Help-Ammonia in tank

[NewShrimp]

Hello all,

7 months ago, I freed 2 opae ula from an ecosphere and put them in a 1 gallon tank. They were very happy and always out swimming around. I had to leave for college, and the 2 shrimp stayed at my house. My mom has been filling up the tank when the water evaporates with distilled water, and she also turns on and off their tank light everyday. There is plenty of algae growing on the front side of the tank, so I told her to not worry about feeding them any food, as their bellies are always visibly full.

Ever since I've been back from college for break, I began to see the shrimp less and less. I thought it was because I was turning their light on and off at different times than my mom. There's only 2 of them, and recently, I've only seen one of them come out at night once the light is off. I haven't seen the other one out in at least a week. I tested the water with the Quick Dip Ammonia Test Kit to see if there was something wrong, and the results indicate that the ammonia is at the stress level. I've attached pictures of the test results and a picture of their tank (and I plan on filling up the tank with more distilled water since it's starting to get low). There's some macroalgae in the back of the tank, and algae growing on the front side of the tank. In order to treat the ammonia, how big of a water change should be done? Do I have to mix more brackish water for the tank change? One more thing...can you ever have too much algae in the tank? There's plenty growing on the front side of the tank, but I know that the 2 shrimp probably won't ever eat all of it.

Thanks for your help!

Edit: Not sure if this is important, but the substrate is from the shop from this website, and there's calcium carbonate pebbles mixed in. The macroalgae is also from the shop, and I made the brackish water with the salt sold from the shop.

[attygirl]

NewShrimp - first buy a liquid test kit for ammonia. It is more accurate than the test strips. But, assuming you have an ammonia spike, yes, you will need to mix more brackish water using distilled water and Instant Ocean. I think you should do a 25% water change and then a day later do another 25% change until your tests show no ammonia. However, others may have different ideas - but do change some of the water - sooner as opposed to later.

As for too much algae, do you have any snails? If not, get a few and they will help clean up the algae.

Hope you can save your shrimp.

Also, buy a timer for your light - cheap and much easier than having to turn the light on & off yourself.

[NewShrimp]

NewShrimp - first buy a liquid test kit for ammonia. It is more accurate than the test strips. But, assuming you have an ammonia spike, yes, you will need to mix more brackish water using distilled water and Instant Ocean. I think you should do a 25% water change and then a day later do another 25% change until your tests show no ammonia. However, others may have different ideas - but do change some of the water - sooner as opposed to later.

As for too much algae, do you have any snails? If not, get a few and they will help clean up the algae.

Hope you can save your shrimp.

Also, buy a timer for your light - cheap and much easier than having to turn the light on & off yourself.

Thanks for your reply!

Yesterday, I did a 25% water change. Both of the shrimp popped out of their cave, so I know that they're both still alive. Today I tested the water with an API freshwater test kit. The ammonia is at 0.25 ppm, and the nitrate and nitrite levels are both at 0 ppm. I'll do another 25% water change tomorrow and hope it clears up.

Should the ammonia level always be at 0 ppm?

[attygirl]

Yes, you want your ammonia level to be zero. It sounds like what you did is working !

[Vorteil]

I think that since our tanks don't usually run filtration there's always a chance that levels of ammonia & nitrates will be present.

[Dch48]

Something that most aquarium keepers don't know is that the toxicity of ammonia increases with the pH of the water. At a pH of 7.0, virtually none of any ammonia present is in the toxic form. At a pH of 8.0, nearly all of it is toxic and readings should be at 0 at all times.

https://pethelpful.com/fish-aquariums/T ... ut-Ammonia