75% water change to much? Plus ammonia issue.

Snarbleglarf

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Hi all! I have a question about waterchanges,
So a little back story is I’m having issues with ammonia, my Reefer 250 has been set up for about 3 months, my initial cycle was a fish in cycle using 2 clownfish 2 yellow watchman gobies, 1 damsel and bottled bacteria ( I know y’all might think that was to many fish to cycle with but at this point everything was going exactly as it was supposed to) I had readings of ammonia nitrite and nitrate and after a month it appeared to be cycled but I jumped the gun and added a black cap basslet and a blood red cleaner shrimp since then my ammonia has consistently been at a 1.0ppm not going up and not going down so this last Saturday I did a 75% waterchange to combat this and on Sunday I retested my chemicals and ammonia was still at a 1.0, from my experience with freshwater that should have gone down to about 0.50 so I started doing some testing. RODI water straight from the store read 0.50ppm left over water still in the Brute trash can read 2.0ppm and aquarium read 1.0ppm. I went to store and picked up carbon and Zeolite to help and the day after adding that my ammonia was at a 0.50 which is great.
Anyways I asked people on a Facebook group what could be causing my ammonia to fluctuate between the three different sources and why my cycle is taking so long even after adding 2-3 times the amount of recommended bottled bacteria over the course of 3 months and someone responded that a 75% waterchange was way to much and that it would kill my benificial bacteria and that I shouldn’t be doing more than 10-20% waterchanges weekly but they wouldn’t go into detail as to why, does anyone else agree with this statement or is that not accurate? I’m confused on how to keep nitrates at bay if that is correct since my fish would quickly replace the nitrates removed after only a 10-20% waterchange. They were also the only person who responded to my post so that’s why I’m asking here
 

ReeferMaddness843

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The beneficial bacteria locks to the rocks and items in the tank. What is found in the water column itself is negligible and doesn’t really matter. As Ling as the rock was seeded and the bacteria is there, shouldn’t matter how much water changed. What type of test are you using for ammonia? With any ammonia reading, I’d remove any fish or livestock and try to reboot the cycle with pure ammonia and bacteria. Unsure the ratio, so that would need to be researched. If I come across it here I’ll link it as well. Just my .02
 

ReeferMaddness843

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If possible to incorporate a refugium or chaeto reactor after the cycle has confirmed complete, that would help with the excess nutrient maintenance and allow you to get down to a smaller water change schedule.
 

Jvf93

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That seems to be a bit too much. Unless you had high levels of alk or something absolutely bonkers
 
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Snarbleglarf

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The beneficial bacteria locks to the rocks and items in the tank. What is found in the water column itself is negligible and doesn’t really matter. As Ling as the rock was seeded and the bacteria is there, shouldn’t matter how much water changed. What type of test are you using for ammonia? With any ammonia reading, I’d remove any fish or livestock and try to reboot the cycle with pure ammonia and bacteria. Unsure the ratio, so that would need to be researched. If I come across it here I’ll link it as well. Just my .02
I used an API master test kit, I will have to research the reboot you mentioned thank you :)
 
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Snarbleglarf

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That seems to be a bit too much. Unless you had high levels of alk or something absolutely bonkers
I ended up doing that much due to the 1.0ppm of ammonia and my nitrates were 160ppm or more and it’s only a 65 gallon system including the sump so I didn’t feel like it was that much water
 
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