Changing Water Every Day

[Woodsman27]

So heres a pic of my tap water after testing it with my API ammonia test kit.




Now id ssy its about a 1.0-1.5ppm.
But what I need help with is, what to do about having to do 50% water changes every dang day. I use prime and aqua safe plus.

Should I use something else like marineland ammonia neutralizer zeolite granuals in my filter?
Or.
Buy spring water from the store and use that to change my water with?

I'm finding that changing my water everyday is a major pain in the butt and I don't want to use a lot of prime all the time.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[A201]

Assuming your LFS has the same water source, might contact the manager and see how they deal with the ammonia situation.
Other than that, I'd go with the zeolite in the filter. Doing 50% WC's everyday becomes a job rather than a hobby. Hope things level out soon.

 

[Seasoldier]

Hi, not sure why you'd be wanting to do 50% water changes every day if your tap is running at 1 - 1.5 ppm ammonia??? You'll constantly be increasing the ammonia in your tank each day rather than letting the BB in your filter process the existing ammonia to nitrite & then nitrate. Is your tank cycled?

 

[Skavatar]

maybe a RO system with a post-filter

"What this means is that a postfilter cartridge containing standard water softener resin should remove ammonia nicely." Removing Chloramine and Ammonia – Pure Water Products, LLC

 

[Woodsman27]

Hi, not sure why you'd be wanting to do 50% water changes every day if your tap is running at 1 - 1.5 ppm ammonia??? You'll constantly be increasing the ammonia in your tank each day rather than letting the BB in your filter process the existing ammonia to nitrite & then nitrate. Is your tank cycled?

I'm not 100% sure it is cycled actually....
Ive had my fish for about a week and a half and so far they've been fine. When I first hooked up my tank I let it cycle for a week with some fish food in it. Then the ammonia showed up about 3 days into it. Then the nitrates about 5 days in. Then I tested the water and and the ammonia had dropped and there were no nitrates... actually now that I think about it I have no nitrates at all. I had also used a bottle of marineland BB at the time of starting up the tank. My cory cats swim around all day long and so do the black mollies and both seem healthy to me but I do have cloudy water which I fiqured was the bacteria and by doing 50% water changes every day I thought I was slowing down the cycle.. is this not called a fish-in cycle?

 

[alliemac]

I'm not 100% sure it is cycled actually....
Ive had my fish for about a week and a half and so far they've been fine. When I first hooked up my tank I let it cycle for a week with some fish food in it. Then the ammonia showed up about 3 days into it. Then the nitrates about 5 days in. Then I tested the water and and the ammonia had dropped and there were no nitrates... actually now that I think about it I have no nitrates at all. I had also used a bottle of marineland BB at the time of starting up the tank. My cory cats swim around all day long and so do the black mollies and both seem healthy to me but I do have cloudy water which I fiqured was the bacteria and by doing 50% water changes every day I thought I was slowing down the cycle.. is this not called a fish-in cycle?

With those kind of parameters, a fishless cycle would have been best. Build up the bacteria to be able to turn over that ammonia faster than a fish in. That much ammonia is pretty high. Usually fish-in is used when there is very little ammonia. It just takes the cycle extra long.

 

[Woodsman27]

So are my fish going to die?

 

[Kathryn Crook]

So are my fish going to die?

Ive had both the fish and they are pretty tough....I cycled a tank with mollies and cory cats .... but don't get discouraged if you have some losses...just don't replace them until your nitrates are up.

 

[alliemac]

So are my fish going to die?

Not necessarily, but even though they seem healthy, that level of ammonia could still be causing stress on them. It's just a matter of the tank cycling now since they're already in there. Hopefully, since it's quite a bit of ammonia, the bacteria builds quickly. Just keep using the prime to keep them from being stressed as much. They're pretty hardy fish.

 

[rainbowsprinkles]

Go get a pack of nitra zorb and cram it in the filter. It will save your fish and bring parameters under control in about an hour..

 

[Jocelyn Adelman]

So, this doesn’t make sense... the water in the pic is your tap water? But it took a few days for ammonia to show up? If that is your tap the ammonia would have been present on day 1.
Any nitrites?

The nitrogen cycle takes about 4-6 weeks to complete, so if it’s only running with Fish for less then 2 weeks it’s pretty safe to assume you’re not cycled.

I would assume your tank ammonia getting up around 4? (If your tap is 1.5, and your fish are creating ammonia, your uncycled tank will read much higher then your tap). In this case it would be beneficial to do tap for wc, try to change as close to 100% as you can (again, operating on assumption the tank is much higher ammonia)

You only need prime, no reason for tap safe, you can discontinue it.

IF you were to use spring water, or water from your lfs, be sure to test the tank kH and gH, you don’t want to drop it drastically and cause osmotic shock. Using other (ro, distilled, spring, etc) water you will need to remineralize the kH and gH.

 

[Woodsman27]

No nitrites. How often should I do the 100% water change? Can you give me a rundown on how often and what my parameters should be?

 

[Woodsman27]

No nitrites. How often should I do the 100% water change? Can you give me a rundown on how often and what my parameters should be?

Nevermind............lol sorry dumb question

 

[Kathryn Crook]

Nevermind............lol sorry dumb question

Never a dumb question here....but it is a common question and easiest answered by google searching ...then if there are specific questions, we can help best there.

 

[rainbowsprinkles]

So, this doesn’t make sense... the water in the pic is your tap water? But it took a few days for ammonia to show up? If that is your tap the ammonia would have been present on day 1.
Any nitrites?

The nitrogen cycle takes about 4-6 weeks to complete, so if it’s only running with Fish for less then 2 weeks it’s pretty safe to assume you’re not cycled.

I would assume your tank ammonia getting up around 4? (If your tap is 1.5, and your fish are creating ammonia, your uncycled tank will read much higher then your tap). In this case it would be beneficial to do tap for wc, try to change as close to 100% as you can (again, operating on assumption the tank is much higher ammonia)

You only need prime, no reason for tap safe, you can discontinue it.

IF you were to use spring water, or water from your lfs, be sure to test the tank kH and gH, you don’t want to drop it drastically and cause osmotic shock. Using other (ro, distilled, spring, etc) water you will need to remineralize the kH and gH.

My tap water varies.. some times fine sometimes high ammonia..after a big rain the city doses chlorinated water with extra chlorine and ammonia to form chloramines to be sure it doesn’t get contaminated. When ammonia is in the tap it is safest to use something temporarily that absorbs ammonia nitrites and nitrates like nitrazorb. It will get values down to zero and your tank will still cycle. You can do water changes but it won’t get it to zero and you are risking your fish.

 

[YATT]

Man, that is rough! I wouldn't want to drink that if I knew. RO systems from drinking water really aren't that much when compared to the rest of our hobby.

Home Master TM Standard Undersink Reverse Osmosis Water Filter System

 

[georgelee1000]

Fish or fish less? If fish are in, I would do a 75% water change using the same temperature water and use zeolite to neutralize some ammonia. 50% is not enough for a 1.5 ppm ammonia. 50% will bring it down to 0.75 with fish pooping a little, spike to 1 easily. Also cut down your feeding. Feed once per day or two days. Only a small amount. Never have leftover food sinking. Also get a beneficial bacteria product if you have the money, dump the whole bottle in, not a cupful, the whole bottle in. And only do this 24 hours after you do a large water change and let it work for a week without water change. It should do the work.

 

[Kalyke]

I always wondered what would happen if I used rainwater in my aquarium.

 

[Bithimala]

Your tap water looks like mine. I personally run Matrix in all my tanks, which allows a place for the aerobic bacteria that eats nitrates to live. Doing large water changes, when you're running high ammonia in the source water, isn't going to do you any good. You'll probably want to consider Matrix, Nitrazorb, or RO as a permanent solution, since even once the tank is cycled, you'll be higher than you want on nitrates without it. With running 1ppm ammonia in the tap, my tanks would start out at 40-60 nitrates and never get lower than that.

 

[Woodsman27]

UPDATE:
Ok so... I put some marineland zeolite in my canister yesterday and tested the water when I woke up (yawn, 20 mins ago lol) and the water tested as such: ammonia=0ppm nitrites=0ppm and nitrates=0ppm. I also tested my refrigerator's water and to no surprise it tested 0 for the ammonia (which makes me want to buy an ro system, but I'm going to wait on that) and the water in the tank is alittle cloudy.

So. What I'm going to do now is feed them once a day. Not do a water change for a while. Hope to god my ammonia stays low and buy spring water from the store from now on.

On a side note...
The fish seem happier than ever! Which makes me very happy (considering how much work ive put in) lol but that's where I stand and I appreciate all your coments suggestions and advice.
Thank you all again!
Paul.

 

[rainbowsprinkles]

You can recharge it by soaking zeolite in water with aquarium salt. It will trade ammonia ions for salt. Just rinse before use..You can store it that way too and use for emergencies or when you are on vacation and can’t change water..the cloudiness should clear up. You can stick floss in the filter to help- I use floss from an old pillow.. if you use ro water you need to remineralize. Look up nitrate filters- even cheaper and seem to work to get rid of ammonia and nitrates in my water at work. Same idea as zeolite but uses a resin instead. You can also treat your conditioned tap in a bucket with zeolite before a water change. Put it in an hob hung on a bucket or put zeolite in a jar with a bubbler inside a bucket..

 

[Woodsman27]

You can recharge it by soaking zeolite in water with aquarium salt. It will trade ammonia ions for salt. Just rinse before use..You can store it that way too and use for emergencies or when you are on vacation and can’t change water..the cloudiness should clear up. You can stick floss in the filter to help- I use floss from an old pillow.. if you use ro water you need to remineralize. Look up nitrate filters- even cheaper and seem to work to get rid of ammonia and nitrates in my water at work. Same idea as zeolite but uses a resin instead. You can also treat your conditioned tap in a bucket with zeolite before a water change. Put it in an hob hung on a bucket or put zeolite in a jar with a bubbler inside a bucket..

I like the hob on a bucket with zeolite... good idea, thanks!