# high ammonia levels



## Nicole (Jan 26, 2007)

1. Size of aquarium (# of gallons) 20 gallons
2. Is your aquarium set up freshwater or saltwater? freswater
3. How long the aquarium has been setup 2-3 weeks
4. What fish and how many are in the aquarium (species are important to know) 4 at the moment...there is an angelfish, blue gourami, a pictus catfish and a bala shark
5. Are there live plants in the aquarium? no
6. What make/model filter are you using? undergravel
7. Are you using a CO2 unit? no
8. Does your aquarium receive natural sunlight at any given part of the day? no
9. When did you perform your last water exchange, and how much water was changed? tank set up
10.How often and what foods do you feed your fish? did feed freeze dried bloodworms and flakes 2 a day, now just flakes once
11.Is your aquarium light incandescent or fluorescent and how often is it kept on?fluorescent most of the day the till we go to bed
12.What specific concerns bring you here at this time? high ammonia level
13. Water are your water test results for:
pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate? ph 7.2 and ammonia is off the chart dark green

is it the undergravel filter causing this? i read they can cause problems. i only use to use a power filter off the side but the guy that went with us to get fish is like oh use one of these so we bought it. now our ammonia levels are off the chart. we have a seperate tank set up with the 2 discus i just got today in it. how long is it going to take for it to cycle through? i have to wait 2 weeks anyway to add the discus. the fish in the main tank now are fine. the guy at our fish store said they built up an immunity to it since they were in when it started. any help or advice would be great, thanks!


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## Train Tracks (Jan 16, 2007)

I would toss the underground filter.


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## ttiger72 (Jan 15, 2007)

Nicole said:


> 1. Size of aquarium (# of gallons) 20 gallons
> 2. Is your aquarium set up freshwater or saltwater? freswater
> 3. How long the aquarium has been setup 2-3 weeks
> 4. What fish and how many are in the aquarium (species are important to know) 4 at the moment...there is an angelfish, blue gourami, a pictus catfish and a bala shark
> ...


20 Gallons is way too small for Angels and Discus, both can get upwards of 8 inches, you need at least a 55G to keep them. No fish can build up immunity to Ammonia or Nitrites, the higher the level of each the more toxic it is to the fish.

First do a 25% water change, which will help get the ammonia down. You should then be doing a 25% change daily to help keep the ammonia down. I used Bio-Spira to help get my little 2.5g tank to cycle, you may want to try that.

You said you had a hang on back type filter, do you still have that in the tank? What were your levels prior to changing to the undergravel filter?

That's about all I can offer since I am still new at this. But there are others you will give you a lot of advice as well.


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## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

angelfish need at least 30 gallon high aquarium, discus 35 gallon aquarium, bala shark 75 gallon aquarium 20 gallons is not enough, that is why there is so much ammonia.

_No need to resort on all caps and exclamation points when making a statement. All of us do commit mistakes.
Blue_

Also angelfish and bala sharks are extremly sensitive to water conditions and since your ammonia reading is off the chart (probably more than 5.0) you probably cant save them since they are affected enough. But for now, do massive water changes, maybe even 50-60% water changes DAILY. A reading of .25 can kill angels and sharks, this is 20 times more stronger than that, your fish dont stand much of a chance im sorry to say. Please not that bala sharks get up to a foot long, sometimes more, whcih means they wont even be able to turn around in a 20 gallon aquarium. Angel fish get to tall to fit in a 20 gallon aquarium, and discus can die from even .05 ammonia level. Take ALL your fish back to the fish store and guy some fish suitable for a 20 gallon like danios.

Fish dont grow immunities from ammonia, they grow immune to nitrate but not ammonia, they will die in it.

Remember, discus are expensive, if you put them in your tank now, they will die and you would have lost all that money for them, return them while you can.


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## FDStation152 (Jan 20, 2007)

the discus are also extremely sensitive to water conditions and require very clean water. I would never reccomend adding them to a tank that is not already well established. while i love the fish and keep one myself (soon to be more) I would also suggest returning them. They are very unlikely to survive the stress of a cycling tank as changes in the water parameters are extremely stressful to them. I'd stay away from buying them unless the tank has been set up for a period of months and is very stable. They aren't cheap fish and they simply won't handle that kind of stress.


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## Nicole (Jan 26, 2007)

ttiger72 said:


> 20 Gallons is way too small for Angels and Discus, both can get upwards of 8 inches, you need at least a 55G to keep them. No fish can build up immunity to Ammonia or Nitrites, the higher the level of each the more toxic it is to the fish.
> 
> First do a 25% water change, which will help get the ammonia down. You should then be doing a 25% change daily to help keep the ammonia down. I used Bio-Spira to help get my little 2.5g tank to cycle, you may want to try that.
> 
> ...


The guy at the pet store said the thing about the immunity..all the fish are still very small they are all around the size of the gourami and hes not very big. we are getting a new larger tank 55-75 gallon probably income tax time. the discus are in another tank by themselves because the guy we got them from said to quarantine them for 2 months anyway.
we never had the filter on the back on this tank because its too small its for only up to a 15 gal.


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## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

Heres a very important bit of information never listen to profit organizations about fish. they dont know much about fish, all they care about is money, how big is the quarantine tank for the disucs is it cycled??? Discus are very fragile and expensive fish, as i said return them.

_Cap letters have been revised.
Blue_


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## Tracy (Aug 4, 2006)

Undergravel filters are *not *meant to keep the water 'clean'; they merely provide aeration and are supposed to enhance the biological filtration of a tank by preventing 'dead' spots in the gravel (that is what I was told, and what I read in books when I used an undergravel filter years ago). I never had a problem using the undergravel filter, although I did not care for the amount of debris which collected under the plates in the aquarium and found that I had to do a thorough cleaning of the tank about twice a year, which always removed lots of mucky water (yuck!)

Undergravel filters do not take the place of mechanical filters. If you use an undergravel filter you still need a 'hang on back' or other type of filtration system. I think your ammonia level is high because your tank is so 'new'. Try to get some established 'media' from someone you know that has a healthy aquarium (i.e. substrate and/or ornaments from an established aquarium). This will help 'seed' the beneficial bacteria which break-down the harmful levels of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Until your biological filter is established, frequent water changes are both helpful and necessary to keep the harmful levels of these toxins down. Overcrowding is an issue, also, when the tank set-up is so new, but if you keep your water safe you should be okay with your fish until you are able to get a larger tank for them.

Good luck and happy fish-keeping.


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## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

might i add discus require a ph between 5.5-6.5, the will not survive in a ph of 7.2, same goes with angelfish


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## FDStation152 (Jan 20, 2007)

well they might survive but they certainly wont be happy. Also the discus are sensitive to water hardness and alkalinity so if you don't have test kits for that you might be keeping them at a proper pH but killing them with a high gH or kH. There's a reason discus are usually only reccomended for experienced fish keepers.


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## jones57742 (Oct 31, 2006)

Nicole:

You have received tons of good information in this thread but

1) Yes: 
The high ammonia concentration is due to the lack of adequate biological filtration.
Underground filters are difficult to cause to function properly and
are typically utilized to maintain tank temperatures in the substrate for plant growth.
As Tracy partially indicated you may now have decaying matter in the UGF which is partially causing the high ammonia concentration.
I have a wet/dry system, am not familiar with cannister or HOB filters and therefore cannot recommend a filter for adequate filtration.

2) Water Changes
You indicated that you had not performed a water change.
Typically during cycling a 25% weekly WC IMHO would be appropriate based on the fish in and volume of your tank.
Refer to 3) for WC recommendations.

3) High Ammonia Concentration
As previously set forth fish will not adapt to a high ammonia concentration.
In the worst condition they will die.
In the best condition they will suffer permanent gill damage as well as damage to internal organs.
IMHO I would perform a 50% water change today and a 50% water change on Tuesday: then return to a typical tank cycling* subsequent to installing adequate biological and mechanical filtration (hopefully tomorrow).

4) Nitrates
Previously set forth in this thread was the concept that fish will become accustomed to high nitrate concentrations.
IMHO this is incorrect.
Nitrate concentrations should be maintained at 20 and preferably 15 or less.

TR

*Please search this forum for utilizing media, gravel, etc. which is currently in a cycled tank in order to accelerate the cycling process in your tank.


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## scottysgirl (Jan 10, 2007)

My angelfish is in 8.2 pH and he has been doing really well for a long time. Discus are more sensitive though, they need exact water conditions, I would take them back. I'm sorry about the bad news--it's a shame what people at pet stores will tell you to make a sale, better luck in the future.


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## FDStation152 (Jan 20, 2007)

I'm in some disagreement with the previous statement on nitrates. I've seen fish adapted to extraordinarily high nitrate concentrations (180ppm +) in someone else's tank. The fish all appeared healthy that had lived in the tank for a long period of time but any new fish that were added quickly died. Since I couldn't immediately figure out why that would be happening I took over my test kits and ran through everything. Everything was looking good except for the nitrates which were through the roof. Yet all the fish that had slowly grown accustomed to the escalating level of nitrate seemed unfazed by it. While I would always reccomend keeping nitrates low (my main tank is down to 5ppm) for a variety of reasons I'm rather confident that fish can indeed adapt to high nitrate levels if the change happens gradually over time.


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## Nicole (Jan 26, 2007)

The discus are in a different tank, the water and everything is fine in that one. I cant take them back because they were ordered online and shipped to our house. So far hes healthy and swimming around the tank. The ammonia seems to be going down but very slowly. We plan on getting a power filter sometime this week. I used the power filter off the other tank for about a day and it cleared it up some..not much but some.


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## FDStation152 (Jan 20, 2007)

You should always look into the requirements for a particular fish BEFORE you bring it home or have it shipped to you. Same with thinking about tank sizing. If you don't have the proper sized tank already you shouldn't buy a fish and then say oh well you'll get a bigger tank for it later. I'd like to get more discus too but I don't have the proper tank set up for additional fish yet...so I dont have them yet. You wouldn't see me tossing a discus in a bare 10 gallon tank and saying oh well I'm gonna get him a bigger tank later. You're asking for nothing but trouble with those discus in the tank you've described.


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## Nicole (Jan 26, 2007)

The guy said the discus needed to be quarantined anyway for 2 weeks, hes an itty bitty only a baby.


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## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

i dont think you understand us. No matter what you do the discus will not be alright in either the 10 gallon quarantine or the 20 gallon. Im guessing BOTH tanks are uncycled which will kill the discus, and just because they are babies, doesnt mean they wont grow or doesnt mean they wont poop and create ammonia by waste. Another fact, discus are very very hard fish to keep and are deffinaltly not reccomended for the begginer. If you cant give back the discus, give him away to someone who can properly take care of them, even if they dont pay you. Either way you are going to have to lose the discus, whether it be inhumanly letting ammonia or nitrite or space needs kill it, or humanly give it away


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## FDStation152 (Jan 20, 2007)

The fact that its a baby is all the more reason that it won't make it. They are much more vulnerable to these sorts of things when young.


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## Tracy (Aug 4, 2006)

Hey everyone, Try being a bit more kind to people that want to keep fish and do good for the fish, but don't have all the money for big tanks and expensive filtration systems. 

I acknowledge that small aquariums and lack of 'improper cycling' are a problem for those who are uninformed or mis-informed, but the glorious hobby of fishkeeping shouldn't be for just the 'well-off' or wealthy. *Yes, fish do grow, but it does not happen overnight. *

If the water is safe for the fish, don't worry about the tank size providing the FISH ARE THRIVING, the water perameters are safe, and the tank is *not overpopulated. * You can upgrade your tank system when you can afford to do so.

Personally, I have never fussed with PH levels and the majority of my fish have been long-lived, active, and have grown well. 

Let's not give the impression that unless you have a tank that is 55+ gallons you cannot have anything but danios, guppies & tetras.


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## FDStation152 (Jan 20, 2007)

I am speaking directly on discus. Discus will never thrive in a 10 gallon tank and they are extremely sensitive to pH, gh, kH, and other water parameters. While a lot of fish can survive at less than ideal conditions there is a reason discus are only recommended for advanced fish keepers. While I agree that a 55 gallon tank is not necessary for everyone there are certain species of fish that cannot survive in small and or improperly maintained tanks. I agree that many different kinds of fish can be kept at "sub-optimal" conditions for a long period of time, discus in particular are relatively expensive to be losing due to poor care. Its not like losing a 2 dollar tetra after all.


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## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

Tracy said:


> Hey everyone, Try being a bit more kind to people that want to keep fish and do good for the fish, but don't have all the money for big tanks and expensive filtration systems.
> 
> I acknowledge that small aquariums and lack of 'improper cycling' are a problem for those who are uninformed or mis-informed, but the glorious hobby of fishkeeping shouldn't be for just the 'well-off' or wealthy. *Yes, fish do grow, but it does not happen overnight. *
> 
> ...



Yes, i understand what you mean, some people keep goldfish in bowls (which they shouldnt) for a very long time, a few years even. Why? Because goldfish are hardy, they are strong fish and can survive in those conditions. They certainly wont thrive but they will survive. But here were not talking about hardy fish, we are talking about very weak fish, the discus.


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## fish_4_all (Nov 13, 2006)

First, the ammonia levels need to be controlled. Please don't go the local fish store and spend a lot of money on ammonia rid type products as they will onlymake the problem worse and also extend your cycle. Water changes are the key here. As much as you can change, do it every other day until you get the levels down to as low as possible. 

As for the fish, enough has been said about them by everyone. The LFS did their damage and the fish may suffer but do have a chance to survive and thrive. I have heard that neons are some of the weakest fish and often used to cycle because of it but mine have been the hardiest fish I have. 

Nicole, give the tank a chance to cycle and then deal with the fishes size when it is needed to be done. I hope that we can get you so appropriate advice for the fish you have now and help you get going in the right direction. Please don't let what the LFS told you and what has been said here from detering you from trying to do this right and have a very healthy and happy aquarium. The key right now is to get the ammonia down and I think water changes will help with this immensly and then we can deal with other potential issues.


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## fish_4_all (Nov 13, 2006)

A couple other things:
Nitrates in a tank without plants need to be kept below 30ppm. Anything above is not good for the fish as the nitrates are dissolved nitrates from fish waste. If you have plants, please let us know and we can discuss the differences. And plants do aid in keeping ammonia problems down but will not expidite the tanks cycle. Without plants, less than 20ppm is ideal if not lower. 

Ammonia can be lethal at any level above 0.5ppm. The water changes will help keep it from becoming lethal and will help the fish cope with it until the cycle is complete. 

One last statement in this thread: No further bantering about the stocking levels or chosen fish will be tolerated. Address the question of the original topic or don't post in this topic.


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## bettababy (Oct 12, 2006)

Well said fish_4_all... and if I may just add something I noticed thru this thread... when speaking in terms of nitrate levels, it is true that most fish can adjust to it slowly over a long period of time, but, this does not mean that it isn't causing damage. I could list so many problems caused by high nitrate levels, but the worst and ultimate is an early death for the fish. We see what happens to them on the outside, but most people don't ever get the chance to see the internal damage that is caused by something as simple as high nitrate levels, and it is truly devastating.

As was just said, it's time to deal with the issue at hand, the fish are there and the important thing is to prevent suffering and death. It's good that you are already shopping for a larger tank, I would suggest going as large as is possible, or plan to increase the size again after a period of time. 
The angelfish should be fine at the current pH, but the discus will not, so you'll want to monitor the pH, KH, and GH in the tank with the discus. Add lots and lots of decorations to the tank, this will help prevent stress (which causes illness quickly). If your tap water is over 7.0 for pH, you may need to use bottled RO water which can be purchased at the grocery store and at some pet stores.

Small, frequent water changes (no more than 25% at a time) are the best thing you could do for both tanks, keeping the water quality as stable as can be. When doing the water changes, change just water, don't touch the gravel or filter media. This is where your bacteria will culture most, and the faster the bacteria cultures, the faster you'll get through your cycling. Products like "Cycle" and "Biozyme" both work well, and could be a big help to you right now. I would suggest dosing with one of those after each water change.

Go easy on the food at this point, as that will also raise ammonia levels. Every other day what the fish can *finish* in 1 - 2 minutes is all they should be getting right now, until the cycle is complete and the tank is stable. Then, especially with the discus, I would suggest feeding once/day (discus twice/day), with regular water changes to keep the waste in check.

While the fish aren't going to grow huge overnight, they will grow fast if the water conditions and food are all in check. To buy a bit of time until the larger tank is an option, gradually increase water changes. If you start out with once/wk after cycling, do water testing at least twice/month to see when your nitrate levels begin to increase. When you notice an increase, then do the same with water changes... same amount of water at a time, but twice/wk instead of once. You will find soon enough that the changes will need to be done daily to keep up with the waste levels, and eventually, after that, comes changes every day and healthy fish that are too large to turn around or function in a tank that is too small. This *CAN* be done if you take the time for all of the little details that will be so important, but I have to agree with the others here, this is not going to be an "easy" thing to pull off.

Lastly, we're here to help, so as you go through this, please don't feel alone. Ask all of the questions you need and/or want to, we'll do our best to see you through this as safely as possible. I would suggest some reading... not just internet research, but a published book, especially about the discus. If you need titles/authors, let me know and I can suggest a few good ones. Knowledge is power, and always remember... the only stupid question is the one not asked.
Best of Luck to you and your fish!


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## Nicole (Jan 26, 2007)

Well the 10 gallon tank the ammonia levels arent high. We are doing water changes now.We got one of those gravel cleaners that you hook up to the sink to suck the water out or add more water and you can use it to do gravel changes.We are getting a 90 gallon around the 15thish. can you cycle the tank b4 the fish are put in? how long do you let the tank run before putting in the fish?Do you recommend putting live plants in? How many fish can you have in a 90 gallon?


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## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

well the bigger the tank the more the 1 inch of fish per gallon doesnt work. You will need to ask other people as i do not know what type of fish you like.


There is such thing as a fish less cycle but I'm not too sure how to do it. Something like adding pure ammonia in the water daily or sprinkling fish food to raise ammonia.


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## fish_4_all (Nov 13, 2006)

A fishless cycle is done a few different ways. The first and least controled is to use fish food. The food decays and then starts the cycle.

The next one is to actually put a whole medium siozed prawn in the tank and let it start the cycle. This can cause a slight odor and can be unpleaseant but once the shrimp has vanished, you test the water and it should have both ammonia and nitrites at 0. Water changes are still a must to keep the tank as close the environment thta the fish will be put in as possible.

The third is to use pure, straight ammonia. Adding enough to bring the levels in the tank to 1.5-2ppm daily until you start seeing nitrites then sometimes decreasing the ammonia. 

Give me a couple days and will have a better more comprehensive article about the fishless cycle.


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## Nicole (Jan 26, 2007)

Just tested the tap water...it has ammonia in it. :roll:


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## musho3210 (Dec 28, 2006)

you may add ammonia removing chemicals to your tap water before you add it to your tank, a good company is amquel, and when you say ammonia next time can you say the exact reading like 0, 0.25, 0.5 etc

And when you say the levels are not high, that means there is some which is very bad, for a established tank it should be at 0. Also call your tap water company and make sure they know ammonia is in the tap water as there could be a water contaminant at your local water way


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## Nicole (Jan 26, 2007)

the tap water is at .5. Can you use bottled water in the tank?


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