Ammonia emergency

If anyone could help me here I'd be very appreciative. I bought an aquarium about three weeks back and I've been performing weekly tank empties, then adding fresh water, then appropriate amounts of biofilter liquid and a liquid that gets rid of ammonia and chloramines.

I've been taking chemical readings and had a slight ammonia level last week. I emptied about half the tank this weekend, then refilled, added the liquids again, and have just taken a reading and the ammonia level is horribly high. I've also noticed my axies stopped eating about a day ago.

I'm totally baffled as to how to get rid of ammonia; can't really find anything on the forums about what to do when a tank has high ammonia levels. What are the methods involved? I bought an air stone recently and have been using that - has it been making things better or worse?

I would stop using the chemicals and cycle your tank normally (I would also worry since axolotls' skin can more readily absorb toxins than fish, and I'd wonder if it's safe for them).

Do daily ~20% water changes or as needed for a week and re-evaluate. It will take some weeks to fully cycle - but when it does, it will be pretty stable.

An air stone will slightly increase free ammonia, but not enough to worry about. Once a week probably isn't enough for water changes for two unless the tank is very big and I'm guessing the chemicals probably aren't really doing much.

Do a change now and get the ammonia out. Then cycle like normal.

Thanks Chirple. Just did a near-full water change. I'll do daily 20% changes for a while and see how that fares.

I'm sort of aware of what a 'cycle' involves, but does it mean a tank is cycled when finally all the ammonia is gone and the biofilter is all set up? How long does that normally take?

Also, how often should I be cleaning the filter? I don't want to go cleaning it too often and getting rid of all the good bacteria on it.

sliemm said:

Thanks Chirple. Just did a near-full water change. I'll do daily 20% changes for a while and see how that fares.

I'm sort of aware of what a 'cycle' involves, but does it mean a tank is cycled when finally all the ammonia is gone and the biofilter is all set up? How long does that normally take?

Also, how often should I be cleaning the filter? I don't want to go cleaning it too often and getting rid of all the good bacteria on it.

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I just have to say, I disagree with saying not to use chlorine/chloramine removers if you're following directions (if the advice is not to use them at all). I'm not certain the high levels for removing ammonia are entirely safe for amphibians, but chlorine certainly isn't. One good alternative, if your municipality uses chlorine, is to just let the water sit for a couple days. That won't remove chloramine, but will make chlorine entirely safe without chemicals.

You're pretty much right. Cycling is building up the levels of bacteria to handle the load (a cycled tank has enough bacteria). So the signs of a cycled tank are both ammonia and nitrite being essentially zero. The final product, nitrate, will be higher, but is fairly safe (50 ppm is generally considered ok for most fish). Cycle time varies. Adding a few fish straight to a tank, I'd say often around ~3-4 weeks to fully cycle (and large daily water changes!). If you start with media from another tank, it may be pretty much instantly cycled. I haven't used the bacterial booster products, but they may speed things way up.

On cleaning filters, I'd say it depends. I'm primarily a fish person (~200 gallons on fish, only one axie tank). Generally I clean the filters gently in my fish aquariums every three weeks or so, as they start to clog. My axie I clean the filter every four or maybe five weeks, because he doesn't clog it as fast.

If you clean a filter carefully, you won't kill off too many bacteria. As a minimum, you should use dechlorinated water at a proper temp. Many people clean the filter media directly in the water taken out of the tank,which is a good idea.

Sorry, I meant the chemicals that go above and beyond simply removing chlorine/amine, I should have been more specific - I see how that could be interpreted wrong and definitely don't mean that !

The supposed "ammonia removers" are what concern me - I'm wondering what's in them and if they really work at all, because they don't seem to have made a real difference and I've heard of them being more harmful than good on here before.

If you can get live media from a trusted tank, it will definitely help speed things up. I did this through a local pet store, but it's important to make sure you trust their tanks - you don't want to get someone else's problems too.

I have a sponge filter, and I squeeze it out in the bucket of water that I siphon out of the tank, about every two weeks. I have lots of plants, though - and lots of wandering plant matter that gets in it - so if you don't monthly or so would probably be fine. Just keep an eye on it.

3-6 weeks is normal to cycle to a tank. Also, once your tank is cycled, you should be doing about 20% a week - but it will vary a bit depending on your bioload. My one axolotl in a 20 gallon tank with lots of plants does fine on this - but I might need to do twice a week if I had two in the same tank - but it's really about watching your levels and finding out what suits the tank.

Also, a "sign" that your tank is getting cycled is that it will start to smell like a nice forest instead of rotten eggs.

I can understand that. I fairly well trust Prime and such to remove some ammonia, but a large water change is still a much better choice.

The smell comment is interesting, From experience, I feel like I can usually smell dangerous levels of ammonia. I'm not so certain about nitrite, I don't think I can. Nitrate I'm certain I can't. Anyone else with experience care to comment about using smell as a testing tool?

sliemm said:

Thanks Chirple. Just did a near-full water change. I'll do daily 20% changes for a while and see how that fares.

I'm sort of aware of what a 'cycle' involves, but does it mean a tank is cycled when finally all the ammonia is gone and the biofilter is all set up? How long does that normally take?

Also, how often should I be cleaning the filter? I don't want to go cleaning it too often and getting rid of all the good bacteria on it.

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I just wanted to mention that by performing near-full water changes you are actually potentially slowing down your tank cycling. A tank NEEDS ammonia in it for it to cycle, as the beneficial bacteria that feed on ammonia must have it in order to colonize on the surfaces in your tank.
Smaller, daily water changes of 20% like suggested is a much better option for your tank cycling... but perhaps not as great for your axies unfortunately. Try and keep the levels below .5ppm, your axolotls should be fine with that as long as the water is cool. The warmer the water the more ammonia in the water tends adversely affect them.

I cycled my tank with my axies in it and the ammonia levels hovered around .5ppm sometimes up to 1ppm and they actually bred and produced very strong offspring O_O which I thought was rather amazing. This was in winter though and my tank temp averaged 17 degrees. I also had a massive ammonia spike right before the nitrites popped so I had to actually remove them from the tank as it was at a high enough level to do damage, so be weary of this...

Also, bottled bacteria is rather useless (though pet stores will claim it's "amazing!") and won't help with anything. I would discontinue it's use and do not use any other products (ie. Ammo-Lock) as these just tend to make the situation worse by introducing more chemicals. All you should need to do is continue using your dechlorinator as chlorine will be very very bad for your axies. No other chemicals are needed and will often do more harm than good.

Good luck!

sliemm said:

I'm sort of aware of what a 'cycle' involves, but does it mean a tank is cycled when finally all the ammonia is gone and the biofilter is all set up? How long does that normally take?

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In terms of cycling a tank, I found this group of three videos on Youtube that explains it pretty well. It's pretty basic, but it helped me get an understanding of the process when I started out.

Basically, "cycling" refers to the nitrogen cycle, which is what you'll find in natural lakes, ponds, etc. Animals and anything rotting (old food, pieces of plant, etc) in the tank cause ammonia to form. There's a type of bacteria that "eats" ammonia naturally found in water, and it will begin to colonize your tank. This bacteria takes ammonia away and creates nitrite as a waste product. Nitrite is still dangerous, but not as bad as ammonia. After nitrite begins to appear in your tank, a second kind of bacteria that "eats" nitrite will colonize your tank. These guys produce nitrate as waste. Nitrate is the least dangerous of the three (ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate), and animals living in the aquarium can typically tolerate levels up to 35-40 ppm (rather than the 0.5 ppm of ammonia).

Good luck getting your tank cycled! It can take weeks and weeks, but it's the ultimate goal for a healthy tank. One thing to consider though is the fact that using chemicals to take out ammonia means you won't be leaving any for the bacteria to begin "eating" and growing on.

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

Wow, thanks for all this helpful info. I've been doing daily water cycles of about 20% of the tank, and the ammonia levels are down to around .5ppm now. I'll keep this up for a while I think, it seems to be working!

If you keep things under control, the bacteria will fix everything soon. I was there, after abandoning aquariums and coming back later.

You're doing exactly the right thing, test every day (or a couple times a day) and change water to keep water parameters from becoming toxic. Suddenly the bioload will catch up, and the tank will be cycled.

sliemm said:

If anyone could help me here I'd be very appreciative. I bought an aquarium about three weeks back and I've been performing weekly tank empties, then adding fresh water, then appropriate amounts of biofilter liquid and a liquid that gets rid of ammonia and chloramines.

I've been taking chemical readings and had a slight ammonia level last week. I emptied about half the tank this weekend, then refilled, added the liquids again, and have just taken a reading and the ammonia level is horribly high. I've also noticed my axies stopped eating about a day ago.

I'm totally baffled as to how to get rid of ammonia; can't really find anything on the forums about what to do when a tank has high ammonia levels. What are the methods involved? I bought an air stone recently and have been using that - has it been making things better or worse?

Click to expand...

Feel free to correct me if im wrong, but I've always added the dechlorinator stuff to my tap water before putting it in the tank, this way the chlorine/chloramine is neutralized before it can kill the BB in the tank. I think if you're putting your water into your tank, and then adding the dechlorinator, the chlorine in your tap water will kill some or most of your bacteria. just my 2 cents

Cheers for all your help folks. A few weeks on, after stepping down cycles to every second night (20 per cent replacement) and ditching the rather superfluous liquid biofilter and anti-ammonia drops, and my tank is practically at 0% ammonia levels. Nice!

sliemm said:

Cheers for all your help folks. A few weeks on, after stepping down cycles to every second night (20 per cent replacement) and ditching the rather superfluous liquid biofilter and anti-ammonia drops, and my tank is practically at 0% ammonia levels. Nice!

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Congrats! You're past the stage that drives most people out of aquatic pets. From here it should be smooth sailing, with water changes as need. Once you figure out how often to clean and change water, things will be pretty easy.