Ammonia issue

[kinderpond]

*SICK* I am having major probs with my 20g tall's ammonia levels. This is a tropical community tank with 5 neons, 2 danios, 2 (small) corys, and 2 von rio tetras. Now we are not really up to toxic ammonia levels yet (and no fish loss recently) but today we spiked to 2 ppm which concerns me. (We did lose 3 neon tetras the first few days we introduced them, but that has been over a month ago. They were immediately removed as soon as they were discovered.) We are doing 25% water changes every other day. Current chemicals being used: stability, stress zyme, aquarium salt. All other water parameters are fine: pH 6.2, 0 Nitrites, 0 Nitrates. We remove all unused food with a turkey baster, and while doing water changes we have been using the gravel vacuum to suck up nastiness in the gravel. We are running a AquaClear 50 on the lowest setting (for the neons), and at each water change have rinsed everything. Changed the carbon filter today. Up til today we were also using the ammonia remover insert for the aquaclear, but I took it out bc I'm concerned this may be part of the issue. Any ideas on what is going wrong??? My thought is this is possibly an issue with the nitrogen cycle in the tank. I am reluctant to put lots of chemicals in the tank...but I've considered using AmQuel which has worked in the past on my goldfish. My only other thought is that we may need to take out some fish to reduce the bio load. Any help would be great...our lps is one of the chain deals with high school kids working the fish dept, so if I go there I might as well ask my 3-yr-old whats going on...

 

[Lionel]

Any ammonia is toxic. Change 50% daily and treat the incoming water with seachem prime. Also, don't change your filter media as this is where your beneficial bacteria lives. With zero nitrites and zero nitrates it's safe to say your tank has not cycled at all yet.

 

[KcMopar]

Also dont clean anything!!!!!!!!!!!! Just as Lionel said not to change the filter!!!!!!!!!! Your tank is either re-cycling or never has. Just use a chemical to remove chlorine as suggested. If something absolutely needs cleaning rinse it in the water you pulled out to change and do not scrub it!! Cleaning and changing media only removes the precious bacteria you are trying to grow to make the nitrogen cycle work. Once you start seeing nitrate you have the nitrogen cycle going. Does your filter have the sponge in it? If so only give this a minor squeezing every other month or so.

 

[Purple]

It does sound like you are overdoing the cleaning

Slow down on the food - don;t clean your filter so much - and rely on water changes only to get you through this