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]

Reefs that can’t control ammonia are crashing and pics look like it

cloudy water

fish hovering near death at the top, poisoned, can’t breathe, gills burnt by nh3

no corals open, 100% closed tight. No snails can live here, no CUC, no lysmata shrimp


in a vet’s office, how any animal looks when it’s kidneys haven’t worked in days is how this tank will look in its pic today if reefinatl is indeed the ammonia detective we think he can be.

This I can appreciate. My tang was the first to go, breathing heavily and appeared to have burns or some type of injury. My basslet was almost motionless and he seemed to perk up in a bucket, before he went back in the tank when I added that bucket. I took a 6 hour nap and woke up to dead: 1 clown, 1 basslet and one densilfish. Now it’s just one clown, an unhappy nem and some frags (I had a few bad looking frags that I tossed today). Snails are hovering at the top. After cleaning out the dead I tested ammonia and it was a xmas green vial.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

This I can appreciate. My tang was the first to go, breathing heavily and appeared to have burns or some type of injury. My basslet was almost motionless and he seemed to perk up in a bucket, before he went back in the tank when I added that bucket. I took a 6 hour nap and woke up to dead: 1 clown, 1 basslet and one densilfish. Now it’s just one clown, an unhappy nem and some frags (I had a few bad looking frags that I tossed today). Snails are hovering at the top. After cleaning out the dead I tested ammonia and it was a xmas green vial.

Could you test the ph in your tank and the freshly mixed bucket?

 

[allsite]

Reefs that can’t control ammonia are crashing and pics look like it

cloudy water

fish hovering near death at the top, poisoned, can’t breathe, gills burnt by nh3

no corals open, 100% closed tight. No snails can live here, no CUC, no lysmata shrimp


in a vet’s office, how any animal looks when it’s kidneys haven’t worked in days is how this tank will look in its pic today if reefinatl is indeed the ammonia detective we think he can be.

 

[Reefahholic]

I just mixed up a batch of Reef Crystals. Fortunately... there was no ammonia spike.

Personally, I’d be shocked if it was the salt.

 

[brandon429]

Allsite

your badge alert appears clear, the seachem badge, the snail is alive on the glass (he’d die quick if ammonia spikes even once) and you have some open corals too on frag rack. That’s a high surface area, low bioload reef, your ammonia nh3 is in the thousandths ppm level not at a concerning tenths level.


there’s literally no input source able to overcome the 5 ppm ammonia a day any cycled reef can process.


thank you for posting pics that helps shore this up quickly, your losses aren’t due to uncontrolled ammonia.

team:

when using groupthink to discern free ammonia status, don’t.

 

[allsite]

Could you test the ph in your tank and the freshly mixed bucket?

Yes I will do this tomorrow and reply

 

[brandon429]

We accept stated api ph as infallible too Homebrood? Nice.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

Allsite

your badge alert appears clear, the seachem badge, the snail is alive on the glass (he’d die quick if ammonia spikes even once) and you have some open corals too on frag rack. That’s a high surface area, low bioload reef, your ammonia nh3 is in the thousandths ppm level not at a concerning tenths level.

thank you for posting pics that helps shore this up quickly, your losses aren’t due to uncontrolled ammonia.

team

when using groupthink to discern free ammonia status, don’t.

Dude can you stop telling people what to do. Really annoying and doesn't help your cause. Since when does ammonia immediately kill everything? Anyone that's kept a tank for longer than a week knows that's not true.

 

[brandon429]

You are making this up as you go, I checked your post history just now and none of it has to do with ammonia studies


you helped to shore up this problem thread nearly immediately, impressive. you have lots of fixed cycle issues logged in your history too, clearly this is practiced.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

We accept stated api ph as infallible too Homebrood? Nice.

What would cause an api test to show clear on his rodi and green on his tank and bucket mix?

 

[brandon429]

You are now on my ignore list, reciprocate.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

OK...

 

[brandon429]

Allsite

message me if you want further help with your setup. Your free ammonia has been cleared up just like the others we did on the linked example post. I see my detractors have not listed one link, one study, or one prior post on the matter however they still disagree- just digging in heels no real science

thats not a mode I can be part of further

Will gladly help in message if you like. We fix about twenty reefs a week in message, where distracting posts are not in play.

the pics were wildly off prediction or spot on?

Allsite
nobody’s reef tank hovers between control and non control, your reef is fine, you can see the exhaustive studies we’ve done on the only link provided this whole thread. You had a valid concern though, as you can see the hobby has no context for dealing in ammonia problems.

 

[allsite]

Allsite

your badge alert appears clear, the seachem badge, the snail is alive on the glass (he’d die quick if ammonia spikes even once) and you have some open corals too on frag rack. That’s a high surface area, low bioload reef, your ammonia nh3 is in the thousandths ppm level not at a concerning tenths level.

thank you for posting pics that helps shore this up quickly, your losses aren’t due to uncontrolled ammonia.

I’m convinced it’s not the salt. I don’t know what’s the typical forum move around here is, update the title or start another thread? Anyway, as I read and read, I think a temperature spike may have made whatever ammonia I had turn deadly. I was running 80-82.5 for a day and I suspect maybe the day before. I tinfoiled the windows behind the tank and the room temp is better. A better reefer may have thought about this the day my neighbors tree was removed. I lost my shade the day before a heatwave and was too busy out by the bbq to notice.

At the time fish were bellying up ammonia was reading high, Bottom of the api test kit measurement (forest green). It’s been hovering in the middle today (.25-.50). I dumped my bio-balls from the filter into the tank, then doubled the amount of Marine Pure into the extra filter space. I’m doing everything I can think of to add more bio filtration without removing any that’s established.

 

[brandon429]

You don’t need a new thread. Pick one person and run their fix method for two months without veering from their plan. Do not sample the lot for ideas, you can see the first major public idea here was not correct, pick one person and let them rehab your reef- not as a blend sample of ideas.

step #1 my recommend: fallow and quarantine all futures.


step#2

cease testing for ammonia for the life of the reef, only use it during cycling. Ammonia is never out of spec, in any typical reef, post cycle, Homebrood told me to tell you this it came from his logged studies.

whatever trace ammonia results from organics in a salt mix is fine and acceptable

 

[Jay Hemdal]

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.

Edit: Sorry, I just read your more recent post where you are now following up on some different leads....

I ran some tests years ago and Reef Crystals showed to have 0.12 mg/l ammonia in it as measured on a Hach DR5000 spectrophotometer. This is higher than any other brand I tested, but would not, by itself, cause a tank crash. Even if you changed 100% of the water, that amount of ammonia would be assimilated within 12 hours or so by the bacteria in the tank.

Jay

 

[brandon429]

Jay thank you, that aligns with every seneye measure on the matter.

we have logs of seneye tanks that add liquid ammonia (orders more than from these salt mixes) into their reef to test uptake rates, and it’s very very fast.

this tiny input didn’t upset any reef, it fed the corals and was quickly converted.

so this thread started out with the crowd 100% sure of free ammonia

how is it now?

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Will post thoughts when I get to work. Stop being so hostile everyone...

It seems we love to talk about manufacturing defects for api test kits but not for salt? I am 100% not convinced we can rule out a bad batch

 

[HomebroodExotics]

Yea after an aquarium is cycled you can add as much fish dead or alive and food that you want with no worries about ammonia. Everyone knows that...

 

[brandon429]

Agreed neon, the batch may have higher levels, and the claim is the tank handles them. All reefs can handle instantly more ammonia than they’re used to per the ammonia dosing thread shows.

the key is how we measure the details. What do 100% of false ammonia flag posts have in common? same on this post.