Quote Originally Posted by snobordnwifey View Post
We are still having issues. I can't figure it out. Our frog is acting sick again, floating at the top. Typically, he just floats with his legs hanging down, but now it seems like he's having a hard time keeping his legs from floating up to the surface, so I'm very concerned about him. He's pretty lethargic, too. He shed a lot of skin yesterday and was very frantic about trying to get it off. His coloring seems to have gotten darker as well.

I have left the tank alone for about a month now. Just 25% changes every week or so. Ammonia is still crazy high. Yesterday, for fear of my frogs health, I did a 75% water change and after the change, the ammonia was still at a 4! No nitrites, but high nitrates as well. How do I control this? Using an established tanks sand doesn't seem to have worked. Is my frog just a major ammonia producer? I've been trying not to feed him much, but I also don't want him to starve. He was moving around yesterday trying to eat the pellets I fed him.

What would cause high ammonia and high nitrate, but no nitrite?
An uncycled tank can cause ammonia and nitrate.. it is a sign that the biological filtration cannot keep up. How large is this aquarium? Your frog needs 10 gallons of water -minimum- otherwise it's going to be a constant battle with ammonia and nitrite. If you are still using the 10 gallon maybe it's time to move to a 20 gallon, a larger tank is always easier to maintain.

Are you sure the ammonia is reading 4ppm? That is huge, like really really huge. Anything over 0 is toxic, even 0.25ppm is toxic, 4ppm is just insane. Are you using test strips? They are not accurate, get a liquid test kit instead.

Beneficial bacteria won't be found in sand, it would be found in filter media, get used filter media (the blue foamy stuff).

I am curious, does your tap water have ammonia? What are you using to condition your water? I would suggest getting Prime as it will neutralize ammonia and convert it into ammonium.