and I am looking for help in my newest thread about the new tank in the form of getting some opinions on interesting fish that are not incredibly difficult to care for.

Sorry for all the fuss, I know most forums have a handful of regular posters and it can be hard to join the circle. I am inexperienced but have quickly learned I need to research things and cant trust the LFS to give good info.Thats why I joined this forum was to hopefully learn somethings and have questions answered by people with more experience that aren't trying to sell me anything. 

Thanks.


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## startsmall (Oct 17, 2012)

goldie said:


> Hello Startsmall
> I'm confused. Why would you think the test was reading incorrectly when testing the 5 gallon but, you're getting a nil Ammonia reading when you tested your 30 gallon tank,also if i'm reading all this correctly why leave the 5 gallon untill tomorrow to test. Shoudn't you be doing that right now as there's fish in there& if the Ammonia is nearly off the chart doing 'big' water changes 'now'.
> Granted i do find the posts a bit confusing but, if they are being exposed to such high Ammonia they certainly won't be healthy fish inwardly. I'm surprised their all alive.


The only thing I could think of was that maybe I had doe the test wrong but I think we confirmed that I was doing it correctly. 

I dunno, things are good now, just looking for advice or thoughts.


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## goldie (Aug 4, 2012)

Yes Startsmall,i agree the reading was very likely to be correct after reading in your initial posts that you did a 'first' test at six weeks on a cycling tank with fish in it. Now you are saying you knew all about the cycling process and did'nt need help on that so then obviously you would also have know nabout high Ammonia and Nitrites when cycling but, you still left the tank six weeks before a water test.It would have been more understandable if you had'nt known about the cycle, it's nothing to be ashamed of (not knowing)
Oh and btw, you say you understand it can be hard to 'join a circle of regular posters'? I'm not aware of any circles of posters on here,i don't think there is, i only joined a short while ago, i consider myself a newbie.

Good luck to your fish!


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

Right Startsmall, We welcome everyone. Owning a tank is a learning experience. ive had fish for about nine years(give or take a year or three) and am still learning every day new things to better my environments. 

So the fish in the smaller tank are ok? Thats great to hear. I do hope you will be keeping a closer eye on the levels. My issue with such a small tank is its unstable, and too small for most anything.


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## startsmall (Oct 17, 2012)

Yes all the fish are still fine. I have started moving a few out into a larger tank so as to not have it over stocked 

I would definitely have tested the tank more regularly in the beginning but that was before I knew about cycling or anything really... that is stuff I have picked up in the last couple months. I am having fun being a fish owner and look forward to learning a lot more.


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