agabr123

This is somewhat in another thread but more appropriate here. We just tested our tap water reading ammonia at approximately 1.5 PPM with an API master test kit. All of our unfiltered and uncycled tanks (two 2.5 gal, one 1.75 gal, one 1.5 gal, one betta each) are showing readings of somewhere around .75 ppm ammonia. Besides not really understanding how this could possibly happen since all we add is Prime and others have said that that only detoxifies the ammonia and should therefore show the exact same reading (or higher) than the tap water, I have a few other questions.

1. Will a Brita or Pur pitcher remove ammonia (we can't have the faucet attachment in the dorm, and it probably wouldn't fit anyway)?

2. Is there any chemical/water treatment that actually REMOVES ammonia rather than just detoxifying it for 24 hours or however long?

3. Is there any test that we can use that will show us how much HARMFUL ammonia is in the tank, as opposed to whatever ammonia was treated and detoxified by the Prime or Ammo Lock or whatever the case may be?

One of our bettas is showing signs of ammonia burns and the others may not be far behind. Please help!

Matt

brita would work. Try some medications from ur LFS. get a test kit and test water ASAP.

Get your fish out of the tank then put some medication in the AMMONIA tank and test water the next day.

I Hope Your Betta Makes It

From Matt

Always Happy To Help

agabr123

Thank you, we'll be going to the pet store in the AM. Our poor little guy has pretty bad burns. We gave him a 100% water change and luckily I had a new case of bottled water (RO/Distilled) so hopefully that will be alright until we can figure out something else.

There are pics of him here...
septicemia?

Matt

He doesnt Look To Bad. But as soon as you get the water test kits and the medication i would test water and put medication in

I would get him out of the tank he is in now

This may sound weird but if u dont act stressed then often your fish stay strong and beat the sickness/problem

So Stay Strong

From Matt

Shawnie

agabr...medications will NOT help your betta's ....ALL ammonia is harmful so dont think because its low that its ok....there is some ammonia remover pellets that you can put in your filter area but your tanks are too small for them and you dont have filters so that wont work..the best thing to do where you have small tanks is get spring water for your water changes and continue with that daily with your prime..medicating betta's is almost worse than more good..especially for just cycleing a tank there never should be meds used as it will kill your beneficial bacteria...I know you are frustrated with all of this but there is no quick cure when cycleing with fishies please dont put any meds in with your boys!

edit: was at walmart last night..they have 1-3 gal whisper filters for $8!!

Lucy

1) Not sure, maybe their website can answer this question.

2) This thread might answer this question:
Ammonia in Tap Water

3) Any amount of ammonia is toxic to your fish. This is one of the reasons your bettas need filtered, cycled, heated tanks.
Once you properly cycle a tank, it will have enough beneficial bacteria to process the ammonia that's in the tap and your fish creates.

Edit: I agree with Shawnie, the bettas do not need medications, they are not sick in the sense that they need medicating.
The only thing that will help is getting a filter and cycling the tank.

agabr123

Filters are really only plausible on two of our tanks, we had a filter on the 1.5 gallon tank, but first we had to reduce the flow because it was WAY too strong and our poor guy almost got his fins caught in it, and after a few creative ideas we were concerned that the air coming through the tube would get backed up (we taped one of those large chip bag clips on it) and basically explode, and then it just stopped working. I'm not sure exactly what kind of filter it was, it came with the whole set up. But honestly I'm probably just going to go buy at least two today and once those are cycled maybe try to do water changes using that water for my other two. Would it be okay for me to use water from my cycled 10 gallon tank for them? And how long could our filter for the 10 gallon tank be taken out if i want to just get a big batch of water ready and have it all go through the filter?

Also, as an immediate solution and referring back to my previous question, Matt said that a Brita water pitcher would work, I did check their website but it didn't specifically say ammonia, has anyone used one successfully for that purpose?

How do people feel about bottled water that is RO/Distilled? I've heard mixed reviews, some say it's great and others say that there isn't enough oxygen.

I was thinking of medication in the sense of water treatment (Prime, stress coat, etc). He may have meant actual medication but I didn't add any. I was too concerned about just trying to make them okay. For now, does this mean I have to do 100% water changes daily with prime?

Lucy

You have a cycled 10g?
If you get the filters today, you can cut some of your cycled filter media to seed the new filters.
You can also take a handful of gravel from your established tank, put it in some clean, never seen soap panty hose and hang that in the smaller tanks.
That should seed the betta tanks nicely.

Then just keep an eye on your water parameters, do water changes as needed, using Prime.

Allie

It doesn't sound like you researched much before getting into fish keeping.
Any source of ammonia is bad especially if you have fish in the tank. Do a water change daily until the reading stays at 0. If you cannot provided the proepr home for your fish, then maybe it is time to take down some tanks until you can afford to get 3-5g heated, filtered tanks for your fish.
Never interchange up anything between any tanks...you never know what diseases are lurking in the tanks. Just let your tap water sit over night, 24 hrs- a few days... takes all the badies out of the water. That's all we do here.

agabr123

Honestly, most of the fish we got by accident. Two of our suitemates decided that it would be a good idea to get female bettas for their male bettas. When that didn't work out, we originally decided to put the two females in our 10 gallon tank, because all we had at that time was two cory cats and it was cycled, filtered, and heated. And I knew they couldn't stay with the males, they would have gotten killed. That didn't work out so well as the larger of the two was very aggressive. We did a little research and saw that if there were three or more female bettas, then they could form a hierarchy and they wouldn't fight amongst themselves. Hence came our third betta girl, but that didn't work out either (she was more aggressive than the first), so we've really been playing catch up since then. We bought extra tanks, and originally had the smallest and least aggressive of our betta girls in our 10 gal with a few other fish, but (as posted in another thread) she ate all of their food and got extremely fat, so she needed her own tank. Neither of us knew anyone that we could give the bettas to that could afford to give them a good home, so in a rush we ended up getting two 2.5 gallon tanks. We have heaters in each 2.5 gal and had to order two more online for the 1.5 and 1.75 because we couldn't find any that were small enough at any of our LFS. We did manage to find a home for one of our females, but unfortunately she used some kind of water conditioner that I had never heard of, and she died after the first water change in her new home.

To make a long story short, we've been doing the best we can with the resources we have. Originally, we just had our one male betta (Billy), and our 10 gallon tank that has great water parameters.

At any rate, everyone got 100% water changes with prime added, so hopefully that will hold them over for a little while until I can get new filters.

Shawnie

daily changes are needed and 30-50% will be great...100% not needed.....


and allie, setting water over night doesnt work for alot of people as chloromides dont dissolve and most cities are using that as well as chlorine now