Ammonia

The shop is talking rubbish I'm afraid.

Ammonia in water exists in 2 forms, ammonia and ammonium. The only things that decide how much is in each form are the temperature and pH. Duration of tank has nothing to do with it.

In one way, though, the shop is right about not doing water changes because the bacteria will grow faster the more there is. But it will also kill or damage your fish. Cycling with fish is a compromise between keeping the fish safe and having enough ammonia to grow the bacteria quickly. Being exposed to ammonia and/or nitrite shortens the life of a fish, and makes them more susceptible to disease.

The simplest way to deal with ammonia or nitrite is to do frequent enough water changes to stop either of them ever reaching as high as 0.25. That will keep the fish safe, but also make the cycle last longer. As I said, it's a compromise.

But if you don't mind something a bit more complex, there is another way to look at ammonia. Our test kits measure ammonia and ammonium combined; they can't tell the difference. But we can calculate how much of each makes up that reading. All you need are your ammonia reading, the pH of the tank and the temperature of the tank. Then go to this website.
Enter the ammonia reading in the total ammonia measurement box; set salinity to zero; then your pH and temp in the next 2 boxes. (Make sure you use the right temp scale!) Then click calculate. The figure you want is the lower one, NH3 concentration. This is the amount of your reading that is in the toxic ammonia form. Your aim is to keep that figure below 0.02.
Using this calculator it doesn't matter how high the test results get as long as the calculator figure stays below 0.02 and the test reading stays below 2.0 - ammonium isn't non-toxic, it is less toxic and above a test reading of 2.0 even ammonium starts to become toxic. This will allow your total ammonia-plus-ammonium to get higher than the 'keep below 0.25' way and allow the tank to cycle faster.


But you also need to keep nitrite below 0.25 as there is no less-toxic form of nitrite; it is all toxic. If your nitrite reading gets higher than it is now, there is something you can do; ask if you need to know.



Ammonia treatments can help but only short term. Their effect lasts around 24 hours. You could try using a dechlorinator that detoxifies ammonia, but also do water changes when the calculator says you need to. The tester measures the detoxified ammonia the same as non-detoxified except for when using Seachem Prime. For some reason that one can distort the ammonia test


I'm afraid that the reason your fish are dying is the ammonia and possibly nitrite, if that has ever been over 0.25. Gasping at the surface is the classical symptom as both affect the fish's ability to get oxygen from the water so they go where the oxygen is richest - where the water makes contact with air. If they were getting sick from another cause you would probably see physical signs eg white spots or white patches on the skin, or swollen bodies.


If the plants are growing well, they will help as plants use ammonia as fertiliser.




So, after that essay -
Use the calculator to work out the ammonia portion of the test reading. If  that figure is now or becomes over 0.02, do a water change.
Keep an eye on the nitrite reading and if that reaches 0.25, come back and tell us.

And ignore the shop.

Low pH = acid, high pH = basic. So you are really asking how can you reduce the acidity 

The first thing to do about pH is check the pH of your tap water. Both freshly run tap water and a glass of water that's been allowed to stand overnight. Sometimes the water company adds things to the water which can change the pH. Letting it stand allows gasses to gas out (in the same way that a glass of lemonade left standing will go flat). Since the water in the tank is not freshly run, you need to compare the tank to the 'stood' water to see if it is something in the tank that is causing the change.

Next thing to think about is how hard your water is. That should be somewhere on your water company's website. GH, general hardness, what the water company means by hard or soft, is usually high or low with carbonate hardness (KH). They are usually both high or low together. KH stabilises pH so if you have soft water it is possible for the pH to fall. Especially if you have something in the tank that can cause low pH. Wood is the most common thing we have in our tanks that can lower pH.
If you have hard water, it is possible to have low KH but that would be unusual and we'd need to think of something else besides just wood, unless your tank is stuffed full of it.


The position of the heater won't affect the temp. (OK well it can but usually if it is vertical and the water flow round it is so slow that the hot water rises and isn't swooshed round the tank, then the hot water can cause the thermostat to turn off and most of the tank is left too cold)
Is the thermometer one of the liquid filled ones that go inside the tank, a digital one, or a stick on the outside kind? The outside the tank ones can give false readings as they are affected by the air temperature, so if you have the central heating turned up high it could be giving a false high.
Have you tried unplugging the heater to see what happens to the temp over a few hours? Don't do this overnight though in case the temp drops right down while you are asleep.





Re the dying fish, that ammonia last week of 0.323 is much higher than the safe limit of 0.02. Even 0.05 is only OK for a couple of days. Put it down to bad advice, and take everything the shop tells you with a pinch of salt in future.

Be guided by the ammonia and nitrite results re water changes. If the ammonia level in the calculator gets near 0.02, do a water change. If nitrite gets near 0.25, do a water change.


You could always get a piece of limestone or tufa rock, or a shell (make sure it's not been lacquered or anything). Both of those will slowly dissolve adding both GH and KH to the water. That will help stabilise the pH.
But test the pH of some freshly run tap water and leave a glass of water to stand overnight and then test the pH. It will be interesting to compare both of them to the tank's pH.

Yes, if the old gravel did contain calcium carbonate, that would definitely have helped boost the KH and stablise the pH. Using crushed limestone or coral gravel is one way to do it, but I didn't think you'd want to bother changing it just yet with coping with the ammonia as well 

Do you still have the old gravel? If you do, it would be worth putting it back for a while. Once you've got the tank cycled, that will be the time to think about the best method going forwards.

Member fcmf will probably be the best person to advise you on your soft water as she also has very soft water and has learned a few ways of coping with it.

Hi, tonights results are ammonia 0.0007, ph 6.6-6.8 depending which test I use (api or jbl)nitrate 0 (yey) nitrite a disappointing .25. So after doing a 30% water change today we seem to have nipped ammonia in the bud for the time being at least. Now its time to look at nitrites and we don't have a clue . I will go to the LFS tomorrow and get limestone or coral to raise the pH.
With your help we have a much greater understanding of the complexities of fishkeeping than we had two days ago.
Now nitrites, where do we start ?

Thanks for that,at least we have salt but my calculation comes in at 0.13 of a gram and our scales wouldn't even register that! Have I calculated correctly ? The reading is .25 and the tank is 35 litre.

No, it is 0.13 g. And yes, that would be very difficult to measure.


There is one way.
Measure 10g salt and dissolve it in 100ml tap water (weigh 100g water if you don't trust the accuracy of a measuring jug). Each ml will contain 0.1g salt. Keep this solution in a container (you'll need to add more if the nitrite reading goes up, or if you do a water change). Add salt solution to the tub of tank water rather than solid salt. If you need 0.13g, you want 1.3ml of the solution. A syringe would come in handy for this. You can get babies' medicine dosing syringes from the local pharmacy; they come in sizes from 1ml up. Make sure you ask for a babies medicine syringe as I know from personal experience that if you ask for just a syringe, they'll want to know why.



I think 10g salt will dissolve in 100ml water. If not, dissolve it in a litre of water (1000ml). Each 10ml would contain 0.1g, so 0.13g would need 13ml solution.

Thanks Sue, just tested for nitrates and api says .25 whereas the jbl says.4 so immediate action is needed I think. Will the salt drop the nitrites straight away or take some time ?

I assume you meant nitrites 

Salt doesn't lower nitrite, it just stops nitrite harming the fish. During a fish-in cycle, once there enough  ammonia eaters to start making nitrite, the nitrite reading goes up and up. When using salt to mitigate the effects, you add enough for the amount of nitrite as soon as you see any. The next day, if the reading has gone up, you add more - the amount for the rise in nitrite. For example, someone has 0.25 ppm nitrite in a 35 litre tank today - they add 0.13g salt. Tomorrow they find nitrite has gone up to 1.5; 1.5 (that day's reading) - 0.25 (day before's reading) = 1.25. Running 1.25 through the calculation gives 0.65 so they then add another 0.65g salt. And so on till the nitrite reading starts to fall.
The problem comes when nitrite goes off the top of the scale as you don't know how high it actually is. With 35 litres, rather than try to do an accurate dilution test, the easiest thing to do would be a huge water change and start the process again from the beginning.

The way a cycle goes, whether fish-in or fishless, is that ammonia goes into the tank but there are hardly any bacteria to eat it. The few there gradually multiply but until they do, with fish-in, the ammonia builds up until there enough bacteria. AS they are multiplying there is still ammonia being made so for a while the ammonia reading goes up before it can come down. As the bacteria eaters multiply they start making more and more nitrite. Again, this goes up and up until the nitrite eaters multiply enough to start reducing it. And the nitrite eaters can only start to multiply once the ammonia eaters have started making nitrite.

You results suggest that your nitrite is going up fast. You remove a lot of nitrite with each water change but it build back up again before the next one.


Do you mean blood is coming our of the gills, or that they look bright red? Bright red gills is a symptom of ammonia. Nitrite causes the blood to go brown. Nitrite does eventually wash out of the blood but it does take a while.

Thankyou,unfortunately my LFS doesn't stock it so will have to look elsewhere.
I think we were at a point yesterday where a lot of people have been, wondering if it's all worth it. We decided it is and so we will persevere.