hi everyone im chris and i got a 55 gal with an oscar and 2 jd's but i need tons of help i hope someone can help me out. i know about the nitrogen cycle but i can not get rid of my ammonia. amonia is .5ppm nitrIte 0ppm nitrate 10ppm and ph 7.5 can some one help me out i getting ready to start this tank over cause it is pissing me off this has been goin on for ummm 4 months now. mondays i vaced the gavel and wends i do a 30% and sats i do a 50% water change. this has been what i have been doing to try n control this situation i use prime everytime i put new water in. my oscar just sits in a corner and his tail fin is bent all the time. eats everyonce and a while i have own him/her for 3 weeks now and still no improvement my jds swim around then hide in the caves???? idk what is goin on. i have 2 aquatechs 30-60gal filter and the temp is set to 77 degrees f please help me out i love my jd's and oscar and i want to see them grow into monsters

p.s the 55 gal is temp till they get bigger my jd's are 3in and my oscar is 4in

not familiar with those filters are they external canisters what you feeding and how often?? normaly ive found amonia =over feeding or bad filtration what media is in your filters?? did you cycle properly and for how long and what with????

welcome to the site.

firstly what kind of testing kit are you using? ie. strips or liquid reagent.

secondly how do you clean your filters and how often?

maybe in these answers we can help in deterining what may be going on in your tank.

they are HOB 3 stage filter from walmart. when they do eat i feed them frozen bloodworms and beefheart for snacks and flakes and pellets. i feed them once a day and take out anything they dont touch. the past 2 weeks i have been feeding them once every 2 days. i had the cycle started with 3 gold fish and waited a month amonia hit 0 nitrites 0 nirtates 20 then took the gold fish out and now starting my 20 gal. i replace the filters every month and 2 every 2nd week i clean them using old tank water usually when im doin a water change and im using API liquid tests

id stick to just pelets for a while drop the beef heart at this stage until you get amonia under control pellets are easyer to get out as they float never been a fan of hobs as a primary filter they alright if you use them alongside a good canister i realy cant add anything sorry mate and good look

welcome to the site. Are your fish behaving normally and wanting to eat? I would be inclined to get another testing kit, a liquid testing kit by Company like an aquarium pharmaceuticals for instance, or maybe Tetra.

Hi Chris and Welcome. IMO, as I too have those filters, You need more filtration. You should look into a canister to run with those HOB's. This should handle your problem.

Also bumping your temp up to 80 will help with both movement and hunger, in your Oscar and JD's!!

sorry, I have just read a little bit more information. When you say you replace filters, are you replacing all of the media?

Make sure when replacing those filter cartridges, you only discard one and keep the other one in tact to continue the bacteria colocny. Canister filters are superior in every way to the filter you are using, I am familiar with the filter Wal*Mart sells, not very efficient. If you like the HOB filters, I would switch to the Emperor 400 with bio wheel, far superior. I run this filter in tandem with my canister. Great Bio filtration. You never replace the bio wheel and never clean it, unless it stops rotating. A filter change should be in order. Check it out www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsUS/ctl3684/cp...owheel400powerfilter

PS. I hope this Helps. Good luck!

thanks... the wife is goin to get a fluval 405 canister filter for me for christmas lol i hope they can wait till then. thank you

405 is nice

Great canister filter, that will be more then enough.