Ammonia spike in a 7 month old tank

[brandon429]

agreed. it plainly looks light green and .25

it is literally part of one million stuck cycle search returns that also bring up a sale ad for bottle bac when we google "stuck reef tank cycle"

yet nothing is wrong. thats the test indicating .00X ppm conversion rate as best it can.


No cycle author in history has ever written or told us that, it was a painful long journey to arrive there.

It is impossible in reefing for a reef tank with typical live rock surface area to allow for ammonia wasted, unused, above .00x ppm and all animals acting normal.

if we break .02~ ppm, the fish start dying by rule, its linked as peer reviewed material in our chem forum threads on surface area.

ammonia is in high demand 24x7 by the second in a reef tank; thats why it reads .00X on legit measures. thats a rate of turnover in a constant-input setting

there is never ever .25 allowed to remain.

lets say it read darker, slightly. .5

still false, can't occur, that particular kit's best conversion rate indication is .5 then.

API is handy when it indicates motion, not when its holding. BRS needs to update w that info, they have hundreds of seneye meters to fact check.

 

[Nhjmc]

Hugh OK cool well it doesn’t help I’m using the API test kit which probably not the most reliable out there I’m gonna order a salifert ammonia test kit. I wish Hannah made an ammonia checker I do have the alk checker I love it. Here’s a better pic of the sand bed

Yes the fish are very active and eat like horses. I’m probably a tad guilty of over feeding I’ll be honest. I also have a jebao sw-10 wavemaker running 24-7. I just can’t get this Tunze 9001 tuned in for the life of me. The breaking cycle they say typically two weeks I’ve had it for three weeks if I don’t keep the air intake almost all the way closed within five minutes the collection cup fills right up then overflowS.

 

[Nhjmc]

agreed. it plainly looks light green and .25

it is literally part of one million stuck cycle search returns that also bring up a sale ad for bottle bac when we google "stuck reef tank cycle"

yet nothing is wrong. thats the test indicating .00X ppm conversion rate as best it can.

fresh made saltwater sitting a few days has no turnover, its ammonia free after settled, thats why it would blank as hard yellow on your kit but not apply here, apples to oranges.

No cycle author in history has ever written or told us that, it was a painful long journey to arrive there.

It is impossible in reefing for a reef tank with typical live rock surface area to allow for ammonia wasted, unused, above .00x ppm and all animals acting normal.

if we break .02~ ppm, the fish start dying by rule, its linked as peer reviewed material in our chem forum threads on surface area.

ammonia is in high demand 24x7 by the second in a reef tank; thats why it reads .00X on legit measures. thats a rate of turnover in a constant-input setting

there is never ever .25 allowed to remain.

lets say it read darker, slightly. .5

still false, can't occur, that particular kit's best conversion rate indication is .5 then.

API is handy when it indicates motion, not when its holding. BRS needs to update w that info, they have hundreds of seneye meters to fact check.

Wow you know your stuff! Really thanks again for the info and sharing of knowledge. I want a seneye monitor badly. Looks like that’s gonna be next purchase for sure. Should I continue treating the high ammonia? Also picked up the api quick start just in case. Also FYI no bad smell to tank water. And another FYI and hopefully I don’t get crucified for this but I use nutri seawater for water changes.

 

[blasterman]

As per the above comments, you have to remove a MASSIVE amount of bacterial surface area in an established tank to cause an ammonia spike. While mechanical filtration media will host bacteria, along with those dreaded biowheel filters the amount of bacteria in those mediums is small compared to your gravel / sand bed. The remaining bacteria just take over for the small amount of removed bacteria and shout out "more ammonia for me..yeah!"

It takes something pretty disruptive, like adding a large amount of uncured LR, or a toxin added that globally disrupts the bacteria colonies to cause an ammonia spike. I've demonstrated this to fellow reefers by adding ammonia to established tanks and watched them as the stare in horror....and nothing happens. The free ammonia gets gobbled up quick.

API test kits are trash. I've also proven this by noting how they will ping ammonia in freshly mixed salt.

 

[brandon429]

no ammonia is high here agreed or lacking control; this is a misread on part of the test kit. its all set/proceed on reefing. no ammonia condition here requiring treatment. can reef on.

 

[35ppt]

Redacted

 

[Nhjmc]

Ok thank u

 

[Nhjmc]

thank u. Just makes me nervous that the ammonia reading is high but I trust people’s opinions on here WAY more experienced than me at this.

 

[GaryE]

Here's my ammonia test from two weeks ago. BTA looked horrible, but everything else was looking normal.

I did have a mass of dead macro algae in my sump, plus a lot of waste. No fish or inverts died.

Did 20% water changes every other day for a week and things are back to normal.

I now have a seachem ammonia badge in the tank, it's never shown anything other than acceptable levels since the "event".

 

[GaryE]

Dupe

 

[Nhjmc]

Here's my ammonia test from two weeks ago. BTA looked horrible, but everything else was looking normal.

I did have a mass of dead macro algae in my sump, plus a lot of waste. No fish or inverts died.

Did 20% water changes every other day for a week and things are back to normal.

I now have a seachem ammonia badge in the tank, it's never shown anything other than acceptable levels since the "event".

holy smokes!? Why does it do that?!

 

[Nhjmc]

yeah I had one of those Seachem ammonia alerts and I swore at it and threw it in trash as I assumed it was defective.

 

[brandon429]

Hey check this out

literally one year of collecting ammonia tracing work

100% api stalled cycles /green readings among tanks of healthy life living normally

rocks show benthic clues like coralline or attached animals

water=clear
#of days underwater is usually stated in someone’s descrip

those are the tools we use to measure ammonia, if seneye isn’t available.


100% unstalled when they posted a pic

no deaths

no stalled cycled irl

thats the most stalled cycle work I bet you can locate on the Internet. I keep back editing them in there forever. Eli is going to detect a pattern in how visual cycling works

Instant Tank Cycle

Set up my tank Friday. Placed a sizeable chunk of frozen brine shrimp into the filter sock to stop it messing up the tank. Saturday PM Ammonia is 0 Saturday PM added another chunk of frozen brine shrimp different area of sump. Added seeded live rock from other tanks also. Sunday PM Ammonia...

www.reef2reef.com

the best way to troubleshoot free ammonia problem threads is to begin with ”no, you have no issue with ammonia” and hold there.

never assume they do. They never do.

 

[Nhjmc]

Hey check this out

literally one year of collecting ammonia tracing work

100% api stalled cycles /green readings among tanks of healthy life living normally

rocks show benthic clues like coralline or attached animals

water=clear
#of days underwater is usually stated in someone’s descrip

those are the tools we use to measure ammonia, if seneye isn’t available.


100% unstalled when they posted a pic

no deaths

no stalled cycled irl

thats the most stalled cycle work I bet you can locate on the Internet. I keep back editing them in there forever. Eli is going to detect a pattern in how visual cycling works

Instant Tank Cycle

Set up my tank Friday. Placed a sizeable chunk of frozen brine shrimp into the filter sock to stop it messing up the tank. Saturday PM Ammonia is 0 Saturday PM added another chunk of frozen brine shrimp different area of sump. Added seeded live rock from other tanks also. Sunday PM Ammonia...

www.reef2reef.com

the best way to troubleshoot free ammonia problem threads is to begin with ”no, you have no issue with ammonia” and hold there.

never assume they do. They never do.

Ok thanks!!

 

[GaryE]

holy smokes!? Why does it do that?!

API sucks.. I think it was closer to a normal reading, hence the addition of the seachem badge. after a few water changes and a good cleaning of my sump, everything was back to normal within 24 hours and water was crystal clear in 48. nem started looking normal within about 72 hours.

 

[brandon429]

I sure like api for indicating large spike changes like dead fish we haven't seen in a few days might show up dark green change


its the change that makes api handy to use

the holding readings are the ones to exclude

even for cycling, when api shows a bunch of initial ammonia going down, after adding bacteria in some form, thats an accurate read for api and it means whatever surface area you have in the tank is active/can reef/can start. we just dont require that final bottom-end read, it will struggle there 98% of time. all stuck cycle threads are composed of the holding value of API but all animals look normal, act normal, unburnt.

 

[Nhjmc]

Yeah I've read that alot online (about API) I wonder if the PH test is off as well as I can't ever get my PH at 8.4 unless I dose it with Seachem 8.4.

Do you trust that Seachem ammonia monitor? I assumed it was defective so tossed it in trash. The color has never been anything other than light yellow on that monitor.

 

[brandon429]

we dont need to monitor ammonia, its the most predictable param we work with in reefing. how about just foregoing it all, measure the others

if you have a dead fish, no ammonia meter is required to know that. you can either see all your fish or you can't, and no dead fish ever crashed a system anyway they all truck along just fine.

you dont ever need to test for ammonia again for the life of this tank, since ammonia can't drift out of spec like calcium can. if you hadnt been testing ammonia you would not have never had the concern/posted in the emergency forum/doubted the setup etc.

its amazing the compound is so predictable that we dont need to measure for it. we never needed a measure to call your ammonia in the thousandths ppm-we needed only a tank pic.

the sum total of both pages of your thread is your tank was fine before, during, and after the analysis.