high ammonia levels...why?

trojannemo · 02-14-2008, 10:51 AM

ok let me give some background info. in early january i started with a 10 gallon tank. didnt know anything about anything concerning fish keeping. lost some fish to cycling due to that

anyways, at the LFS they suggested Cycle and a huge overdose of it, did that and the tank water went from cloudy and dirty to looking perfect....then i joined here...then i upgraded to this 38G that i have now....that was two weeks tomorrow...

when doing that i put it a new 40G filter, and kept on using my original 20G biowheel to transfer over bacteria, along with putting all the gravel i had on the original 10 gallon and the plants, in here (and rocks, and drift wood as well). then like 2 fish have died on this tank

so i checked my ammonia, it was at like 2.0

did a 30% water change, vacuuming 3 buckets worth of crap from the gravel. yesterday i added a whole bottle ful of Cycle...

now i'm testing and everything's fine (nitrates, nitrites, ph, alkalinity, hardness) except ammonia...which says it's at 4.0!?!?! wouldn't that be killing the fish already? i guess i'll do another water change but i'm not noticing any improvement doing them or putting in ammolock (tried it last week) or the cycle. now i'm running a new bigger (50G) bio-wheel so i should have plenty of filtration, there's plenty of water flow for things to float around, and i just got an algae scraper magnet because i was getting algae in the tank (which i was told grows from ammonia? is that correct?)...

any suggestions? is it that the tank has to cycle all over again despite everything i transferred from the 10 gallon and i just have to wait it out? water is crystal clear btw, just when testing the ammonia levels i see a problem. the two fish that died were a german blue ram, which i've heard none of my parameters were good for (too high ph and hard water) and a gold algae eater i've had for about 4 weeks already...he i'm guessing was the ammonia that got him...please give me ANY suggestions, i'll take them...

EDIT: after posting here, I vacuumed again (last time was tuesday), about 25% water change. Added the rest of the gravel i was missing (after washing) and added aquasafe and aquarium salt to compensate...30 minutes later i tested and same results, all the other parameters are testing fine, ammonia still came up at 4.0!!! help please!

jwurm · 02-14-2008, 05:22 PM

Yeah, it seems to me that your cycle was probably disrupted during the move to a larger tank. I wouldn't clean the filter or the gravel until you are sure that it has finished cycling.

trojannemo · 02-14-2008, 06:11 PM

well i took the water to be tested at a local store and the guy told me my ammonia tests high but the nitrites don't, so he said it's probably the fact that i used ammo-lock recently that's throwing off the test results...let's hope things get better

tony · 02-22-2008, 04:41 PM

hey nemo,

You were probably good with the 40 gallon filter, also how many fish do you have? Any cycle with fish should be with only 2-3 fish. If you have too many fish your tank will take forever to cycle or never cycle at all. High ammonia levels are toxic to bacteria. By switching filters again from a 40 to a 50 probably only lengthened the cycle, stick with your current filter.

Also understand that ammo-lock does not remove ammonia it turns it into ammonium which is almost non-toxic to fish. So tests will still test positive for ammonia cause technically its still there. Time and patience.

If your still having the problem message me.