Ammonia at .25 PPM. Water change or wait?

[ScubaSkeets]

Hi folks!
After my water change last week, my ammonia read 0 (API). Always does. However, after yesterday's water change (approx 20%), the ammonia is reading .25PPM. Tested 3 times. The fish seem fine, but I'm freaking out! I added Microbe-Lift Nite-Out II, but this morning it is still reading .25. How fast should a ammonia remover like that read 0? Should I do another water change today, or should I just monitor it and wait for next week's water change?

Thanks!

 

[Ludders]

when did you set your tank up and how was is cycled?
Test kits are notoriously inaccurate.
Tagging @brandon429 in

 

[Beau_B]

Which test? API? I would tend to ignore it. The Seachem badges have been better in my experience. Most fish stores have them <$10 and they last a year.

 

[Garf]

API Reading light cloudy green is good, not really ammonia to be concerned with. If you post a picture of the test vile, we can confirm good or bad.

 

[brandon429]

EMERGENCY - Crazy Ammonia spike

Hey all, This tank has been up for 1+ year and its been doing great with SPS, LPS etc. Today I had 1 sps peel out and I thought maybe it was the new carbon I changed out, went to rent out a par meter to make sure had them test the water just for ***** and giggles as I test it myself x2 weekly...

www.reef2reef.com

im on a free ammonia diagnostics self-imposed moratorium until we close that one out he he

yes this reading for this thread is false just the same. For the exact same reasons listed there

 

[brandon429]

The way we know about scuba’s tank without even seeing any details from pics are that it’s an active reef, with living fish day by day


that means he has enough surface area like we all do, or the fish would be dead before he posted here, and that surface area will never permit free ammonia at .25 even if ten testers says it will.

the fish being fine are the proof.

 

[Idoc]

API ammonia test kits are notorious for showing 0.25ppm when there isn't any ammonia present.

I wouldn't sweat it, but maybe get a different kit, ie: red sea. Etc... and recheck.

The ammonia alert badges are good, as previously mentioned. I use them in my quarantine tanks.

 

[ehealy13]

Same experiences with the API readings, I had my mixing station read a .25 with API.

 

[brandon429]

The above linked massive misread nobody agrees is a misread is Red Sea.

and I can find them for salifert too, and even for seneye. Misreads are possible on all tests

the tank, it’s animals, and it’s surface area are the final say it will never be any test kit that overrules what we can easily see with a tank picture. See how the thread we are in now, the crowd agrees is a misread, just not in the one above? same exact tank biology shown, we just adjust our troubleshooting around the thread title and we dont factor the known rules of how surface area works in filtration. This is why ammonia troubleshooting can go either way, at the whim of the refs. No objective eval.

objective here would be a tank pic showing all animals fine, the surface area, and no reason for the bacteria to be dead or partially dead

 

[brandon429]

The # 1 thing that must change in order for the hobby to be better reefers and save money and preserve animals is that we don’t alternate between test kits to hopefully find one to tell us about ammonia

its that we should use 2021 cycling biology updates to state what ammonia is, off pictures, using no test kit.


ammonia is 100% predictable in all reefs, it’s the second most unneeded to own test kit in reefing. The first is nitrite.

the ammonia here if measured by a calibrated and running seneye will be in the thousandths ppm. Thats what high surface area reef tanks run at, it doesn’t vary tank to tank. It’s the same tank to tank. That none of the colorimetric tests agree on 10 sampled reefs shows how useless all the tests are compared to the known science of surface area + nitrification.

 

[Garf]

Brandon. He just wants to know if his water is ok, that’s all. So far we are all in agreement here

 

[brandon429]

Excellent

can u post an analysis in the other thread to put it back on rails lol


if you post that one is stalled and this one isn’t, ill have to interpret that as an early April fools yoke

two reefs doing just fine don’t get to pick and choose when the tests are right and wrong. What filters do is infallible

you’ve never seen us kill a tank with a single mis call. I have however seen lack of surface area mechanics in the tracing steps cause absolute madness in reefing and fifty bottles of bac sold, unnecessarily.

 

[ScubaSkeets]

Thanks for the replies thus far.

I know that the API kits are inaccurate, but I think it did set a baseline for changes. Its been yellow all this time, but now its light green, which tells me there was a change, regardless of how much of a change.

Here is a pic of the vial:

And here is a pic of the tank:

Its a 54 gallon bow front, I am using a canister (I know, I know) with coarse sponges, an ammonia filter pad (snake oil?) Clear FX pro, plastic bio-balls, and Matrix.

 

[brandon429]

And here’s the twin thread proving we are ok here. Exactly like your tank.

Ammonia Keeps Spiking

So from everything I have read and was told once I have reached 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite my tank was cycled took about a month or so. I cycled with live rock and fish. Tank has been up 6 weeks. Now in my tank I have 4 fish. Midas Blenny, longnose hawk and 2 clowns with 40lbs of live rock. I do...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

You can remove the ammonia filter pad. It’s not snake oil

just not needed, ever, for the life of this tank.

 

[brandon429]

The change does not matter. Api colors change by the minute, the test is simply wrong and what we expect it to show. Your ammonia is in the thousandths ppm.


there was nothing wrong with the tank, no bottle bac was needed, and if you cease testing for ammonia for the life of this tank you’ll be better off, because ammonia cannot drift out of spec in any reef tank, ever, not once.

 

[ScubaSkeets]

You can remove the ammonia filter pad. It’s not snake oil

just not needed, ever, for the life of this tank.

But it can't hurt, can it?

The change does not matter. Api colors change by the minute, the test is simply wrong and what we expect it to show. Your ammonia is in the thousandths ppm.


there was nothing wrong with the tank, no bottle bac was needed, and if you cease testing for ammonia for the life of this tank you’ll be better off, because ammonia cannot drift out of spec in any reef tank, ever, not once.

Wait. What? You're saying that ammonia testing is not required at all (in an established tank, at least)?

Adding the bac may not have been necessary, but it couldn't have hurt anything, could it have?

For other water testing, what do you use?

Rhetorically speaking, if the API tests are so bad, why does almost everyone sell them. And that is usually the only one they have (at least at the brick and mortars, and not just at the Petcos, and PetSmarts, even the LFSs)?. It cannot just be marketing, or is it?

 

[brandon429]

We love the torture is why it’s used
testers masochism he he
jj

lack of affordable alternative

it’s ok to use the ammonia pad it’s harmless. I will never own an ammonia test kit for my reefs, nor require them to fix anyone’s reef in logged threads, ammonia is 100% predictable. Here is a five year thread where we cycle all tanks, dry and live, without any tests.

not a single test kit was used in these cycles. What we did use to know when they were ready: for live rocks like what you started with, our eyes and nose.


for dry rocks and bottle bac, a cycling chart. Absolutely no reef cycles take longer than a cycling chart says. And since all cycling charts show ammonia permanently controlled after day ten, fixing up your issues was easy.

The microbiology of reef tank cycling.

You can skip your cycle. Ive been reefing online for twenty years and have never waited one second for a tank to cycle, because I buy rocks that are already cycled and move them home. Here's two: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/octo-high-end-sps-skip-cycle-build.713256/...

www.reef2reef.com

they may post the readings but we never cared.

 

[brandon429]

That thread above is the epitome of using objective evaluation for tracing ammonia vs groupthink

 

[Dr. Jim]

Interesting that a few posts recommend the SeaChem Ammonia Alert. I put a new one in a tank with "new" live rock that measured up to 2ppm ammonia with API test and the ALERT didn't move off of zero (yellow). I know there was ammonia because of the strong smell.