Cant get water right!HELP!

"mary" wrote in message
...
I have a 20 gal. tank with 2 small blood parrots and the ammonia alwys
reads high., but not way over the top, the fish seem ok, and I know i
am
not overfeeding. the weird thing is that after i do a water change it
seems to be worse! I tried putting ammo lock, no help, i even put some
of those ammocarb rocks in the filter bag, nothing! Can someone please
help?


How are you measuring your ammonia? The Ammonia Alert (Seachem) will
only show free Ammonia....or basically does not show Ammonium. Ammonium
is what AmmoLock....Amquel......convert toxic Ammonia to. Ammonium will
not harm your fish, but is still available to your biofilter. Many
other Ammonia test kits do not work correctly if you use additives like
Ammolock or Amquel.

I personally would not use ammocarb anymore. I have when I was young
and did not know better.

These days when I have a potential for ammonia, I use Amquel and monitor
closely with an Ammonia Alert....and do water changes every other day
(50%) until I am out of the woods. I also would use Aquarium Salt at 1
tablespoon per 5 gallons until all biofilter issues are resolved. Add
slowly over a few hours.

Good luck.