# Need help with ammonia and ph



## artemisblossom (May 22, 2008)

Hi everyone 

I am an extreme beginner and need some help. I set up my first ever tank last week a 55 gal. In it I have 7 platies and 3 platie fry in a breeder net(the fry were a surprise 3 days ago i have no idea which fish even gave birth) Anyway I am trying to cycle the tank and have been doing water changes almost daily. the water I am using comes from my well and has no chemicals and tests to about 6.8 to 7 coming out of the tap. I have been testing ammonia levels daily. Yesterday the ammonia levels shot up to about 1ppm so I did a 75% water change and today the ammonia is sitting around .5ppm I am getting ready to do another water change about 50%. I thought I would just test the ph today, I haven't done this since I set the tank up and was shocked to see that the ph had jumped to 7.6 or a little higher. What caused this??? What should I do?? The fish seem ok but i am very concerned.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

pH levels can vary from when you get it out of the tap and when you read again 24 hrs later due to dissolved CO2 (which later becomes gas again) lowering the pH.
IMO, with your stocking level, and size of tank, I'd just leave the aquarium alone and not bother with the WC so often. It's probably more stress than the fish need.

BTW, how long has the tank been set up? platies are very tough fish, and are often used as fish to cycle tanks, so they should be ok with regards to a bit of ammonia.

Good luck, and welcome to the forum and hobby!!


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## Calmer (Mar 9, 2008)

Platies and other livebearers can endure subtle increases in hardness and ph, so no worries there. 
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile4.html

Do you have plants in the aquarium? As they will consume the ammonia.


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## artemisblossom (May 22, 2008)

I have had the tank up and running for a week.


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## KnaveTO (May 13, 2007)

First off with the fact that your tank is relatively newly set up the fact that you are getting an ammonia spike is entirely natural.

Fish produce waste and waste turns into Ammonia, from there it becomes Nitrite, and evntually it becomes Nitrates. This is what is known as the Nitrogen Cycle and is where the term 'cycling' your tank actually comes from.

The fact that your ammonia has gone from 1.0 to 0.5 could mean that the second stage is beginning but I would more likely attribute it to your water change. 

From this point forward I would stop the 50% daily water changes and reduce this to about 20-25% and no more. Large water changes are known to re-start the cycling process all over again, so by such large water changes you are potentially doing more harm over the long term than good.

I am impressed that you are doing Ammonia testing... at least a fish store gave you some good advise. You should alos pick-up (unless they sold you all 3) a Nitrite and a Nitrate test as well. When you are testing you should be looking at all 3 of them not just the Ammonia alone. Like any trio the one only tells a part of the story.

As for pH don't worry about that too much. pH can take some weird swings. I have seen mine as high as 8.1 and as low as 6.9 and that is from the tap. pH will be affected by many things such as source location, treatment, piping, substrate, rock and decor of your tank, CO2 injection, and plants. All of this will affect pH as well as GH and KH (general hardness and carbonate hardness). These fluctuations should be watched but over time you will notice a trend and that the canges are more gradual than you may think.

Hope some of this info helps and welcome to our little site.


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## artemisblossom (May 22, 2008)

thank you for the welcome. I didn;t get much help from the fish store but I bought several books and have been doing a lot of reading and research. yes the lowered ammonia reading is most likely due to the water changes and I have been testing for the nitrite and nitrates but both are still sitting around zero. It is still pretty early in the cycle to see those I would think. I was just panicing over the ph level but after reading some advice here I tested some water that had been sitting for a few hours in a glass and found the ph was different that it was coming out of the tap so in all probability it didn't really change a lot in the tank. Still it is much more alkaline than what I thought it was do you think I should leave it alone or try and lower the ph? I eventually want to have a few cory's and a pair of gouramis and a bristlenose catfish will water this ph level be dangerous for these other fish??


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## KnaveTO (May 13, 2007)

I wouldn't worry too much about yur pH at this time. Adjusting pH as well as other water parameters can be a difficult thing to deal with.


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## Julian (Jun 29, 2008)

not sure if you have any plants or not. However a few faster growing plants will soak up some of that ammonia nicely. I started with plants in my tank put fish in two weeks later and haven't had any Ammonia or nitrites show up so far thankfully.


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## planter (Jun 9, 2008)

The ammonia should start to bottom out in the next few day's. Watch out for the spike. The nitrite part of the cycle takes much longer(weeks). Try to keep the nitrites around 1ppm. So far so good. It's nice to see a new aquarist start off on the right foot by researching first. Please post any other questions you have. I haven't been on the forum for very long but the people here seem to be a great group of folks and I'm sure they (and I) will be more then happy to help you along the way. 

Welcome to the forum and to the hobby,


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