I hope you won't take this as a pick at you personally but there is one thing I've noticed about our hobby.
The new person is one who will have less experience and of cousre be more likely to have a hard time figuring what is happening. But then the new person is also the most likely to not be well stocked and skilled on test kits. I've found that the best way to prevent trouble that can be hard to diagnose is to keep test kits on hand and use them often enough to feel I'm getting the right answer.
Your question is hard to pin down for a "right" answer but if you were testing and there was no question about ammonia build up, the answer would be much clearer to you.
When I see my fish acting goofy, I do some testing on the normal things before I spend any time debating what other causes might be working against me. It is just a lot easier to tell when you have some facts on hand from the testing.