Ammonia between 0.25 and 0.5 on day one of ttm

[allendehl]

Hello guys. Asking lots of questions lately.

I am taking 2 clown fish and 4 chromis through ttm in the same 7g tank.

Brought them home a bit over 24h ago. Tonight I see the clowns kinda swimming sideways at the top of the bucket and measured ammonia. It came at a color between 0.25 and 0.5 ppm, hard to tell in the API chart.
Is it a normal behavior from the fish?
Is it expected to have this level of ammonia 24 hrs after starting ttm?
Should I dose prime or do a water change?

I was under the impression that in ttm the parameters were not too relevant since the water needs to be changed very frequently but not sure how much is normal.

Thanks!

(Just now they decided to swim normally around tank)

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[tjm9331]

7 gallons seems awfully small for 6 fish, I'm actually not surprised you're seeing ammonia that early. Definitely dose some prime asap

If you can either get a larger container for the fish, 15 gallons should do or get 2 7 gallon containers and separate the clowns and chromis

Otherwise I think you run the risk of ammonia poison


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[tjm9331]

Petco is having their famous $1/gallon sale right now so you could get a larger tank cheap


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[mcgyvr]

Ammonia is toxic.. Is the one thing you need to be aware of with a QT tank for sure..
Prime/change water/bigger tank..

 

[allendehl]

Yeah I'm learning it the hard way. Didn't think it was going to get out of control in so little time. Dosed half a cap of prime last night but measured this morning and still shows 0.25ppm. Doing a tank transfer now.
One chromis on life support. Put it on a separate little bucket bur it's laying on the bottom. Anything else I can do?

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[tjm9331]

bear in mind prime doesn't remove the ammonia it just converts it to a less toxic ammonium so your test kit will still show a false positive.

As far as the one chromis, all you can really do is just keep an eye on him, make sure the water stays ammonia free and hope that he recovers. It unfortunately doesn't take long for ammonia to burn gills.

 

[allendehl]

Thank you Tj,

Fella passed :hmm2: After I put him in the separate bucket I thought he was doing better but it seems he was saying good bye. Well...first casualty.

I transferred the rest of the crew to a new 7G bucket (2nd of the TTM) and they look happy with a fresh new water. I read somewhere you can use Prime preventative so I dropped a half cap on the new water and put an ammonia badge on it. Now with what you just explained it may not be worth it cause as I dosed prime, it'll give me false positives.

As for bigger TTM tanks, I have a problem with the space. I did ask around before about having the 6 fish in these tanks during TTM and QA and the consensus was that it is ok, just to keep an eye on the ammonia. I did not think that it'd spike in a period of 24h.

Now the questions, is dosing preventive prime a good idea given I am already in this situation? How can I effectively know if ammonia is causing an issue if Prime will provoke false positives?

Thank you!

 

[MondoBongo]

when doing TTM, especially with larger fish or larger numbers of fish, i dose prime daily and on non-transfer days do large water changes. as much as i can manage, even up to 100%.

you want to keep that water pristine. siphoning out waste and uneaten food before changing water is also a good technique.

 

[Woonkie]

1 fish a week on my new tank. Knock on wood. So far so good. I have 90 gallons plus a 20 gallon sump. I would take it really slow in a smaller tank


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[tjm9331]

Thank you Tj,

Fella passed :hmm2: After I put him in the separate bucket I thought he was doing better but it seems he was saying good bye. Well...first casualty.

I transferred the rest of the crew to a new 7G bucket (2nd of the TTM) and they look happy with a fresh new water. I read somewhere you can use Prime preventative so I dropped a half cap on the new water and put an ammonia badge on it. Now with what you just explained it may not be worth it cause as I dosed prime, it'll give me false positives.

As for bigger TTM tanks, I have a problem with the space. I did ask around before about having the 6 fish in these tanks during TTM and QA and the consensus was that it is ok, just to keep an eye on the ammonia. I did not think that it'd spike in a period of 24h.

Now the questions, is dosing preventive prime a good idea given I am already in this situation? How can I effectively know if ammonia is causing an issue if Prime will provoke false positives?

Thank you!

Funny thing about prime, it will give a false positive on tests but does not seem to affect ammonia badges as those measure true ammonia and I believe the tests measure both ammonia and ammonium.

So if you end up having another ammonia spike the badge should tell you before it's too late.

 

[allendehl]

Funny thing about prime, it will give a false positive on tests but does not seem to affect ammonia badges as those measure true ammonia and I believe the tests measure both ammonia and ammonium.

So if you end up having another ammonia spike the badge should tell you before it's too late.

Music to my ears! Thank you very much! Hopefully I'll do a better job with the rest of the crew


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[allendehl]

when doing TTM, especially with larger fish or larger numbers of fish, i dose prime daily and on non-transfer days do large water changes. as much as i can manage, even up to 100%.

you want to keep that water pristine. siphoning out waste and uneaten food before changing water is also a good technique.

Thanks Mondongo,

I believe that's the way I'll go from now.

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[homer1475]

I only feed on days I'm going to transfer. Also helps to keep the ammonia down.

I find most fish won't eat during TTM anyways. Once in a solid QT, then they'll eat.