Controlling ammonia in bare bottom tank

[richtoybox]

Hi,
I know this thread is old, but I thought I would just add my comments too. I have a 75 gallon bare bottom tank with 44 fish (12 are neon tetras). I feed once day and I have two AquaClear 110 Filters and I've recently added some live Anarcharis plants. I always have ammonia issues and this is because I have too many fish and I feed too much!! LOL!! I know it, but it is what it is and my only solution to keep my ammonia down is to do frequent water changes! I have to do them every other day (omg!)... sometimes I can get away with every 72 hrs. instead. When i do my water changes, I use Stress Coat, Prime, Stability, Quick Start and some Aquarium Salt. I have Platys, Mollies and Swordtails besides the Tetras. I love my tank, BUT it's a lot of work to keep it healthy!! The only way to keep your ammonia down in a bare bottom tank is to have great filtration... don't change out your medias all at once and rinse with tank water, don't overstock with fish... it should be your tank size minus 20 percent and that is how many inches of fish you should have, and lastly, don't overfeed!! Good Luck!! You can see my tank on youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=xkMxDFQmg5c Enjoy the video!! Bobbi

The Youtube link takes me to my own videos, so probably the wrong link. Look for the embed code and paste it into the post.

[jimfish98]

Hi,
I know this thread is old, but I thought I would just add my comments too. I have a 75 gallon bare bottom tank with 44 fish (12 are neon tetras). I feed once day and I have two AquaClear 110 Filters and I've recently added some live Anarcharis plants. I always have ammonia issues and this is because I have too many fish and I feed too much!! LOL!! I know it, but it is what it is and my only solution to keep my ammonia down is to do frequent water changes! I have to do them every other day (omg!)... sometimes I can get away with every 72 hrs. instead. When i do my water changes, I use Stress Coat, Prime, Stability, Quick Start and some Aquarium Salt. I have Platys, Mollies and Swordtails besides the Tetras. I love my tank, BUT it's a lot of work to keep it healthy!! The only way to keep your ammonia down in a bare bottom tank is to have great filtration... don't change out your medias all at once and rinse with tank water, don't overstock with fish... it should be your tank size minus 20 percent and that is how many inches of fish you should have, and lastly, don't overfeed!! Good Luck!! You can see my tank on youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=xkMxDFQmg5c Enjoy the video!! Bobbi

You will need to post a link to the video and not the editor tab for the video as it sends all of us to our personal editor pages.

I recommend you really upgrade your filtration. A canister such as a Rena XP4 or Fluval would save you a lot of chemicals and water. I run a pair of XP4 on my bare 75g and I haven't had detectable ammonia in years.

[kevin32]

External filters like jim mentioned. I see people using the aquaclear and put brand new filter pad in. Doesn't make sense to me. I just use a small hang over filter with a piece of Japanese mat and some k1 and works pretty well for my small fish count in 55 gallon tank

[Skye]

The over-the-side filters did not work for me, and I had a double. I ended up a few years ago with a canister filter. That has resolved my problem. Thanks to all who replied.

[lynnwood53]

I rescued 24 koi fish from a pond that was being dug up. The fish are doing great and have tripled in size. I've got them split up in one 20 gallon, one 30 gallon, and one 3' x 6' pond that sit above the ground not dug in. My problem is that i'm doing water changes every other day, to keep the ammonia levels down. And now that the weather is hot i do changes to add cold water along with the frozen water bottles to keep the water cool. Is there a way to fix this? The 20 gal has 4 fish, ranging from 4 to 6 inches in size, which i plan to move to the 30 gallon tank, and the 30 gallon tank has 11 smaller koi ranging from 2 to 3". The pond has 3 fish all about 4". There is no problem with ammonia in the pond even though the water has algae kinda bad.The 11 Koi are going into a 50 gallon soon that has a sand bottom, that was in the tank already. How can i keep these ammonia levels down without doing so many water changes? I don't want to put these guys that are in tanks into the pond, already lost 2 of my best koi a large fancy male and one female to the neighborhood crane bird, don't want that to happen to these. And oh ya i also have 3 10 gallon tanks the 3 different size koi fry in them ranging from newly hatched to about 9 to 10 wks old. separated them by size because the oldest one and his little buddy were eating the smaller ones. I even caught one of them after moving the biggest one to his own tank, sizing up the fish in it's tank! Actually going up to the other fish to see if they were small enough for him to eat! All together there's close to 100 fry. Theres a separate part of the pond that i started putting the fry in and they're are doing fine no ammonia there either. Sorry to run on so much just need to know if there's another alternative to handle these bare bottom tank. can't afford to put rock in them right now.This has bee an expensive rescue, close to $500. Would appreciate and feedback on ammonia, and the bare bottom tank. Never had this problem when i was breeding discus, so i'm kinda lost on what to do. hope you can help Thank you for your time.

Lynn Wood
lynnwood53allynn@gmail.com

[OCkoiFan]

So how many gallons is the 3’by6’? I say put the all together in your biggest pond and concentrate on daily water change
Okay a koi pond is totally differently from an aquarium
You will need a good pump to circulate that water or turnover at least once every hour through some kinda of filtration system
Remember koi produce a lot of waste so you don’t want anything on the bottom of the pond
No rocks no sand nothing ....
May be you better off with an intex pool and some type of diy filters meantime if you want to keep these koi living
This should help with waterchange and remove ammonia
Seachem Safe 1 Kilo https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003JW2G44..._-8csBb2MQQ7XA

I don’t deal with fry koi but you’re just don’t have the resources to support them so do the best you can with saparate them from the big pond