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Ammonia Poisoning. Please... HELP!!!

W1368

Member
Joined
22 Sep 2010
Messages
33
Hi there, Im getting into all sorts of trouble.

I hope I don't aggitate anyone experienced. I have just started maintaining the plants properly around 1-2 months ago - before that time it was just basic water changes and cleaning the algae from the glass, replacing the filter sponges as advised in the thank manual.

My fish have been showing signs of stress for a week now (maybe longer, none have died as yet). Originally I thought the signs of stress were from injecting too much C02, but the signs of stress have continued (actually getting worse) after gradually lowering the C02. I first started out with C02 around 1/2 weeks ago.

After stumbling across the symptoms for ammonia poisening in a reference book I went out to by a test kit, although didn't know exactly what I was getting and ending up with a tetra test kit for total ammonia.

Anyway, this came out at 0.25 mg/l. I've tested my tap water and this showed 0 mg/l.

Current tank water:
PH: 7.5 (did get it down to 6.5 with C02, as above)
KH: 4
GH: 13
NO2: below 0.3mg/l
125L Juwel Tank with internal filter (no carbon sponge, nitrate sponge was replaced a few months ago with some sort of Fluval nitrite and nitrate remover bag as reccommended by local dealer when I asked if they had any of the Juwel green sponges)
Use Nutrafin+ tap conditioner
Changing 20-30L of water weekly.

Since starting with C02 about 1-2weeks ago:
Applying 10ml of Tropica Plant Nutrition+ once a week
Two trops of JBL Ferropol 24hour daily (came with the C02 set)


Symptons are:
One of the tetras is showing whitespot, another has some sort of a white marking on the fin
Smaller fish gasping very quickly and showing redness around mouth and inside of fins.
My only rainbow fish doesn't seem to swim round as much and seems more than happy to remain in the same spot.
A couple of other tetras look slightly swollen along the underside of the fish.
They are still feeding, but swimming very strangly, e.g. staying in one place or moving erraticly then stopping again.

If this is related I had a servere outbreak of whitespot about 6-8 weeks ago, about 4-5 fish died. The tank as far as I know is about 5-6 years in the running with a few plants. Filled it out with more plants about 3 months ago.

I have know idea how long this has been going on for, as I only started to obersve the fish recently. I also am new to knowing about ammonia, the tank was passed onto me from a previous owner who I used to live with.

So far I've given the gravel a good clean, cleaned rocks, pump and washed the filters.

I wish I knew about this earlier :silent:

Any help would be more than greatly appriciated.
 
When you clean your filters, how do you do it? Under the tap?
I'd do maybe a 50% water change to start with. O.25 NH3 (ammonia) is very high, although Ammonia test kits (tetra in particular it seems - have tested against known concentrations) are known to be rather inaccurate.

Tom
 
I usually wash all filters about once a month in the water siphoned from the tank during a water change. Replacing the wool pad weekly.

Is there any particular test kit you would recommend?
 
OK as long as you're not rinsing under the tap then.
Can you think of a reason that you might have a rise in ammonia recently?
The best way to tell what your water is like is to watch the fish. See how they're breathing and swimming. Check their fins aren't clamped and their gills aren't overly red.
 
The only thing I can think of was the plants were is a terrible condition and used to become covered in black algae over period of time. Resulting in quite a bit of dead leaves and roots, but I cleared those out weekly.

I got the plants sorted out a couple of weeks ago after researching and finding that I wasn't adding enough trace elements. Also removed the carbon sponge at that time.

The only thing different I've done recently was about 3 nights ago took the rocks out of the tank to rinse and scub off the very thick black algae and left to dry before placing back into the tank. All filters were washed, cleaned out the pump (which apperently has never been done before). At also removed/trimmed the plants, only leaving the parts of the plants in a healthy condition. Although the symptoms I listed with the fish were still there before this, just not as servere.

I'm not sure about clamped fins but the gills are definetly red.

The tank is very old, and deep in the gravel there is a lot of old debris in there. The previous owner didn't use a gravel cleaner, just used a basic siphon.
 
Hi all,
Sorry to hear this, it doesn't sound good at all.
Smaller fish gasping very quickly and showing redness around mouth and inside of fins.
This sounds like ammonia poisoning .
I'd do maybe a 50% water change to start with.
You need to do this as soon as possible, ideally with a non-tap supply, have you got access to rain or RO water? if not you need to add a water conditioner like "Prime" or "Amquel" with every tap water change. After you've done this you need to stop adding any CO2 or fertiliser to your water and drastically reduce feeding your fish (they can go without food for several days without any problem). You then need to change about 20% of water a day for 3 or 4 days. You also need to treat the white-spot (even though this is almost certainly caused by the stress from the poor water quality), I've used "Esha Exit" successfully in the past.

Hopefully things will have stabilised by then and you can start the CO2, fertiliser and feeding again. You may find you get algal problems due to the change in CO2/nutrient status, but this is a minor issue compared to the ammonia.

It is quite difficult to get ammonia poisoning (or high levels of nitrite) in a planted tank, so assuming you haven't got a dead fish? it may be a tap water issue. A lot of water authorities are adding chloramine to their water at the moment, this is until they can repair their leaking water mains (which are leaking post the big freeze). Chloramine is persistent, but breaks down into chlorine and ammonia ions in the tank. Ammonia is de-activated by a water conditioner like Prime or Amquel (you need one that says specifically that it deals with ammonia/chloramine).

cheers Darrel
 
+1 for Darrels comments

You have probably distrubed a lot of "nastyness" in the gravel etc, Darrels points about lots of water changes and water conditioning is a must!

Good luck

Good Luck
 
Thanks.

Did a 50% change last night. Normally I do a gravel clean with each water change, although this time I went slightly deeper and in the awkerward areas - this was litterally pulling a very large amount of cloudy deep brown particles. In a few areas, especially around planted areas, clumps of thick wool-like material was released, and some very strange white grains were also coming up in some places.

This morning I thought I had a dead fish, it was laying on the gravel without the fins moving. Although after looking more closely it was still breathing and suddenly shot up and started swimming again.

Unfortunetely I do not have any RO water. Checked the tap conditioner I use (Nurtrafin Aqua+) and it does mention elimination of chlorine and chloramine but nothing about ammonia.
 
Hi all,
I think the conditioner will be all right.
Normally I do a gravel clean with each water change, although this time I went slightly deeper and in the awkerward areas - this was litterally pulling a very large amount of cloudy deep brown particles. In a few areas, especially around planted areas, clumps of thick wool-like material was released, and some very strange white grains were also coming up in some places. This morning I thought I had a dead fish, it was laying on the gravel without the fins moving. Although after looking more closely it was still breathing and suddenly shot up and started swimming again.

I'd probably try not to disturb the substrate at the moment, it will need a clean at some point but for a number of reasons it may be doing more good than bad at the moment. Possibly the stirred up organic matter has caused a bacterial bloom, and this has depleted your water of oxygen. Once these "ordinary" bacteria have depleted the oxygen the water going into the filter will not have enough oxygen left to complete the break down of ammonia to nitrate.

Because of this have you got an air pump? if you have I'd run it.

cheers Darrel
 
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