ok so I have had my tank cycled for about 2 weeks now. I cycled my 10 gallon tank with 4 danios. So a few days ago I went out and bought 3 new guppies and now im seeing an ammonia reading of about .25-.5 and nitrite of 0 and nitrate of 10-20. Why did my ammonia go up? did i add too many fish? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Tank cycled now ammonia spike?
- Thread starter FiShNoObIe88
- Start date
This sounds like a classic case of adding stock too quickly in a small tank. I suggest doing daily 25% water changes until things settle out. If you're using Prime as your water conditioner, you can do an emergency dose if you aren't able to do a water change right away.
Normally a newly established tank only grows enough bacteria to accomodate for the amount of bioload that you have in your tank so adding new fish will cause a spike in ammonia. As you tank matures more, you should be able to grow enough bacteria to accomodate for minor changes in your tanks as well. .25-.50 ppm isn't extremely bad but I would definitely keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't go up my more. Given the scenario, I probably wouldn't do a lot of water changes, probably only twice a week just because you do to allow the tank some time to grow more bacteria. I would also suggest using stability (if you like the seachem line) or stress zyme (if you prefer the API brand) to help your biofiltration or any other brand of bacteria that you have on hand (probably isn't going to be necessary to add more than 1 bacteria supplement).
definitely do a 25% water change and treat the water with amquel+ or prime to detox the ammonia until the bacteria can catch up.