PERSISTENT Ammonia Spike - HELP!

[Jenn]

Hi All,

I have three large goldfish in a 40 gallon, freshwater aquarium. I’ve had them for about 4 years or so, but am still an amateur by any definition. My tank was cycled for years (based on frequent water testing), so, admittedly, I haven’t tested the water parameters in a bit. I tested last night after struggling to heal scale sores with Melafix on one of them and the ammonia was 8 ppm. *PANIC ENSUED* I immediately did a 50% water change. I also added QuickStart and StressCoat because I was worried my tank stopped cycling and I wanted to treat the tap water I added. I tested the water again this morning and ammonia was 4 ppm. I did another 50% water change and added a normal dose of Seachem Prime this afternoon. The ammonia is still holding at 4 ppm though, so I just added the emergency dose (5x) of Prime. Nitrite and nitrate readings are at 10 ppm. pH is at 6. They haven’t been fed since yesterday morning. Any guidance you have for me is truly appreciated on how to progress forward and reestablish balance in the tank. Thank you so much in advance!

- J

[FrozenFins]

1 hour ago, Jenn said:

Hi All,

I have three large goldfish in a 40 gallon, freshwater aquarium. I’ve had them for about 4 years or so, but am still an amateur by any definition. My tank was cycled for years (based on frequent water testing), so, admittedly, I haven’t tested the water parameters in a bit. I tested last night after struggling to heal scale sores with Melafix on one of them and the ammonia was 8 ppm. *PANIC ENSUED* I immediately did a 50% water change. I also added QuickStart and StressCoat because I was worried my tank stopped cycling and I wanted to treat the tap water I added. I tested the water again this morning and ammonia was 4 ppm. I did another 50% water change and added a normal dose of Seachem Prime this afternoon. The ammonia is still holding at 4 ppm though, so I just added the emergency dose (5x) of Prime. Nitrite and nitrate readings are at 10 ppm. pH is at 6. They haven’t been fed since yesterday morning. Any guidance you have for me is truly appreciated on how to progress forward and reestablish balance in the tank. Thank you so much in advance!

- J

Seachem prime won't fix any amonia problems. And you shouldn't worry about your tank getting uncycled. Because there is still the bacteria that keeps your aquarium cycled in your filter. So unless you get like a disenfectent and use that to clean your aquarium (DON'T DO THAT) you shouldn't worry.

You have an amonia spike probably because your keeping 3 large goldfish in a 40 gallon. Thats severley overstocked, how big are your goldfish? The general rule of thumb is one fancy goldfish in a 30 gallon and then 2 in a 40, 3 in a 50 etc. For comet goldfish its one for a 75 Gallon. And the common goldfish get MASSIVE and they pretty much need a pond. Goldfish are very messy.

So to fix depending on the size of your goldfish you may have to upgrade your tank or rehome most of them. 

How big are your goldfish? Do you know what kind the goldfish are?

[Jenn]

30 minutes ago, James Black said:

Seachem prime won't fix any amonia problems. And you shouldn't worry about your tank getting uncycled. Because there is still the bacteria that keeps your aquarium cycled in your filter. So unless you get like a disenfectent and use that to clean your aquarium (DON'T DO THAT) you shouldn't worry.

You have an amonia spike probably because your keeping 3 large goldfish in a 40 gallon. Thats severley overstocked, how big are your goldfish? The general rule of thumb is one fancy goldfish in a 30 gallon and then 2 in a 40, 3 in a 50 etc. For comet goldfish its one for a 75 Gallon. And the common goldfish get MASSIVE and they pretty much need a pond. Goldfish are very messy.

So to fix depending on the size of your goldfish you may have to upgrade your tank or rehome most of them. 

How big are your goldfish? Do you know what kind the goldfish are?

Hi James,

Thank you so much for responding to me so quickly! I’m honestly not entirely sure what kind of goldfish they are. I took them in a few years back when they were quite a bit smaller from someone who was going to feed them to turtles. I have photos below of all three of them now. I never really thought of the possibility that they may have gotten too big for the tank. Looking at them now, what size tank/environment do you think would be sufficient? Thank you again!

[FrozenFins]

11 minutes ago, Jenn said:

Hi James,

Thank you so much for responding to me so quickly! I’m honestly not entirely sure what kind of goldfish they are. I took them in a few years back when they were quite a bit smaller from someone who was going to feed them to turtles. I have photos below of all three of them now. I never really thought of the possibility that they may have gotten too big for the tank. Looking at them now, what size tank/environment do you think would be sufficient? Thank you again!

They look like comet goldfish. I would try a 75 gallon. And now is the time to do so because there is a dollar a gallon sale at petsmart and petco. 

[Jenn]

4 minutes ago, James Black said:

They look like comet goldfish. I would try a 75 gallon. And now is the time to do so because there is a dollar a gallon sale at petsmart and petco. 

Thank you so much, James. This was my first time posting to this forum and I really appreciate you!

[FrozenFins]

2 hours ago, Jenn said:

Thank you so much, James. This was my first time posting to this forum and I really appreciate you!

No problem. Good luck with the goldfish.

[GardenStateGoldfish]

How old is the bottle of quick start? Also what is the smmonia reading in your tap? If your tap has chloramine. It will register high in ammonia because choramine is chlorine bound to ammonia, when prime is used to treat chloramine, the long story short is it creates ammonium. The api liquid test kit will show a high ammonia reading because it will also pick up ammonium levels, there is a big difference though because ammonium is not toxic.

 

Also your quick start bottle could be old or bad i would try not using it and see of the numbers improve that way. If you do an api liquid test kit for ammonia on your tap if it is high ammonia reading you likely have chloramines