Ammonia problem

[cassilyn]

Hello, We have developed an ammonia problem recently. We have been using Ammo Lock in the aquarium according to directions, but our levels are still high. This is only the beginning of week 2 after a 1 week regime as directed. It also says that the test will still show ammonia, but it will be in a detoxified state. Our shrimp and fish seem great, so has it converted the ammonia into a non-threateneing form? We have also done a 5 gallon water change in a 28 gallon aquarium 2 days ago. How can we get rid of the, I assume, now de-toxed ammonia so that our test is showing 0 again? Should we do another or larger water change again so soon?

Thanks,
Cassi

 

[brandon429]

It's a misread simply disregard the test. True ammonia events kill your fish overnite. Simply don't test for ammonia, only a dead fish will spike it, no other setting your tank can present makes ammonia rise whatsoever, no need to test for it after cycle is complete. Do a water change to export additives. For sure don't buy bottle bac

any tank that supports fish past overnite does not need bottle bac

Ammonia is so toxic and only caused by massive rot we know your ammonia profile regardless of testing, due to stated live fish and assuming you haven't left a dead fish in the tank.

The behavior of your fish will change markedly when free ammonia occurs, it's the equivalent of kidney failure to be swimming in free ammonia water. At no time do fish act normal in a system that cannot process all ammonia other than trace measures before uptake happens, nothing dies at that level.

 

[brandon429]

Ammonia will wipe your whole tank overnite there's no form of possibility for you to have any

Post a full tank shot if possible. Some things are closed cases, matter of fact in reefing and sustained free ammonia is one, it's not possible for a reef tank to have the condition without a dead carcass wedged in the rocks and even that is usually uptaken by tank bac before becoming lethal, our tanks are hungry for trace ammonia and eat it up fast. It won’t be a holding reading, a dead fish is a spike then back down to zero/decay is pretty fast underwater.

A qt tank or medicated lacking surface area can fail to cover ammonia, again with measurable consequence to fish

 

[cassilyn]

Thanks everyone. I thought the fish acting normal meant it was a false positive or something. But thanks for the peace of mind.
Cassi

 

[brandon429]

Hey can you post updated shot of tank, the way the life distributes in the pic really helps to shore up the matter/tie it all in

 

[cassilyn]

Hey can you post updated shot of tank, the way the life distributes in the pic really helps to shore up the matter/tie it all in

I don't have a great camera, but here's a pic I just took. The corals are mostly frags we got a couple of months ago, so it's a pretty new tank at this point. We've had it up about 5 months.

 

[brandon429]

Yes perfect
that sandbed alone, without the rocks could run the entire system fish included as well as the reverse: the sandbed could be removed leaving only purple coralline rock to run all the fish and fish feed, still no free ammonia. The combination of the two are super powerful surface area zones combined. That’s an ammonia hungry tank none to spare. Sandbed disturbance at times can liberate ammonia depending on degree of waste processing going on, so the total two times you can ever see ammonia above zero is deep sandbed disturbance or dead fish. Account for all animals, never have free ammonia simple and reliable. Ammonia and nitrite are forever linked at zero even if testers don’t agree, cycle charts online show the two paired permanently after day 30. Your nitrite is 100% predictable along with ammonia due to that fact. Testers may cross read nitrate for nitrite at times, it’s why the test charts online are more reliable. Until testing becomes widespread digital we will be misled. Your pic is very helpful for diagnostics

this tank will never need bottle bac, it’s chock full of bac until the day you drain it

 

[C. Eymann]

What test kit are you using?
Additives like Prime and ammonia lock can pop false positives with salicylate kits.

 

[cassilyn]

What test kit are you using?
Additives like Prime and ammonia lock can pop false positives with salicylate kits.

We have API test kits. I just found out here they may not be the best. Some of our next purchases are better test kits. I've read Salifert is better, but do you have any other recommendations? We want to get the best we can afford until we can go all digital.

 

[brandon429]

Those api are fine because they’ll indicate high level changes as hard green clear readings, plus the tank will be cloudy and acting wierd. You won’t need to invest in measuring for low level ammonia any further at least for the life of the tank, if you can account for all your fish

 

[brandon429]

Hey how are things today? Checking to see if fish still ok

 

[cassilyn]

Hey how are things today? Checking to see if fish still ok

The fish are still doing fine. I'm not sure what the ammonia is reading since I'm not home. I'll check in with the hubby later and see what he found out today. It's just a strange thing going on. Thanks for checking!

 

[beaslbob]

The seachem ammonia multitest kit reads the dangerous free ammonia and total ammonia.
The idea is you only use ammonia lock for the free ammonia. the api kit cannot tell the difference. If the fish are fine I would not use more ammonia lock.

the seachem ammonia dot also only reacts to the free ammonia.

FWIW algae macros and other algae will consume ammonia first before nitrates. And carbon dioxide. And return oxygen. Ammonia locks lock the ammonia but are sulphur compounds which also reduce oxygen. With overdosing it is possible the fish suffocate while showing the same signs of ammonia.


my .02

 

[cassilyn]

The seachem ammonia multitest kit reads the dangerous free ammonia and total ammonia.
The idea is you only use ammonia lock for the free ammonia. the api kit cannot tell the difference. If the fish are fine I would not use more ammonia lock.

the seachem ammonia dot also only reacts to the free ammonia.

FWIW algae macros and other algae will consume ammonia first before nitrates. And carbon dioxide. And return oxygen. Ammonia locks lock the ammonia but are sulphur compounds which also reduce oxygen. With overdosing it is possible the fish suffocate while showing the same signs of ammonia.


my .02

Thanks! We have quit using the Ammo Lock. I'll try the Seachem test to see what it says if the LFS has one tomorrow. We do have an algae reactor, so hopefully, that is helping.

 

[brandon429]

Still a very important thread to show false alarms in the hobby and reinforce biology vs non digital testing in establishing reliability in our reefs, hows update so far?

Hows that big snail, missed him when I first saw the pic

that snail will keel over fastest in the tank if the ammonia merely spikes it doesn’t have to spike high. That snail is so sensitive that the mere death of another snail can kill it, and occasional losses are common in reef tanks and will indeed spike up and back down as they occur over time (but the ammonia cannot hold, or stick)

wanted to show you the retail power of missed ammonia readings, hundreds of thousands of dollars are paid to remedy these false events. not one single tank on this whole search page was stalled, or had free ammonia. If you’re up for real fun, find any link on the page click it / post for updates in the thread they’ll post ten biological confirmations there was never any ammonia (such as your snail)

your thread can help slow this trend of people being tricked into purchases by being told by bottle bac sellers that cycles can stall, that ammonia can hover or ‘stick’ - it cannot.

 

[brandon429]

For all readers I’ll ever link to this .5 ammonia thread, keep these key facts in mind as you relate to your own tank:

the first utterance in the answer portion of the thread is no, there is no free ammonia. Closed case, no hum-haw maybe. It wasn’t a guess, she stated details that forensically prove there is no ammonia in the description. it works across reefing, and titration testers are almost always wrong.

just as this reefer certainly had no stuck ammonia when a shrimp, fish, and delicate snail are in the tank feeding and acting fine, NOT ONE reefer in that search return above has a stuck cycle. The same line is drawn; no, they don’t have free ammonia whatsoever.

the ad shown above is linked to key search terms for a reason!!!!!!! Sellers know the masses are using inaccurate test gear, and inducing a buying frenzy as a result. They simply put a legit product (bottle bac are great for starting dry rock cycles) in an illegitimate position in order to quadruple its sales. google is paid to make these search string associations, and fake microbiology runs this ad game.

 

[fl3xlinton]

We have API test kits. I just found out here they may not be the best. Some of our next purchases are better test kits. I've read Salifert is better, but do you have any other recommendations? We want to get the best we can afford until we can go all digital.

I use a lot of Red Sea kits. But only for the big three really. Cal alk and mag. Other than that I only test nitrate and phosphate and even that’s rare. After a while you will know if something is off just by looking at how the fish and corals are acting.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed, regarding the usual cycling compounds free ammonia has instant measurable effects on observable tank life and is never neutral in observable impacts.

ammonia can be known safe or unsafe levels in a reef tank solely by seeing a full tank shot, I don’t recall ever reading that in cycle advising materials.
that either means the statement is wrong, or cycle authors don’t really understand surface area mechanics.

red sea, api, salifert, all have proven accurate reads and inaccurate reads, each brand. Their owners agree the world is a mix of accuracy and inaccuracy with these mainstay brands ++ but people are also passionate when they own an accurate version of these testers and can wield them accurately** if I discount all titration as false, those testers will not buy into anything I’m saying. I acknowledge several people wield api just fine, and Red Sea too.

in that case, they’ll suffice to show if ammonia can hover, post away proof I say. Cycles can’t stall for ammonia, nitrite doesn’t even factor in a cycle to begin with (another retail selling falsehood is that nitrite stalls ammonia ability) and not one seneye user is ever going to report .25 or .5

I can live with the fact only the misreading/misinterpreted kits are producing the fake stalls and sustaining the over sales. The good working kits gave their aquarist a reliable ammonia control date to begin reefing without consequence.

one of these days, a reefer will report on one of my callout threads that something died, the timing of an organisms loss will coincide with me yapping there is no free ammonia/bet. Animals have died in reef tanks before from non ammonia causes, but by and large we are going to see these themes when inspecting stuck cycle threads:

-no smell or cloudy water, free ammonia emanates from rot, there will be cloud and smell when not dealing with a single dead snail or crab, true lack of active surface area manifests as a completely unstable system, and a full tank shot will show it.

-the fish are normally positioned in the tank pics, down low, off to the side etc. in a tank lacking cycle completion, they develop reddened gills, cannot breathe, and hover at the top for air, then die overnite


-fish have been in the tank longer than overnite= you have no free ammonia, even if a snail did die along the way. Snails can die of infection, age, genetic issues like any other motile organism we keep. But when a snail or set of them thrives, ammonia can be ruled out as having occurred or they’d be dead.

-no source for the ammonia. Notice in the threads there’s not a fish they can’t find, or some recent disturbance to the tank. The claimed ammonia always results from a perceived lack of bacteria... this is the search trending everyone is capitalizing on from retailers to the bottle bac makers. True ammonia growing over time (since ammonia cannot hold at a given level) has to have an input source we can easily discern with no testing from any type of readout.

 

[cassilyn]

Still a very important thread to show false alarms in the hobby and reinforce biology vs non digital testing in establishing reliability in our reefs, hows update so far?

Hows that big snail, missed him when I first saw the pic

that snail will keel over fastest in the tank if the ammonia merely spikes it doesn’t have to spike high. That snail is so sensitive that the mere death of another snail can kill it, and occasional losses are common in reef tanks and will indeed spike up and back down as they occur over time (but the ammonia cannot hold, or stick)

wanted to show you the retail power of missed ammonia readings, hundreds of thousands of dollars are paid to remedy these false events. not one single tank on this whole search page was stalled, or had free ammonia. If you’re up for real fun, find any link on the page click it / post for updates in the thread they’ll post ten biological confirmations there was never any ammonia (such as your snail)

your thread can help slow this trend of people being tricked into purchases by being told by bottle bac sellers that cycles can stall, that ammonia can hover or ‘stick’ - it cannot.

This morning the fish, shrimp, and both my big snails are doing great. The pH is up to 7.95 (we started in the mid 7s and are working on it). Going to buy a CO2 scrubber on payday. What are your thoughts? Anything else that is the right way to raise our pH? We put an airline into the top of the skimmer, as someone on the other thread posted.

We are also planning on going with the digital testers, when we can get them. Are they worth buying or is it another bit of wasted money?

Thanks for all the help,

Cassi

 

[beaslbob]

I recommend you test pH just before lights out. Due to algae ph rises lights on and falls light off. What is important it the just before lights out. If that is high the algae has consumed the co2 added to the tank that day.

my .02