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A couple of days ago when changing 30% of the water in my aquarium, i decided to hoover the gravel as it was looking a bit grotty. The thing is, I think I hoovered too much and consequently my tank is experiencing an ammonia spike. This is the first time this has happened so I'm not too sure how best to deal with it. I've read that the best way is with a series of partial water changes but how often, how much and for how long? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

My tank is 8 gal and is stocked with 3 small Tiger Barbs, 2 Zebra Danios, 2 Cherry Barbs and a Platy. I know this is a bit overstocked but I'm in the process of setting up a new larger tank into which the Tigers and Zebras will be moved.

Very small water changes if you're noticing the fish being stressed. Otherwise just leave it. Increase surface agitation and get that new tank set up ASAP .

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None of them are eating and most are hanging around on the bottom not doing much, which is what prompted me to do water tests.

Unless you have live plants leave the lights off that will help calm them.

Do small water changes 10% and dont go near the gravel, just change the water.

Increasing the surface agitation will help keep the water oxygenated and increase the gas exchange.

If the tank is usually well fed, you can reduce feedings for a week or so till the spike passes.

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foj1428

Do a 10%-20% water change every third day also add some Sress Coat after each water change this should help them.
Do not feed on the water change day. Also feed sparingly while you are doing this.

As far as time is concerned only regular testing will determine when the problem is fixed

Keith

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IME it's better to do larger water changes in the event of an ammonia spike, a 10% change is not going to do all that much. For example if you had a reading of 0.5 ppm NH3/NH4 and did a 10% water change, you're only taking 0.05 ppm out and leaving you with 0.45 ppm, not nearly enough! You can safely do up to 50% as long as you're matching the pH and temperature of the new water correctly, it's far more important to get the ammonia down if the fish are showing a negative reaction to it than anything. I usually do 30% at a time, increase aeration and repeat the process every few hours until the fish seem OK. Adding a product like Amquel, Prime or Ammolock is also helpful in an emergency situation like this, they react with the NH3 and make it nontoxic to the fish.

Once you get the ammonia down to a level that is OK with the fish, you'll want to test daily and continue to do water changes as needed based on the results. Reduce feeding as mentioned (or if your fish are well fed don't feed at all for a few days), dim the lights and you should be ok. Get that new tank asap, with a reduced fish load you won't have these kinds of issues.

I definitely agree with Trys. A large water change to knock down the level of ammonia is needed for the aquarium. I would also hit the aquarium with an overdose of prime to neutralize the residual ammonia. Ammonia will still be available for cycling the aquarium but it will not be as toxic after using Prime. The disadvantage of using the product is that it will give you false ammonia readings.

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Yup waterchanges, and also you could try to add some zeolite to your filter.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I did a 20% water change every other day (3 in total) and also added some Stress Zyme as is seemed the closest thing to Prime that my LFS had. I'm no longer getting ammonia readings and the fish are acting normal again so hopefully thats that sorted, though I'll be keeping a closer eye from now on!

Thanks again!

The two biggest fish killers...overfeeding, and no or not enough water changes.

foj1428,

Glad to hear that all seems to have gone back to normal.

Now the only thing left to do is to analyze why it happened in the first place. I would guess too many fishies combined with insufficient water change frequency. Or maybe insufficient vacuuming of the gravel. Or overfeeding.

I think it is important for you to identify the cause, otherwise it will happen again.

Hope this helps,

Ingo

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yes please do i had i spike a couple of days ago and i lost a very nice big blue morph i did find the prob and im in the process of correcting it and if it was,nt for these guys saying check this or check that i could have lost them all again thanks people/:'

sounds serious, i might take the risk of a 50% water change, also a few details about your filter maintenance /maturity routine might be helpful in preventing this happening again.

i think on balance the ammonia is having an effect serious enough for you to consider a total cleanout, bearing in mind that the ammonia could kill the fish within a few days ,and since the species you keep are fairly tolerant of water quality changes, you could pretreat water in buckets and prepare for a complete water change in 3rds over the next week , just try to keep the filter performing well, right up until the change. You can buy bacterial tablets that can give a quick boost to the filter while youre prepping the new tank to get it performing faster , or indeed might help the old one a bit, id rather face a nitrate spike than an ammonia one. I would seriouslty chuck in a carbon filter insert while youre having these issues.