ammonia in qt tank

G

gguertin

New member
I pulled all my fish and put them in a qt a week ago for hypersalinity. I have started to lose some of my fish and checked the parameters and have a .5 ammonia. Is there any way to save my fish when I lower the ammonia or is it just a matter of time and they will all die?

I have a yellow tang swimming with his face looking down and really don't want to lose my naso and blue tang :( all this to treat for ich I should have just left the 1 fish with ich in the tank would have been better then losing everything...
 
You should have put all new fish in a QT and you wouldn't lose any of them to ich.
Do a lot of WCs to bring ammonia down and use an ammonia neutralizer (prime, Ammo-Lock, etc). get rid of the ammonia (ASAP) and the fish should be fine; if you're following hypo instructions properly. Are you using a well-calibrated refractometer or a swing-arm hydrometer to measure SG? What is your SG in the QT and how big is the QT? You probably will have to do big WCs for the duration of treatment if the QT wasn't cycled. BTW, it wouldn't matter what fish you moved. If they're in the same tank for any amount of time with an ich-infected fish, they will get ich too. Did you read the stickies on ich at the top of this forum? Knowing the ich life-cycle is vital.
 
Yes I have a refractometer and I have a reactor running carbon and a good hang on the back skimmer from bubble magus. I added live rock to the tank when I started this because I had a bunch extra I always left in a fuge in my sump.

Yes I have read the directions and have been doing my daily water changes to get the water down to the right salinity.

Nothing looks worse but the yellow still looks like crap and I lost my yellow eye tang last night and a few cleaner gobys.

I moved all fish to qt with the idea that my tank should be ich free when this is done and I would qt any new fish going into the tank but this is not an encouraging process... I am killing fish that were healthy trying to treat the sick ones :(
 
Regrettably, you shouldn't have added the live rock to the QT, since hypo kills live rock, which likely contributed to the ammonia spike. If you haven't already, you should use an ammonia neutralizer, as suggested by Mr. Tuskfish, and continue with the WC's.
 
Wow and here I thought I was helping with the live rock and that could have been my problem...

Yes I am using Prime something? Supposed to remove ammonia. I have also been doing daily water changes.

Can fish recover from ammonia spikes?
 
If you have quite a few fish in an uncycled QT, then I suspect you would have had an ammonia problem with or without the LR...but, still, the LR wouldn't have helped. Fish can recover, but it depends on how badly they were poisoned. Only time will tell. I hope your fish recover. Good luck!
 
I have had good luck using the seachem product Stablity to minimize any ammonia spike. It works better than the prime or amquel for me.
 
gguertin said:
Yes I have a refractometer and I have a reactor running carbon and a good hang on the back skimmer from bubble magus. I added live rock to the tank when I started this because I had a bunch extra I always left in a fuge in my sump.

Yes I have read the directions and have been doing my daily water changes to get the water down to the right salinity.

Nothing looks worse but the yellow still looks like crap and I lost my yellow eye tang last night and a few cleaner gobys.

I moved all fish to qt with the idea that my tank should be ich free when this is done and I would qt any new fish going into the tank but this is not an encouraging process... I am killing fish that were healthy trying to treat the sick ones :(
Click to expand...

Is your SG down to 1.008-1.009 yet? If so, your skimmer shouldn't be pulling anything. Hypo, when done correctly, is an excellent way to treat ich; but it has to be done exactly and there are lots of little things that can cause problems. Please ask any questions you need to, don't guess or assume anything. You're not killing your fish, its probably a combination of ich and ammonia. Also, don't trust ammonia test kits with most ammonia-neutralizers; but the stick-on ammonia badges work.
 
I am at 1.010 right now. I have a refractometer with 2 test solutions bought within the same week from the SAME manufacturer that read 1 pt off one reads 34 the other 35.

I am not sure which to trust so I am at 1.010 until I can figure that out.

The yellow tang is still alive but his skin is deteriorating... I am not sure if I should just flush him I dont want him to suffer but I have never seen a saltwater fish fight through so much :(

My ammonia appears to be 0 still but I left the live rock in there. Should I pull that out or do you think all the damage from that is done after a week?
 
argh... I just noticed one of my clownfish is dying too :(

Displaying that same skin decaying look... is there something else wrong with my tank or is that just an effect on the fish after being poisoned?
 
gguertin said:
I am at 1.010 right now. I have a refractometer with 2 test solutions bought within the same week from the SAME manufacturer that read 1 pt off one reads 34 the other 35.

I am not sure which to trust so I am at 1.010 until I can figure that out.

The yellow tang is still alive but his skin is deteriorating... I am not sure if I should just flush him I dont want him to suffer but I have never seen a saltwater fish fight through so much :(

My ammonia appears to be 0 still but I left the live rock in there. Should I pull that out or do you think all the damage from that is done after a week?
Click to expand...

I'd pull the LR. I doubt its enough to reduce ammonia at this stage and any benefit will be offset by the die-off. Much of the micro-life that the hypo will kill is well within the porous rock and will take a while to decompose; adding ammonia as it does. I know what you mean about the YT; they are incredibly hardy fish.
 
Live rock is out... anything I can do about the skin looking like its peeling off and their fins getting beat up?
 
I added mb7 yesterday and today... not sure if that will help.

Not sure I have ever been so frustrated before with aquariums. Trying to do what I was told was the right thing to do and I am killing what was healthy fish I had that clown I just flushed for 10 years before this :(

I would just abort and put them back in the tank but with where the salinity is and as stressed out as they are I don't think they would survive that either.
 
I'm sorry about the pain you're going through and I've gone through it myself before too. Remember, bad water quality, i.e., presence of ammonia is going to kill fish a lot faster than a couple of ich spots here and there. Unless the QT is fully cycled, water quality is always an issue when treating fish in it. If the QT is relative uncycled or just partially, you'd probably be doing two large water changes per day. By large I mean 50%. You should also be testing for ammonia twice a day too, and whenever you detect ammonia, no matter how little, do a 50% water change. This, coupled with dosing prime to detoxify ammonia, is the only way to control the water quality in a QT.
 
Is brooklynella something that would only show up after a qt? I have had all the remaining fish for years in my display tank but pulled them all with the idea that I would have an ich free tank and then quarantine all fish going into that display... talk about backfiring.
 
If you have had all your fish in your DT for years without having any signs of brook, then it's probably not brook. If the fish are heavily infested, sometimes the skin could peel off from the wounds that ich has caused. It should heal quickly once ich is under control.
 
still fighting this... have .25 ammonia in the morning when I wake up everyday...

What are the badges someone referenced earlier? Can someone send me a link I have just been using the api test kit.
 
it's the seachem ammonia alert. pretty much every petsmart sells it.

are you using prime to detoxy ammonia? most ammonia test kits would measure both NH3 and NH4+, but only NH3 is toxic to fish. An ammonia detoxifier would convert NH3 to NH4+, but that would still register with most liquid test kits, giving a false reading. the Seachem ammonia alert only reads NH3 so that's more accurate.
 
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