Sudden Ammonia Spike!

[ILoveLola]

So I'm in a bit of a blind panic right now, and I'm typing hastily because I am supposed to be on my way to my fiance's grandfather's house, so anything else I answer today will be on my phone and I'll be a good two hours from my fish. Not the best timing.

Last night I noticed the little ammonia alert thing I stuck on my tank had turned from yellow (good) to light green (alert). So I whipped out my liquid test kit, checked ammonia. Sure enough, it's high. The test kit says 5ppm, the alert thing says 0.02. I'm sure the alert thing is the wrong one here... So I did a 20% water change and added some extra Prime. This morning, Lola's tank parameters are:

Ammonia 0.5ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 0ppm
SG 1.005

I am absolutely horrified that something I did may have screwed up the cycle of my tank, killed of my bacteria, and will now kill off my poor fish! Ugh I feel horrible. Things I did yesterday:

a 30% water change
switched from Tetra dechlorinator to Prime
fed Lola garlic and anti-parasite infused food
removed my ghost shrimp prior to said food (6 of them)
changed carbon

i'm worried that one or some of these things combined may have been too much for one day?

the tank is a 20 gallon, has been established for about two or so months, about one with Lola in it. It was cycled using material from my other established tank, including substrate, filter sponges, and fake plants and rocks. The other tank was a 6 gallon nano that housed platies and ottos, and for about two weeks before Lola moved in an algae eater and some of the ghost shrimp lived in it. The algae eater moved out.

I did a small water change today, about 10%. i knwo I should be doing more, but I'm already ten minutes late out the door. Uuugh bad puffmom.
thanks in advance for any help!

[ILoveLola]

So the ghost shrimp thing didn't make sense. I meant I moved my shrimp to another tank because of the meds in the food.
The anti-parasite meds are Tetra tablets.

[RTR]

How old was the carbon? it may have been home to some of your nitrogen cycle bacteria.

[ILoveLola]

Well, about a month, but it was removed for a week or so because I was using melafix (she had ich.) It had been in for a week since then.

[J-P]

can use prime or safe start to help with the ammonia short term until it levels off again?

[ILoveLola]

I did add some, on the bottle it says it can help with ammonia spikes... I'm just worried about ODing Prime, isn't it very concentrated?

[sevenyearnight]

Prime has a VERY high level of safety, something like 5x the standard dosage. Prime is a hero.

[sevenyearnight]

Test your tap water. If like RTR said, your carbon was housing a good bit of your bacteria, *and* the tap also has ammonia, it may have been too much along with Lola's bioload.
But, your tap water may or may not have ammonia, every company is different. It could just be Lola's bioload not supported by the removed portion of bacteria colonies.

Prime wil make the water safe for Lola, but still leave the ammonia (and nitrite) available to the biofilter. Don't panic, just keep up on daily water changes, add Prime every 24 hours double dose. J-P's suggestion of Tetra Safe start is a great one, make sure your pH is at least 7.0, if it's below that, the beneficial bacteria has a more difficult time establishing.

[sevenyearnight]

I forgot to say, pour the bottle directly into the filter.

Is Lola behaving differently?

If there maybe some uneaten food hiding out somewhere in the tank?

[ILoveLola]

Thanks all. Still out of town, but when I left Lola was doing great. Last night too, she doesn't seem to care. Exploring & asking for snails I will definitely test my tap water. Would putting the old carbon back in help? It's sitting in the snail tank I'm setting up.

[sevenyearnight]

Not if it's been without an ammonia source, and especially if it's not even in water, the bacteria should have starved and/or dried up after that amount of time.

[Reaperpilot2014]

Carbon is pretty much unneeded in a filter unless you are trying to get medication out of the water anyway.

[ILoveLola]

When I got home I checked the ammonia, still 5ppm. I did another 30% water change & more Prime, wanting to let it sit for awhile before I test it again. Like a watched pot? If I let it sit for a minute, will the ammonia go away? Haha. Ugh. Thank you soo much for all your help. If it's not down tomorrow morning, I'll definitely buy some Safe Start. Lola is still acting fine, eating well, swimming about happily. I did check my tap water for ammonia, got nothin.

my goodness, if it's not one thing then it's another. She just got over ich a week or two ago, I'm treating her for IP... this madness.

she's worth it though.

[Reaperpilot2014]

If your ammonia is 5ppm then everything in there should be dead, or getting there. You may have gotten a false reading. The Seachem ammonia alert works okay, but I would trust the liquid tests. What brand of liquid tests are you using? If you are using API, then it could also be giving you a false reading for converted ammonia due to nessler reagents.

[Reaperpilot2014]

I know you just put a whole bunch of expensive things in there, but if it were me, I would do a 70%-80% water change and start taking readings from there. That will drop your ammonia reading. If you don't use any ammonia converters, but your ammonia reading goes up from there, then you will know that something happened to your tank, at which point I would get Lola into a different cycled tank if you have one. If not, heavy and frequent water changes with something like Amquel.