Ammonia reading in breeding tank.

[Dkelly97]

Hi all, I’m new to this and wasn’t prepared for the breeding. Long story incoming…
About a week ago I noticed one of my females on eggs, so in the excitement I set up a 20L breeder tank for her to go in. It has a sponge filter for a 60L tank and I seeded it for a week with a 300g bag of filter media sitting next to the sponge filter. Was ghost feeding saw a small ammonia spike on day 2, and then nothing except a low nitrate reading another 5 days later. Anyway, in that time these eggs obviously hatched and reached free swimming stage, these fish were in a community tank and unfortunately I believe they were all eaten, this was also this females first batch of fry. Anyway, 2 days ago I noticed my other female on eggs, however seemed like she was still trying to get the male to fertilise them so I let her be. Today I found she had some wrigglers so immediately moved her and the eggs (in the hide she was in) over to the new breeder tank, prior to testing the water. Anyway, I have the following water values, PH 7.2 (a bit high but as far as I can tell, still ok?), Ammonia 0.25ppm, nitrites 0ppm, Nitrates 5ppm, GH 4, KH 5. I have done some quick research and done a 50% water change with water from my 240L biotype tank where the values are PH 6.4, ammonia 0, Nitrites, 0, Nitrates 5, GH 3, KH 5. And dosed the breeder tank with the correct dosage of prime (I know it’s not a fix, but potentially a help?) can someone please offer insite into anything else I can do or what I should do differently in future?

Thanks in advance

Dan

 

[Mike Wise]

All I can say is best of luck and do 10-15% water changes daily. A 20L/5gallon rearing tank is awfully small unless you are rearing A. wapisana, which I doubt that you are.

 

[MacZ]

0.25mg/l is basically nothing. For one, at your pH most of it should be present as ammonium (NH4) which is basically not poisonous. The ratio of ammonia to ammonium tilts more and more to ammonia the higher the pH. The fact that your fish show no signs of ammonia poisoning yet, is underlining that.
Secondly you say you use prime, which tells me your tapwater is chlorinated. Usually chloramine is used for it. When you use a dechlorinator on that you get a portion of ammonia that is split from the chlorine. This causes a positive of - tadaaa 0.25mg/l - on ammonia tests. It is usually detoxified as NH4 aswell.
And thirdly, another option, 0.25 is within the error margin of the testkits sold for the hobby.
So while you should of course keep testing and waterchanging ammonia is not your problem at the moment.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Secondly you say you use prime, which tells me your tapwater is chlorinated.

If you've used Prime it will interfere with ammonia test kits and give you a false positive result.

Personally I like a floating plant as "belt and braces" they aren't CO2 limited and "plant / microbe" nitrification is much more efficient than "microbe only", there isn't any "plant only" nitrification.

Cheers Darrel

 

[Dkelly97]

All I can say is best of luck and do 10-15% water changes daily. A 20L/5gallon rearing tank is awfully small unless you are rearing A. wapisana, which I doubt that you are.

Thankyou for your reply, the 20L is the only other tank I had on hand, at this stage it’s just the female and wrigglers in there. If I can change it out for a 40 or 50L would that be a better option? No, A. cacatuoides.

 

[Dkelly97]

0.25mg/l is basically nothing. For one, at your pH most of it should be present as ammonium (NH4) which is basically not poisonous. The ratio of ammonia to ammonium tilts more and more to ammonia the higher the pH. The fact that your fish show no signs of ammonia poisoning yet, is underlining that.
Secondly you say you use prime, which tells me your tapwater is chlorinated. Usually chloramine is used for it. When you use a dechlorinator on that you get a portion of ammonia that is split from the chlorine. This causes a positive of - tadaaa 0.25mg/l - on ammonia tests. It is usually detoxified as NH4 aswell.
And thirdly, another option, 0.25 is within the error margin of the testkits sold for the hobby.
So while you should of course keep testing and waterchanging ammonia is not your problem at the moment.

Thanks so much for your insight, I will continue testing daily and continue 10% daily water changes unless the ammonia spikes above 0.25 in which case I’ll increase the % of water changes.

 

[Dkelly97]

Hi all,

If you've used Prime it will interfere with ammonia test kits and give you a false positive result.

Personally I like a floating plant as "belt and braces" they aren't CO2 limited and "plant / microbe" nitrification is much more efficient than "microbe only", there isn't any "plant only" nitrification.

Cheers Darrel

Thanks Darrel, would something like a red-root floater be a good choice? I have a friend who is always getting rid of some.

 

[MacZ]

Thanks so much for your insight, I will continue testing daily and continue 10% daily water changes unless the ammonia spikes above 0.25 in which case I’ll increase the % of water changes.

I doubt it will surpass 0.25 and I doubt you actually have any NH3. (Tests don't distinguish between NH3 and NH4) Anyhow, not the wrong course of action.

Any floating plant you have at hand will do.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Thanks Darrel, would something like a red-root floater be a good choice? I have a friend who is always getting rid of some.

Yes that would be fine. I like Amazon Frogbit, but they all do the same job.

Cheers Darrel

 

[Mike Wise]

When you wrote "20L" did you mean a 20 gallon long or a 20 liter tank? That makes a world of difference.