Weeg
Enabler
Thought I would reel in some of the fish experts on here to hopefully shed some light on this.
We have had a fish tank for af ew months now, and recently got an older friend ours a fish tank as well. I got her all of the testing stuff, and she can do all of that easily, and sends me pictures if she has questions. We got her Prime water conditioner as well, to detoxify the Chlorine in her water, and to use to help detoxify ammonia. She has 5 in one test steps, and an ammonia tester.
My question is, I tested the ammonia last time I was their, (after she lost a fish) and it was really high. It was at 2.0 maybe a little higher, but not 4.0 yet. Their were some power outages about a week before, so maybe that contributed to the problem? We did a 50% water change, put the Prime in, and bough more live plants and some beneficial bacteria for the tank, incase the bacteria not building up yet was a problem. I know that started tanks can have high ammonia levels in the beginning, but she has had it for abbot 2 months now.
We are using an under gravel filter, with whisper air pump. I got the ammonia down to .25 before I left, but now a week later, (after cutting down on feeding, doing water changes once a week, were she was doing it every 2 weeks and a deep clean once a month, getting more live plants and all the other stuff I bought) the ammonia is back up to 1.0. I am starting to get concerned that the tank is overstocked.
Its a 10 gallon tank, we asked the fish person at Petsmart to double check who many fish were going to fit. We ended up buying 3 Dalmatian Mollies, 3 Red Wag Platy, and 5 Neon Tetras.
She did end up getting one more fish after that, which I wouldn't have suggested getting, she got a Cory Catfish to help get the algae off the fake plants. Se lost one of the Platy's, so now she has two of the platy's, the Catfish, plus the others.
Thanks for any suggestions! Is the tank overstocked or is something else the problem?
We have had a fish tank for af ew months now, and recently got an older friend ours a fish tank as well. I got her all of the testing stuff, and she can do all of that easily, and sends me pictures if she has questions. We got her Prime water conditioner as well, to detoxify the Chlorine in her water, and to use to help detoxify ammonia. She has 5 in one test steps, and an ammonia tester.
My question is, I tested the ammonia last time I was their, (after she lost a fish) and it was really high. It was at 2.0 maybe a little higher, but not 4.0 yet. Their were some power outages about a week before, so maybe that contributed to the problem? We did a 50% water change, put the Prime in, and bough more live plants and some beneficial bacteria for the tank, incase the bacteria not building up yet was a problem. I know that started tanks can have high ammonia levels in the beginning, but she has had it for abbot 2 months now.
We are using an under gravel filter, with whisper air pump. I got the ammonia down to .25 before I left, but now a week later, (after cutting down on feeding, doing water changes once a week, were she was doing it every 2 weeks and a deep clean once a month, getting more live plants and all the other stuff I bought) the ammonia is back up to 1.0. I am starting to get concerned that the tank is overstocked.
Its a 10 gallon tank, we asked the fish person at Petsmart to double check who many fish were going to fit. We ended up buying 3 Dalmatian Mollies, 3 Red Wag Platy, and 5 Neon Tetras.
She did end up getting one more fish after that, which I wouldn't have suggested getting, she got a Cory Catfish to help get the algae off the fake plants. Se lost one of the Platy's, so now she has two of the platy's, the Catfish, plus the others.
Thanks for any suggestions! Is the tank overstocked or is something else the problem?
