High ammonia, how long until it goes down?

I am in desperate need of help with high ammonia levels. I have done everything to fix it. I have a 10 gallon tank with a female betta, dwarf gourami, and dwarf pleco. I have a marina filter. I have been doing a partial water change daily as I’ve been trying to lower the ammonia over the past few weeks. The ammonia started at .5 and has increased to 8 over the past few weeks despite my best efforts to fix it. I’ve added API quick start multiple times and I’ve been adding API ammonia lock as the directions state. I have a lot of plants in the aquarium. I feed the fish once sometimes twice a day. What else can I do? The fish are acting fine. I have had the aquarium for roughly a month now.

 

You guys are lucky. Mine doesn't. I just assumed it was all of them.

I guess it depends on where you live. Most Tulsa locations will take them.

 

You guys are lucky. Mine doesn't. I just assumed it was all of them.

If you don’t have a pet store that takes in fish, you could look at Craigslist. There’s a couple people in my area doing “fish rescues” and they take in any fish.

 

Are you in Florida by any chance? I'd be willing to take in the gourami. I have a cycled 29 gallon that I can arrange for him/her.

 

If nothing else call up your local petco and see if they are running their dollar a gallon sale and get as big a tank as you have room for/can afford. The larger the water volume the more room for mistakes.

 

Are you in Florida by any chance? I'd be willing to take in the gourami. I have a cycled 29 gallon that I can arrange for him/her.

Unfortunately I’m not. Thanks for the offer though!

 

After doing repetitive water changes I finally got to water down to 0.25 and I took the dwarf gourami back to the pet store. Thanks everybody for the advice!