Ammonia in INSTANT OCEAN REEF CRYSTALS

[allsite]

First off, I'll just say I'm one sad fish dad. One by one my fish and corals are dying. It's my first reef and my 5 fish were buddies for 2 years. Not a single death until this week.

INSTANT OCEAN REEF CRYSTALS crashed my reef with ammonia. I didn't believe it at first but the tests feel conclusive.

The picture with 2 tubes:
Left: RODI+salt mix (from a pitcher of water with a drop of AmmoLock)
Right: RODI+salt mix

The picture with 1 tube:
Just RODI

Is it in my bucket? Nope, I tested it with a clean pitcher, exact same result. Nothing else touches the water prior to testing.

I have 2 boxes of mix that were ordered several months apart. One brand new, the other about 4 months old. They BOTH produced the same result (as seen in the pic).

All of the tests were done to water that was tank-ready, salinity and temp on par. I'm happy I didn't dump it into the tank but that also mean I'm just letting it die until I get new salt first thing tomorrow. I really hope AmmoLock and bacteria additives can save what little is left (1 clown and a few frags).

My tank is currently testing better than the right tube and worse than the left (forgot to take a photo but it's somewhat irrelevant in this thread).

My question is, how is it possible INSTANT OCEAN REEF CRYSTALS could produce 0.7ppm ammonia seawater? They're just selling poison? Is that not the point when doing a water change, to remove bad stuff while introducing good stuff?

It was traumatic to watch it crash after enjoying it to the max, stuck in a small apartment downtown during a pandemic. However I realize other reefers have incurred much bigger losses and my heart goes out to anyone who has to go through it.

 

[allsite]

Small amounts of Ammonia is normal in salt mix

Do you have any idea of what ppm would be considered normal?

 

[Azedenkae]

I tried the 3x test but it was inconclusive. The tube with 3x turned bright white. Definitely worth a shot. My guess is the kit assumes you're testing within aquarium safe SG.

Yeah maybe. I don't actually know how salinity affects ammonia readings, but could be the case. >_<"

 

[reefinatl]

Better go get a seneye before we all get lectured by brandon.

 

[allsite]

Reduce salinity slowly. Voltage can likely be crossed off the list but other contaminates are likely. I would run some media like carbon or polyfilter in addition.

Binding the ammonia can buy you some time but I would get some other salt ASAP and 100% WC. This is one of those odd ball issues that is 100% not on you. Fight like hell for reimbursement as they will likely only offer to replace the salt. Document losses, average price for livestock and be calm when talking to customer service.

 

[Reef - Tripp]

The salt mixture When preparing the salt mixture we must use water of the highest possible purity, osmosis water with deionizing resins is the most recommended. Sales can bring out impurities in calcium chloride and magnesium chloride and that ammonia is used to get these products in their manufacture. The same applies to calcium and magnesium additives, so it is advisable to use the most prestigious and trusted additives.

 

[Azedenkae]

The salt mixture When preparing the salt mixture we must use water of the highest possible purity, osmosis water with deionizing resins is the most recommended. Sales can bring out impurities in calcium chloride and magnesium chloride and that ammonia is used to get these products in their manufacture. The same applies to calcium and magnesium additives, so it is advisable to use the most prestigious and trusted additives.

OP measured 0 ammonia in OP's RODI water used for mixing.

 

[allsite]

Some more background:

I forgot to mention my ammonia went from 0.70ppm to 4+ppm overnight, after a 70% water change, adding lots of bacteria as well as a sock of ammonia/nitrite/nitrate remover. It's as if a cat is urinating into the tank but I don't have cats. I'm at a loss imagining where it's coming from, thus began testing my new water and was obviously concerned.

The tank is very clean and the filter bacteria has been respected (haven't cleaned the filter in about 2 months, always gentle). I sifted all the sand looking for rotting dead snails or hermits. Took out the live rock, put it in fresh seawater overnight and didn't detect any ammonia spike the following day (unlike the tank). I left the tank in what I thought was great shape before sleep and woke up to an ammonia disaster.

It's a 36 gallon bowfront. 2 powerheads, ATO, 150 gallon (recommended) canister filter (marinepure gems, floss and bioballs) and an in tank skimmer. The skimmer was the latest addition to address surface film from adding a handful of tiny frags (my first corals).

 

[Hermie]

technically shouldnt your tank be able to process ammonia?

 

[allsite]

technically shouldnt your tank be able to process ammonia?

I can't imagine why it wouldn't be, yet here I am. It feels like it's coming out of nowhere and just keeps coming. Fingers crossed I've turned a corner today but my expectations are next to nothing at this point. It's maddening to not understand the problem.

 

[brandon429]

Reefinatl

you think this two year old reef cant control its ammonia is that right?

lets also see a tank pic, in no way is this believable. Ammonia did not crash this tank, post a tank pic.

skip fallow and qt, lose fish.


lose coral-happens in reefing but its not all at once, tank pic is about to be normal.
Full tank shot, post. This is entered in the false ammonia flag post so the quickness you’ve all backed up the story can be checked against pattern.






ammonia from salt has never killed anyone’s reef, sleuths forgot TAN conversions for the initial post readings, again, tenth time.


there is no issue here other than followers following the lead from a posts title

 

[brandon429]

You all were led so quickly, so thoroughly, even after pages of false read review and years of tracing practice I’m now making this #1 read in the false ammonia alerts thread, nice one. I like how we are all so quick to toss out independent rules for how biofilters work to back up a threads title, nice science.

 

[Dan_P]

First off, I'll just say I'm one sad fish dad. One by one my fish and corals are dying. It's my first reef and my 5 fish were buddies for 2 years. Not a single death until this week.

INSTANT OCEAN REEF CRYSTALS crashed my reef with ammonia. I didn't believe it at first but the tests feel conclusive.

The picture with 2 tubes:
Left: RODI+salt mix (from a pitcher of water with a drop of AmmoLock)
Right: RODI+salt mix

The picture with 1 tube:
Just RODI

Is it in my bucket? Nope, I tested it with a clean pitcher, exact same result. Nothing else touches the water prior to testing.

I have 2 boxes of mix that were ordered several months apart. One brand new, the other about 4 months old. They BOTH produced the same result (as seen in the pic).

All of the tests were done to water that was tank-ready, salinity and temp on par. I'm happy I didn't dump it into the tank but that also mean I'm just letting it die until I get new salt first thing tomorrow. I really hope AmmoLock and bacteria additives can save what little is left (1 clown and a few frags).

My tank is currently testing better than the right tube and worse than the left (forgot to take a photo but it's somewhat irrelevant in this thread).

My question is, how is it possible INSTANT OCEAN REEF CRYSTALS could produce 0.7ppm ammonia seawater? They're just selling poison? Is that not the point when doing a water change, to remove bad stuff while introducing good stuff?

It was traumatic to watch it crash after enjoying it to the max, stuck in a small apartment downtown during a pandemic. However I realize other reefers have incurred much bigger losses and my heart goes out to anyone who has to go through it.

Yes, I would expect a small amount of total ammonia. @taricha and I have measured it as well in Instant Ocean. This is generally not a problem when doing a water change because the ammonia is diluted in the system, a cycled system’s bacteria will consume it, and the amount of toxic ammonia, NH3, is only about 5-10% of the measured total ammonia. Based on this, the Reef Crystals water change did not harm your system.

 

[brandon429]

I too was guilty of not catching TAN conversions in prior reads till you and T caught me/ seems highly applicable and handy now for this post. Little extra dab of rub in too.

based on the title, and vehement resolve of the ammonia tracing crowd, I thought we were going to see a totally green dark ammonia reading. but post one is so yellow most enjoy that as a comfortable read what in the world is all the hype about here

tank pics are about to look normal, even though it’s being wrecked by the most dangerous metabolic compound a reef will see just shy of a bunch of hydrogen sulfide.

 

[Dan_P]

I too was guilty of not catching TAN conversions in prior reads till you and T caught me/ seems highly applicable and handy now for this post. Little extra dab of rub in too.

based on the title, and vehement resolve of the ammonia tracing crowd, I thought we were going to see a totally green dark ammonia reading. but post one is so yellow most enjoy that as a comfortable read what in the world is all the hype about here

It’s good to quickly eliminate false leads when investigating aquarium issues.

Are you up early today?

 

[brandon429]

For sure, and hornets nest mode. I let out a loud whoop when I saw this thread and it’s probably woken my top neighbors they think a nerd party is going on downstairs and they’d be right.


we are disjointed cycle sleuths in the hobby in my opinion. We’ve been trained to approach each tanks stated ammonia condition as a maybe this time, instead of recalling the hundreds before/ patterns where the test kit causes the concern but the tank pics are as normal as possible

nobody here asked for the tank pic / big perspective they were just aligned behind the kit reading, again.


The OPs reef is two years old, it can’t have ammonia issues. They recently made a ton of changes in the tank, see post history. So many other variables not sourced here, we ran with free ammonia again.

 

[Beau_B]

If the newly mixed water tested at .7ppm how does changing 70% of DT water raise it to 4ppm?

Ammonia in the salt isn’t the issue here. Sorry for your losses but look for something else.

 

[brandon429]

@reefinatl

personal challenge for you

not counting this thread, link for me here/live time an example you found online where a post cycle reef truly didn’t handle its ammonia and you called it, fixed it, and things are well and we can see a change in the ending of the post.

Randy has discussed small levels of free ammonia resulting from salt mixes, common. Curious to see a time you found that becoming lethal.

 

[Cunning_plan]

nobody here asked for the tank pic / big perspective they were just aligned behind the kit reading, again.

For my education, what would we be looking for In a photo of the tank?

 

[brandon429]

I’d ask you read this post we built it with lots of before pics predictions.

Sustained Ammonia spikes are misreads

The reason you think your reef tank can’t control its ammonia is due to false training from old cycling science. That and you don’t own a seneye on the tank in question: if you did, you wouldn’t ever think your ammonia was out of control...

www.reef2reef.com

you can tell by reading post 19 there, and the fact this reef here is two years old, and TAN conversion is missing, there was no problem here at all

 

[Beau_B]

For my education, what would we be looking for In a photo of the tank?

Bright white, empty... signs it was new. Brandon’s point is if a setup has been going for 30ish days and has sustained fish for any period of time, then ammonia testing is somewhat pointless.

I’m suspicious of the OP talking about doing a deep clean of the tank and removing rock but also not cleaning canister filter. A major disruption of the sand bed could cause some undesirable results. Need more info about how the tank was run/maintained to this point.