Tanning/brown water. How to test Ammonia

[MidnightBel]

I had a very small amount of ammonia recently during a test before I added 10 indian almond leaves and 1 tablespoon of salt per 3 gallons  to my 10 gallon tank. It was semi cycled at this point. It hadn't shown nitrites, but nitrates went up and the AMMONIA levels went down from 0.5 to 0.25, to 0.2, to 0.15, to 0 in last reading which was yesterday. The previous readings were throughout the past week and half. The salt has been in there for about a week, 3 leaves for first few days of that week and then 10 when I got more in.

 

The issue is the water is super super dark now, and the leaves and salt is helping regrow some fins after he nipped at some, but now I can't read ammonia. It legit shows clear not even yellow because of the tint in the water. I'm now doubting my 0.2 and 0.15 readings from half a week ago since the water did slowly turn dark.

How do I get an accurate reading with tannin/brown water? I'm worried because there is more read around his head now and was worried it was from ammonia poisoning, but this betta has always been super red and his body was super white when we got him, but slowly turned red and blue bits with shine to it. 

[Cinnebuns]

To get some tannins out I suggest first doing a water change and then running some activated carbon in your filter. It's most likely that if the ammonia had been going down that it is still down but I can understand the desire to confirm this. 

Edited February 18 by Cinnebuns

[MidnightBel]

Just really hate doing a water change with a semi cycle going with just tap water since my tap is anywhere from 0.25 to 0.5 ammonia. Might need to try again after tomorrow getting some bottled spring. 

Was hoping there was some other test I could use for this. 

[Galabar]

I dip stick test (Tetra or ACO as examples) might be the answer here.

Also, could you describe what you mean by "semi-cycled"?  How long have you had the tank set up and what fish do you have in there?

Edited February 18 by Galabar

[MidnightBel]

Med trio quarantine awhile ago crashed the cycle, but it started to recover slowly after 2 weeks. The cycle was previously set for a little over a month, but I guess I didn't let it sit long enough. I think my ammonia dosing was too low since I used food to do it since I didn't have ammonia bottle and with no fish, the bacteria colony was probably less than I expected then took a hit from med trio. I've had med trio crash a cycle before too, and the other time it made it go through a mini cycle. The one it semi crashed was a over 2 month cycle that was processing apx 1 ammonia levels in less than a day. The one it full on crashed or stalled idk was one that was seeded for 2 and half weeks in a cycled planted tank that had been running for over half a year. 

All of them were fishliss cycles and even my planted is still fishless, but thanks to decaying plants and just letting it exist and the ammonia levels in my water, it has sustained to this day and handled a rotting plant ammonia spike of 2ppm after 4 hours. Hope this wasn't confusing to read 😖 

As for dip test, I'll try that then thank you. I don't have any at the moment since I always preferred liquid testing. Would seachem ammonia alert test work here perhaps 🤔 

 

EDIT: I forgot to include the fish that is in the tannin indian almond leaf tank apparently. It is a male betta. 

Edited February 18 by MidnightBel

[Lennie]

If you remove tannins, you are basically wasting catappa leaves because their main purpose is having those beneficial tannins in the water column. And maybe having a more realistic tank, providing comfortable and natural tank for some fish in terms of environment.

 

It is very veeery unlikely for decaying leaves releasing 2mg/L ammonia btw, surely not in 4 hours. Let me tell you, I am cycling my new tank with a raw big size prawn, and it took 2 days to see 1mg/L ammonia. I bet there is something else going on in that tank, or there is a confusion caused by tannin coloration 

If you have extra cycled media or have a chance to add some cycled media to this tank, it can be nice. Otherwise keep up with water changes and add bottled bacteria I guess

[MidnightBel]

The cycled tank removed a 2ppm ammonia level in 2 hours. I had a water change and test 2 days prior. The next day I added several plants into the tank and they weren't doing too hot. By the next night my ammonia had spiked from tons of plants melting. They didn't do well enough in transport and after a alum dip so they rotted in my planted tank. That caused the ammonia spike (I did a test after the plants had been in 2 and half days. Huge portions of plant were completely melted away). Later that day after removing the new rotting plants, my tank recovered after I tested again 4 hours later. There were no indian almond leafs, and barely any tannins from a driftwood. Sorry my other post was confusing. This planted tank is an established for 2 years tank. It is completely different to the betta semi cycle tank. I gave the readings of it at a post above. I'll quote it below. It was only max 0.5 ppm at the tims I was monitoring the drop. It had been 1ppm earlier in the week when the cycle got shocked by med trio, but you can see ammonia slowly drop as it recovered after meds were done, water change, and charcoal was added. 

As for removing tannin water. That is one reason I don't want to do the water change and was wanting a different way to test ammonia than the liquid test. It would be a waste of the leaves. At the least it has made the water safer by lowering pH and therefore impacts of ammonia to a degree and providing antibacterial effect for his fins to recover. Problem is I have to add crushed coral today to it because my KH is 1 drop and GH 3 drops and don't want the pH to start swinging. How does that balance out? Do I put only a bit? Or should I just leave it? 

 

Readings from today from betta indian almond leaf tank. 

ammonia: clear cant read it. Perhaps slight yellow tint? So clear it was like my low kh tube

nitrites: 0

Nitrates: 4-5

Ph: 6.4-6.5

Kh: 1 drop (barely able to see it at all)

Gh: 3 drops (barely able to see change)

The gh if you add more does become more obvious green, but the kh you can do 10 plus drops and not a change, just slight hint of a bit more yellow.

On 2/18/2024 at 3:03 AM, MidnightBel said:

I had a very small amount of ammonia recently during a test before I added 10 indian almond leaves and 1 tablespoon of salt per 3 gallons  to my 10 gallon tank. It was semi cycled at this point. It hadn't shown nitrites, but nitrates went up and the AMMONIA levels went down from 0.5 to 0.25, to 0.2, to 0.15, to 0 in last reading which was yesterday. The previous readings were throughout the past week and half. The salt has been in there for about a week, 3 leaves for first few days of that week and then 10 when I got more in.

The issue is the water is super super dark now, and the leaves and salt is helping regrow some fins after he nipped at some, but now I can't read ammonia. It legit shows clear not even yellow because of the tint in the water. I'm now doubting my 0.2 and 0.15 readings from half a week ago since the water did slowly turn dark.

How do I get an accurate reading with tannin/brown water?

 

[MidnightBel]

To clarify again. The 2ppm and planted tank is an established tank I've had for 2 years that was used to seed an old filter for several weeks before my first betta.

I didn't use it again this time around and created a completely scrap cycle because the planted tank was seeded from my turtle tank. Former wild turtles kept with tropical fish for years that I rescued from neighbors who tried to release them back into pond. I didn't want them introducing stuff to the pond from fish from around world and didn't know how they would do against a heavily populated turtle pond after growing up in captivity. Anyways I used their media to help seed my planted. The planted was used to seed my 1st betta. Who developed dropsy after being introduced to it. I just wanted to eliminate risk in case it was related, so did fishliss cycle for this new bettas filter for a month before adding him. It wasn't strong enough of a colony though, because meds crashed it too. 

[Tlindsey]

On 2/18/2024 at 7:27 AM, MidnightBel said:

To clarify again. The 2ppm and planted tank is an established tank I've had for 2 years that was used to seed an old filter for several weeks before my first betta.

I didn't use it again this time around and created a completely scrap cycle because the planted tank was seeded from my turtle tank. Former wild turtles kept with tropical fish for years that I rescued from neighbors who tried to release them back into pond. I didn't want them introducing stuff to the pond from fish from around world and didn't know how they would do against a heavily populated turtle pond after growing up in captivity. Anyways I used their media to help seed my planted. The planted was used to seed my 1st betta. Who developed dropsy after being introduced to it. I just wanted to eliminate risk in case it was related, so did fishliss cycle for this new bettas filter for a month before adding him. It wasn't strong enough of a colony though, because meds crashed it too. 

@MidnightBel The Seachem Ammonia Alert will work in water with tannins.