ammonia spike?

[LuckyReefer]

my tanks been a roller coaster of issues, high nutrients to flow issues to literally everything in the book and i guess it’s part of being in this hobby… anyways i’ve dealt with my fair share of high phosphates and nitrates and i’ve finally got them both down to a solid point my phosphates at 0.02 so i did a little more feeding then i usually do. I am unsure of my nitrates as i ran out of reagents. recently i just lost a scoly that really upset me and now ive lost an octofrogspawn out of nowhere and now my hollywood stunner chalice is flaking away. i think my tank doesn’t have enough nitrifying bacteria to eat all of the ammonia up and I feel like that’s due to me changing out my entire live rock about a month ago, i still have plenty of ceramic bio balls that have been cycling for over a year plus that sit in my sump. My tanks 5 months old now and im at a road block. I’ve been adding little bacteria slowly with every water change i’ve done for the past 3 weeks and i feel like nothings working.

magnesium: 1420ppm
calcium:
phosphates: 0.02ppm
nitrates: N/A
salinity: 1.024
temp: 78
nitrite: 54ppb
ammonia: 0.72ppm
i’m really concerned for my ammonia i’ve never seen it this high and i don’t know why.

my test kit that im using is the hanna 9 in one tester.

i have a small feeling that it was from when i added a sea cucumber a while back not knowing it probably wouldn’t survive and when moving my rocks i never seen it again and haven’t since and i don’t know if it died and caused a spike i don’t know…

 

[KrisReef]

Corals should eat some ammonia, but fish would be struggling. If they are not, the Hanna isn't telling the truth?

 

[Uncle99]

Phosphate to low at 0.02ppm as it might be zero if the kit is just a hair off. I believe the error margin is 0.04ppm.

I’d bump that up to .1ppm so you KNOW it’s in the water.
You need to manage nitrate as well.
Both these things are critical players for all life in your system.

The availability and stability of these is a major contributor to living systems.

 

[KrisReef]

Phosphate to low at 0.02ppm as it might be zero if the kit is just a hair off. I believe the error margin is 0.04ppm.

I’d bump that up to .1ppm so you KNOW it’s in the water.
You need to manage nitrate as well.
Both these things are critical players for all life in your system.

The availability and stability of these is a major contributor to living systems.

Carbon for the cucumber and I agree the phosphate is too near to zero for comfort when things are stressing.

 

[brandon429]

want to see a neat trick updated cycling science does

discerning state of ammonia control via tank pic alone

post a tank pic, we can tell if your system is in crash distress. several factors stand out: cloudy vs clean water, placement of fish, degree of active animals in pic, degree of surface area compared to other known working reef tanks can be discerned from a single tank pic

whether or not all fish are accounted for in the system matters in ammonia troubleshoots

and from that data set, it's possible to know where your cycle stands. without testing. and if you used digital nh3 testing (seneye) it would also be easy to confirm. whatever test kit that's saying you have an ammonia spike = a misread I'll bet.

 

[Fijiblue]

It's a catch 22. Water changes are used to lesson the impact of the ammonia on the inhabitants, but at a cost. It will interrupt your cycle or "adjustment" cycle. Best imho is to leave the tank alone and let it adjust to the bioload that is needed.