# A Strange Problem,,,



## pjavellana (Sep 4, 2013)

I have a 55 gallon freshwater aquarium. I did have three aquariums set up, but left them in the care of my husband who over fed all three tanks and so all my fish died but three in the big tank. 

The problem is, going now on 3 months or so, I have had a huge problem with ammonia in my tank. It's off the charts. When my fish died, I knew there was a problem of course and did water changes and used Prime to keep the three fish alive. 

I have a Marineland hang-on filter and I am using a Cascade 1000. It appeared the tank of course recycled itself as I did water changes over time. So the three fish that survived, are still alive and I put 6 giant danio fish in since the 3 months.

So my ammonia is off the chart - on the API chart it is 8.0 or more. Nitrates are at 0, nitrites are at 0. Seachem ammonia reader attached inside the tank reads yellow showing no "free ammonia". I have stopped using Prime 2 months ago. My PH level is about 6.5 and has been like this for many years.

I even had my water checked at Petco and Petsmart and both reads the same as my testing above and they are all saying to take the whole tank down and restart again. But why? It's an established tank of 5 years before the husband overfeeding episode and there is no ammonia in my tap-water. I've also used the strips that you dip in of both the ammonia and the nitrate readings - but it says the same....high ammonia and no nitrates or nitrites.

I've had a lot of aquariums set up over the last 30 years but this is the first time I have come across this high reading of ammonia.

Fish are thriving, eating, no signs of distress. I have sand in the bottom and do weekly water changes of 10-25% and skim the bottom for any thing there. I feed the fish once a day and only what they eat within 2 minutes.

Suggestions? Something I'm missing? I have recently placed live plants into the tank surrounded by canvas to keep my silver dollars from eating them, to see if this helps and one plant I took from another tank has been in there and is thriving.

I hope someone can help me. Thanks!!!


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

The amount of water you change is the amount of nutrientss(ammonia for you) that will be removed.
Hard to believe fish are ok as anything over 1ppm is stressful and where your at they should be dead.
Change 50% for 4 days in a row and you should be under 1ppm.
If you were "fishless cycling" than you could ride it out,but with "fish in" you should keep both ammonia and nitrate at 1ppm or under.
I geuss I would get into the sand with the vac as maybe there are food deposits in it causing elevated levels if you don't see it sitting on bottom.
Always dechlorinate and try to match tank temp as closely as possible.
With 8ppm changing 25% will only get you down to 6ppm at best.


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## Goby (Mar 21, 2012)

Seachem. Prime FAQ

Read through the answer to the second question on this webpage. 

Obviously, you don't have a true ammonia content of 8...all your fish would be dead. Via an acid-base reaction, _Prime_ likely converted gobs of toxic free ammonia into nontoxic ammonium ions. Unfortunately, most test kits cannot decipher between toxic free ammonia and non-toxic ammonium. Instead, they detect both simultaneously and give you a total reading, thus, you continue to get high positive results. 

I'm surprised it's still resulting at 8 though, considering you've done water changes.


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## pjavellana (Sep 4, 2013)

coralbandit said:


> The amount of water you change is the amount of nutrientss(ammonia for you) that will be removed.
> Hard to believe fish are ok as anything over 1ppm is stressful and where your at they should be dead.
> Change 50% for 4 days in a row and you should be under 1ppm.
> If you were "fishless cycling" than you could ride it out,but with "fish in" you should keep both ammonia and nitrate at 1ppm or under.
> ...


I have been through all the water changes of half and 25%. I went through so many, it recycled my tank. The three fish in there are the original fish that survived all the ammonia that it had in there three months ago. The sand is new that I put in there about a month ago. I completely took out all the sand and placed new in there. I could understand high ammonia with high nitrates but NO nitrates are present. I'm not a dummy when it comes to aquariums.

I've did everything right - just this strange reading.


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## pjavellana (Sep 4, 2013)

Goby said:


> Seachem. Prime FAQ
> 
> Read through the answer to the second question on this webpage.
> 
> ...



Yes, I have read this about Prime before. I have not used Prime in the tank for over a month and with water changes, it still reads high. I am guessing the Prime must still be in there and I guess I should trust the Seachem monitor that shows no free ammonia.?. Just wanted to see if anyone has been through this before. My tank looks great, my fish are thriving.....I figure with no nitrates, there is no way to have ammonia in it.....but never ran across this before. 

Thanks for the link.....


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

If the tank is established as you say, although having a high ammonia reading says otherwise, stop feeding until ammonia goes away. If it truly is established the ammonia should be gone in 2-3 days max.

High level water changes DO NOT cause your tank to recycle. Very little beneficial bacteria is located in the water column. I do 60-75% every week on all my tanks and have done as much as 85% and not a single ammonia blip on fairly heavy stocked tanks.

You are either cleaning the tank too much and destroying bb in the process, you are way overstocked, don't have enough filtration or your filter is not efficient enough, or you're forgetting to dechloronate the water you put in there during water changes (chlorine will kill the bb). This is assuming you no longer overfeed and you have eliminated ammonia in your tap.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

Read up on nitrogen cycle!Not having nitates does NOT mean you don't have ammonia.It is more a indication of a broken or uncompleted cycle.I have no explanation how you could have "killed" your bacteria,but that doesn't you may not have.
I would be changing water and/or getting a whole new test kit(they do expire).
The hang in tank tags are not really acurate.
1^ with jrman


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## Goby (Mar 21, 2012)

pjavellana said:


> Yes, I have read this about Prime before. I have not used Prime in the tank for over a month and with water changes, it still reads high. I am guessing the Prime must still be in there and I guess I should trust the Seachem monitor that shows no free ammonia.?. Just wanted to see if anyone has been through this before. My tank looks great, my fish are thriving.....I figure with no nitrates, there is no way to have ammonia in it.....but never ran across this before.
> 
> Thanks for the link.....


Yeah, I agree. That's strange. But your instincts seem right to me. Assuming the submersed Seachem monitor is working properly, if it's showing yellow then IMO, you're good. How old is that monitor? They are only good for about a year. 

When your husband nuked the tank and the free ammonia shot up and killed everything...did the Seachem monitor turn green? And then did it eventually turn back to yellow?


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## Ranger (May 20, 2011)

First thing to try would be decent test kits, the strips suck balls so I wouldn't waste my time don't know about the one you have in the tank, it might be rubbish or it might be broken.

If they come up with the same answers I would go easy on feeding and do a healthy amount of water changes or take the fish from the tank for a few weeks and let it cycle again.


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## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

Surprised no one said this.
Check the Ph of the water BEFORE you put it in the tank first.
Use this to determine if overstocking is causing the ammonia.
AqAdvisor - Intelligent Freshwater Tropical Fish Aquarium Stocking Calculator and Aquarium Tank/Filter Advisor
IF it is not overstocked and IF you are doing the suggested water changes...have you vacuumed the gravel since it was nuked ?


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