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Thread: Struggling with too much Ammonia. Any tips?

  1. #1
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    Question Struggling with too much Ammonia. Any tips?

    Hello everyone,
    Long time lurker, first time poster :-)

    So I have a sump'ed 75g planted Discus tank. I started it around 6 months back. I have been struggling with high levels of ammonia. I am wondering what can I do about it.


    History:
    After I added 4 four inch Discus, Ammonia was fine, at zero.
    3- weeks later, I added 5 more four inch Discus…after that Ammonia went up to 0.5 (bio-filter needed time) and went down to 0.25 after about a month. Never goes down to zero.

    Observation:
    Here is the problem I am struggling with:
    If I feed them what I probably should feed them (finished completely in about 10 minutes).......ammonia goes up....like today it is surprising high....at around 1.25 Nitrate is around 120 Nitrite is 0. I am getting ready to do a large water change. Already added Prime to help.

    If I feed them less, ammonia hovers around 0.25

    My understanding is that the beefheart mix is causing:
    1. Too much pollution because some of it does disintegrate in the water.
    2. Feeding them until they are full causes too much poop


    What I have already tried:
    1. Reduced feed, yeah it reduces ammonia...but I rather not keep the fish hungry.
    2. Tried feeding them mysis shrimps and fine krill instead, but the fish leave a lot of mysis shrimp lying around and don't even eat the krill.


    What would you recommend I should do?



    Details:

    • Display Tank (DT) is 75 gallons
    • Sump is 30 gallons.
    • I estimate total water volume is around 68 gallons (because of the large amount of furnishing in the DT and water level in the sump)
    • I am using RO-DI water, remineralized with Seachem Equilibrium.
    • I keep GH around 4
    • 5 gallons of water changed every day, remineralized.
    • pH varies from 6.2 to 7 (depending upon CO2 injection, which happens from 8 am to 3 PM)
    • Lights on from 11 am to 3 PM
    • Nitrite is zero ppm
    • Nitrate used to be 40 ppm before 5 more fish were added, now it hovers around 60-80. Large water changes (30 gallons) bring it down.
    • I do clean the gravel in the DT regularly…it usually does not get too dirty anyway.
    • I feed only enough food (beef heart mix from Hans) that the fish consume completely in 10 minutes. They eat three times a day.
    • I vacuum if any is left over; usually there is none.
    • I have 9 Discus fish from Discus Hans. They range from 3 to 4". Also have 4 glass Catfish and one albino Cory.







    By the way, here is what it looks like today:



    Here is a quick and dirty pic of the sump:
    I need to tidy up the wiring ☹ looking like a mess there!




    Thanks a lot for your tips
    -Raj


    PS: Here is my tank journal
    https://www.plantedtank.net/threads/...-tank.1308841/
    (I hope it is ok to post link to other forum)

  2. #2
    Moderator Team LizStreithorst's Avatar
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    Default Re: Struggling with too much Ammonia. Any tips?

    change more water
    Mama Bear

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    Default Re: Struggling with too much Ammonia. Any tips?

    Quote Originally Posted by LizStreithorst View Post
    change more water

    Thanks for your response.

    I was wondering.... isn't 40% water change per week not enough?
    (5 gallons every day amounts to around 41% per week in my system)

    If yes, that means that the bio-filter is not able to cope up and we are trying to replace water contaminated with ammonia......is that correct?

  4. #4
    Moderator Team LizStreithorst's Avatar
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    Default Re: Struggling with too much Ammonia. Any tips?

    I do 30 to 50 percent daily. You have a planted tank which makes WC even more necessary. The filter should catch up with time with more WC but you want to get the ammonia out of the water ASAP for the well being of the fish. I once QT'd 7 2 year old discus in a 30 gallon with a sterile sponge. All I did was 100% WC and gradually lowered it to 50% daily over the period of 3 weeks when the filter caught up with the bio load. After another week I moved them to a larger tank in the fish room.
    Mama Bear

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    Default Re: Struggling with too much Ammonia. Any tips?

    Thanks Mama Bear :-)
    I am doing a 40-50% WC right now. Will check ammonia again after the DT fills up.

    So I find it very interesting that you do a 50% WC every day. Although I have read people doing that for their Discus tanks, I used to think that is rather excessive. IMHO, in mature, cycled tanks if that much WC is actually needed to keep water parameters in control.....there is something not right with the bio-filteration system. Maybe my belief is wrong. Of course, I fully understand that you have much, much more experience than me, in terms of keeping Discus fish :-) and I respect your opinion.

    By the way, my Discus breeder - Stendker also talks about 30% WC per week.
    https://www.diskuszucht-stendker.de/en/Diskus-Handbuch/
    and
    http://www.diskuszucht-stendker.de/p...sswerte_en.pdf

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    Registered Member BrendanJ23's Avatar
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    Default Re: Struggling with too much Ammonia. Any tips?

    Don’t feed beef heart mix, feed cleaner foods. We feed a seafood mix here, which doesn’t foul the water as bad. And change more water
    21 Discus, 7 Green Tree Frogs, 3 Eastern Dwarf Tree frogs, 1 Coastal Carpet Python,6 sawshelled/Murray river turtles, 2 dogs, a cat, 2 kids and a wife. Phew...what a mouthful


    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

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    Silver Member Iminit's Avatar
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    Default Re: Struggling with too much Ammonia. Any tips?

    Yes this is simple! When you added the 5 your filtration couldn’t keep up. Water changing 5% daily is just like adding for evaporation. No where near enough. New and young discus should get a minimum of 50% a day. Your 120 nitrate is telling you you need to change more water. The high ammonia is the filter not being able to break down the ammonia to nitrite. How much water is your sump moving hourly? For that size tank with those discus (nice looking discus ) you should be moving 750-1k gph. Main number 1 thing with discus is clean water!! Next I see co2. Is that fluctuating your ph during the day? Planted tanks are the hardest to keep discus healthy in. Even harder when you add co2.

  8. #8
    Moderator Team LizStreithorst's Avatar
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    Default Re: Struggling with too much Ammonia. Any tips?

    You have to keep in mind that Discus sellers are in business to sell Discus. Knowing the amount of care it takes to keep Discus healthy for years would turn many folks off keeping them when a fish like Angels would work very well with much less maintence. Ask any successful Discus keeper and you will hear the same advice. It's much easier to do things right from the get-go than suffer the consequences of having to discover the truth the hard way. The trick is to set things up so that WC is easy. That means using pumps rather than hauling buckets.
    Mama Bear

  9. #9
    Registered Member GeauxDiscus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Struggling with too much Ammonia. Any tips?

    Just to reiterate what the others have stated here: water changes are everything. You should be doing AT LEAST a 50% daily water change daily if your tank is cycling. I personally do 60% 3 times a week on a cycled tank on an ongoing basis, and I would do it more frequently if I had younger fish. In order to maintain frequent large water changes, you need to set yourself up for success to make the water changes quick and easy. I personally use a 1/3 HP submersible pump to clear out my show tank to a certain point, and then refill using a smaller pump from the staging tank (which is set up right underneath my show tank). I use the smaller pump to refill so I don't stress the fish with too strong of incoming water. Then I refill my staging tank by running a drinking-water-safe garden hose from my laundry room water valve to my staging tank. Takes 20 minutes tops, and my fish stay happy. Your method may be totally different, but what matters is that you make water changes easy to do.
    -Shane

    Discus do it bare bottom.

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