Ammo-Lock and API ammonia test kit results

HI all,

This is my first post in this forum. I have cumulatively about 3 years of fish-keeping experience (so not much at all, really, and this was when I was very young) but I have recently started back into the hobby after a 9 year hiatus with a brand new 20 gallon freshwater tank. I decided to do a fish-in cycle for this one, because I'm impatient (I know, I'm sorry). The tank has been cycling for 3 weeks now. Here are the tank specs right off the bat:

20 gallon long
LED lighted canopy
15 watt fluorescent bulb off to the side for live plants
Whisper 20 power filter
Preset heater (came with the kit, keeps the temp at around 78)
fluorite gravel
Plants: 1 green cabomba, 1 small ozelot sword, 1 large green ozelot sword, 1 rotala indica, 1 anubias on driftwood, 1 java fern, 1 green hedge, and 1 lutea crypt
Fish (don't tear me apart for having this many this soon please, it was a mistake I know but now I have to deal with it): 1 male betta, 2 male guppies, 4 female guppies, 10 neon tetras. The fish were all added a week apart by species, in the order listed.

Now for the problem I'm having. First, the good news. All of the fish seem perfectly healthy and have not exhibited any signs of stress (so far). I am using a product called Ammo-Lock to detoxify the ammonia in the aquarium while it cycles so as not to harm the fish (it claims to do this by converting it to ammonium). I know that using this product should still give me normal ammonia readings for a cycling tank with the API ammonia test kit, which is what I am using, right? This is all well and good. HOWEVER, The ammonia readings I am getting are off the charts. Like above 8.0 ppm. Which seems crazy to me even with the bioload I have and how quickly (and stupidly) I have added it. I did some testing of my tap water without anything added to it: 0 ppm ammonia, with my dechlorinator added: 0 ppm ammonia, with the dechlorinator AND ammo-lock: between 0.25 and 0.5 ppm ammonia. So therefore, the ammo-lock alone cannot explain why I am getting such high readings. The main reason I am perplexed is because I am also doing daily 40-50% water changes and this has literally no effect on the ammonia levels in the tank, which, (presumably thanks to ammo-lock) do not seem to be perturbing the fish in the slightest. I have not yet lost a single fish. Can anyone who has had a similar problem or has some insight shed some light on this situation please?

Oh, by the way, my nitrites are still at 0 ppm. Shouldn't they have at least started to climb by the end of week 3?

Thank you all in advance.

 

I never recommend using ammonia neutralizing agents (no, not even Prime... for space wizard reasons only I am capable of understanding). If there is an ammonia problem, treat the cause, not the effects, as I always say, unless the fish are in immediate danger.

But, rather than opening up the pseudo-intellectual can of worms about whether Nitrobacteraceae are able to use ammonium (NH4+) in the same reactions that require (NH3) to catalyze certain chemical reactions, let's talk about the API ammonia test kit.

The API test kit measures total ammonia, both NH3 and NH4+, the cation of ammonia. Aliphatic amine salts (the primary compound utilized in AmmoLock), however, not only neutralizes/converts ammonia into a different substance, it also locks and converts chloramines, a derivative of ammonia. I'm very fuzzy as to how the reaction processes work, but I believe it's possible that the AmmoLock is converting not only the ammonia, but the chloramines in the tap water into something that can be registered by the API test kit, possibly ammonium or another chemical derivative of ammonia. Again, I'm not certain, but these seems highly likely, given the results. It's entirely possible that the AmmoLock will skew the test result readings much in the same way Prime does, although again, I'm not positive on how the chemical reactions of both products work.

There seems to be a lot of annecdotal evidence pointing to this conclusion: AmmoLock, and products like it, will skew liquid reagent test kits, specifically Nessler-based kits.

With that being said, why are you using AmmoLock? If you're not seeing ammonia spikes, I would recommend you discontinue using that particular product and stick with a normal dechlorinator. This may also explain your like of nitrate (NO3-).

 

Thank you for the informative response. The reason I started using ammo-lock was because as this is a new and as-yet uncycled tank, I did notice ammonia starting to climb after the first week. It was around 0.25 or 0.5 PPM when I started using the ammo-lock. The main issue I'm having is that while the ammo-lock protects my fish, I won't know if ammonia levels have begun to drop and the cycle is moving along. I suppose I'll just keep testing for nitrites to see... so far I'm always measuring 0 PPM, and I assume that this is because the ammonia problem has not yet been dealt with... although is it possible that after more than 3 weeks the tank has completely cycled without me even noticing and that's why my nitrites are at 0, and that my ammonia readings are coming exclusively from the ammo-lock? Too much to hope for probably, but maybe...

 

As far as I know, the ammonia test measures total ammonia levels. So even if ammo-lock is converting the ammonia, it'll still read high on the kit test.

That said, you probably don't need to be using it at all by this point.

 

Ok thanks. I'll stop using it for a few days, and keep tabs on the ammonia levels while doing regular water changes. If anything scary happens, I'll toss some more in.

 

Hey guys, just thought I would do a quick follow-up to this thread. It's a week later, so five weeks since the tank has had fish in it. Still haven't lost any fish, and they're all happy and healthy (one of my male guppies had a big rip in his tail fin so I moved him to the QT tank, but that's a different story): brightly coloured, active, and most of all hungry. I've stopped doing the daily water changes, as they weren't doing jack to my alleged ammonia levels... and, I am testing daily, and still getting crazy readings like 2.0 PPM ammonia. Nitrites are still at zero. I have no idea why this is happening, as I have not used ammo-lock for about 5-6 days now, so I don't think it can be skewing the results at this point. yet, the ammonia levels still aren't bothering the fish: none of them are gasping for air, breathing even a little hard, having clamped fins, or anything: all are acting perfectly normally. I know my test kit is good because I tested the tap water and got 0 PPM ammonia. I am very confused as to why I am still getting such high ammonia readings 5 weeks in and with 0 PPM nitrites.