How long does it take Ammonia chips to clear up a fish tank?
My son has a 39 gallon hexagon fish tank. He has only about 10 community fish (and 8 platty babies) that are all about 1/1/2-2″ long. No goldfish are in the tank. We started it in January and great luck with letting it cycle for two weeks and then very slowly introducing fish in to it. One had babies a month ago, but no other additons. One fish did die that we purchased. I think we are good for fish vs gallons.
Our routine has been to clean the tank every other weekend with a 20% water change and then use Start Right and let the water adjust before adding it back shortly after. We have no direct light on the tank. Two weeks ago I decided that we needed to change more and did a 50% water change which I know was a mistake. The fish store clerk had us add Ammonia chips to the filter pouch. Any idea how long this will take to clear up? It has only been a day and 1/2, but so far I am not sure I see results. Maybe we are cycling again?
When you do a water change that large, it can cause a “mini cycle” to occur, which it sounds like what your tank is going through.
In my experience, the ammonia chips don’t do a whole lot – best bet is to change 10% of the water every other day, and add Amquel Plus – Amquel will help remove some of the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate and keep it safer for your fish while it finishes cycling again.
Make sure to never change more than 25% of the water in the future, and NEVER change your filter media the same day you do a water change, as that will kill too much of the beneficial bacteria and cause another mini cycle again.
Just try to keep the ammonia levels low with the Amquel and water changes and all your fish will be fine, but will be a little stressed.
Good luck! For the most part, you sound like you know what you’re doing, so you should be in a good shape. And yes, the number of fish for the tank is just fine.
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I’m not sure I understand the question.
In a properly cycled tank, like yours, there should be no measurable ammonia anyway. Adding the AmmoChips would only serve to deprive the bacteria of nutrients.
It is possible that the Ammo-Chips sucked up the Ammonia and starved out the bacteria colony, in which case you will be starting the cycle over again – but probably not from scratch. Some would have made it, all you will have to do is build it back up.
There is nothing wrong with doing a 50% water change. That won’t hurt anything. The bacteria you are trying to cultivate live in the filter and on surfaces, and very few of them are actually in the water column.
I am not sure what it is that you are trying to clean up, but I would strongly advise against using anything like Ammo-Chips in a properly cycling tank.
The cloud you are seeing is a bacteria rushing to recolonize the filter. The large water change you did could very possibly have shocked the bacteria, killing many of them. Adding ammonia chips will do nothing to clear up the tank water, as it isn’t ammonia that’s making it cloudy. Take out the chips immediately as they will starve the bacteria, forcing you to totally re-cycle the tank. Let the bacteria do their thing so they can keep your ammonia down for you.
Ammonia isn’t something you “see”. You have to perform a water test to know if any is present in your tank. Do you test your water (or have the store do this for you)? You may have been sold something you don’t even need if you didn’t have an ammonia problem.
As long as you’re only doing partial water changes, your tank should have cycled already. So your bacteria should be converting all your ammonia to nitrite and nitrate. With a reduced amount of ammonia, the bacteria lose their energy source and will begin to die off. Ammonia removes should only be used in emergency situations (electric is out for an extended period, you’ve used antibiotics in a heavily stocked tank and killed the beneficial bacteria), and if your fish were doing well beforehand, that’s not what you have.
Take out the ammo chips – these will absorb the ammonia that your bacteria need to cycle the tank and is more likely to cause you problems in the long run.
The only thing related to ammonia which you might “see” is the cloudiness associated with a bacterial bloom as the tank cycles. But even with a 50% water change, you shouldn’t have a major bacteria loss – the bacteria are adhesive and attach to the gravel and your filter media – you’d have to replace the media and do a 100% water change or replace/clean the gravel at the same time for that.
You may have also stirred up a lot of sediment from the gravel when you did the larger water change. The ammo chips will have no effect on this – ammonia is a clear liquid dissolved in the water, the cloudiness here is tiny particles of food and wastes. Regular siphoning will keep this to a minimum, but some will always be present. In this case, your filter should remove the particles (or they’ll settle back out) within a day or so.
Ammonia chips wont do anything for you, apart from remove some of the ammonia that your cycle bacteria need to live.
A large water change will sometimes cause a tank to go cloudy, but it’s generally because you have added a whole lot of fresh nutrients, phosphates, silica compounds, trace elements etc from the tap awater. The normal bacteria and diatoms in the tank have a big party and multiply, and thats why the water goes cloudy. Zillions of little mirco-organsims floating in the water.
As long as you didn’t disturb your filter too much it wont have affected the cycle, and will go away in a few days once the nutrient level settles down to a steady balance again.
50% water changes wont harm your fish or mess with the cycle, but you may get those harmless (but ugly) blooms.
Your tank seems to sensibly stocked, so 20% water chages each week is probably fine, dont do the bigger ones if you dont need to.
Just leave the tank alone for a few days, it will clear up.
A couple of my tanks are a bit overstocked and they get 50% changes every week, and no cloudiness, but another tank ( a hex one interestingly enough) also tends to go cloudy after a big water change. It also clears up in a couple of days.
Ian