Ammonia SPIKE

[brandon429]

*prediction for coming weeks based on priors encountered: if you get latent fish disease that expresses in a few weeks, even at that time it's still not ammonia burning the system. in the pic above, the top disease-vectoring fish groups in all of reefing are present, so if any degree of disease preps were skipped it's events like this that can bring them out of suppression and into action.

reason for mentioning: so that if they get disease/crypto etc/ you don't spend time testing for cycle issues, those are resolved going forward and can't unresolve unless again a huge death happens inside the tank and rots inside. any disease outbreaks need to be handled like Jay does in his forum. darn nice good looking setup there :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hello, I had a starfish die about 10 days ago, he pretty much disintegrated as I was trying to pull him out of the tank. Sense then I've seen my ammonia slowly climb so I started treating with ammolock and biosupport. Yesterday it was about 1.5ppm... I just checked it now and its about 4ppm.

On the back of the ammolock bottle it says that it doesn't remove ammonia but converts it into a nontoxic form... if that's the case how can I test to see if there is still toxic ammonia in my tank? It assume if it converted it to nontoxic the levels still shouldn't be rising with my test kit.

What should I do now? I was thinking more and different kids of ammonia removing media in my sumptank?

Let me know your thoughts, thanks!

Trying to get out any remaining bits by siphon is likely beneficial.

 

[Garf]

Sorry I haven’t been able to reply. Busy day at work..

I was just able to run a test on everything during my lunch break.
The results will be in the pictures. Only thing I noticed that’s different from yesterday is Nitrate is not 0 anymore…

pH ^

Ammonia ^

Nitrite ^

Nitrate ^

Ammonia badge after approximately 5 hours ^

Salinity ^
(That was a hard picture to take lol)

Happy fish picture.. hopefully?

Let me know what you think or what the next steps should be. Thank you!!!

I'd bring the salinity down a bit, if that result is accurate. Looks as though the ammonia tests agree now, 8ppm TA is 0.2ppm FA @ pH 7.8.

 

[coltpwrs7]

that pic looks fine, I wouldn't take action now that's plenty clear shot above. the less disturbance the better for that big mixed system. looks good, and in no way would I believe there's ammonia issues now. simply hold course is my reco, you can do common water changes at any time always if it looks like it needs refreshing. nothing on the test readings factors: all the things added so far can confound those tests. we'd go off the pic alone in my troubleshoots. resolved issue here.

Great, that makes me feel a lot better.
Thank you for all the help!

 

[Dan_P]

Hello, I had a starfish die about 10 days ago, he pretty much disintegrated as I was trying to pull him out of the tank. Sense then I've seen my ammonia slowly climb so I started treating with ammolock and biosupport. Yesterday it was about 1.5ppm... I just checked it now and its about 4ppm.

On the back of the ammolock bottle it says that it doesn't remove ammonia but converts it into a nontoxic form... if that's the case how can I test to see if there is still toxic ammonia in my tank? It assume if it converted it to nontoxic the levels still shouldn't be rising with my test kit.

What should I do now? I was thinking more and different kids of ammonia removing media in my sumptank?

Let me know your thoughts, thanks!

Now that things seem to be coming under control again, would you describe how you started the aquarium? What bottled bacteria did you use? How long did it take? Thanks!

 

[coltpwrs7]

Now that things seem to be coming under control again, would you describe how you started the aquarium? What bottled bacteria did you use? How long did it take? Thanks!

Believe it or not, I didn’t start the aquarium. Someone was moving out of their house and couldn’t take it with them. Offered it to me for basically free.

I was able to save all the water. I purchased three 55 gallon food grade plastic drums, pumped the water out into the bed of my truck. Putting the live rock inside of them with the water so they never got dry. Got the tank in place in my living room and pumped the water from the barrels back into the tank. It worked out great.

Of course because of the massive change and disturbance I treated with seachem stability and water conditioner for a while.

 

[coltpwrs7]

I'd bring the salinity down a bit, if that result is accurate. Looks as though the ammonia tests agree now, 8ppm TA is 0.2ppm FA @ pH 7.8.

Water is slightly low. I’ll add some RO

 

[coltpwrs7]

@brandon429 looks to be in the alarm stage this morning

 

[brandon429]

let's see the full tank picture again to check for clarity changes. if there's rotting mass in the tank in the form of a lump rotting in between rocks, remove the rocks and remove the mass.

if there is not but a teaspoon of loose materials we can't even locate that were distributed around the tank, and can't be seen as a mass to be removed, then if that reef was mine I'd remove the ammonia badge and quit self torturing.

this is not because denial is best :) it's because in my thread history, ten years here, that's always my recommend after a known causative has been removed.

I have my cyclers reach a point of design where we know ammonia can not rise uncontrollably due to arrangements in the tank, a teaspoon of distributed material cannot leak high ammonia every day for five days in your tank, and then we stop ammonia testing. that's every thread I've been in, every post on cycling I've been in, at least it's consistent and so are the outcomes.


*others may disagree, and feel that your tank might die today by 3 pm unless you buy and add lots of things to stop it. this is still the wild west of tank cycling, it's why none of us agree on status nor ideal mitigating action.

my advice is to do nothing/add nothing/cease testing for ammonia whatsoever as long as the fish behavior and daily presentation of the front-shot picture does not change in clarity to that one from yesterday

 

[coltpwrs7]

let's see the full tank picture again to check for clarity changes. if there's rotting mass in the tank in the form of a lump rotting in between rocks, remove the rocks and remove the mass.

if there is not but a teaspoon of loose materials we can't even locate that were distributed around the tank, and can't be seen as a mass to be removed, then if that reef was mine I'd remove the ammonia badge and quit self torturing.

this is not because denial is best :) it's because in my thread history, ten years here, that's always my recommend after a known causative has been removed.

I have my cyclers reach a point of design where we know ammonia can not rise uncontrollably due to arrangements in the tank, a teaspoon of distributed material cannot leak high ammonia every day for five days in your tank, and then we stop ammonia testing. that's every thread I've been in, every post on cycling I've been in, at least it's consistent and so are the outcomes.


*others may disagree, and feel that your tank might die today by 3 pm unless you buy and add lots of things to stop it. this is still the wild west of tank cycling, it's why none of us agree on status nor ideal mitigating action.

my advice is to do nothing/add nothing/cease testing for ammonia whatsoever as long as the fish behavior and daily presentation of the front-shot picture does not change in clarity to that one from yesterday

Sounds good, I’ll take a full tank picture when I get home. Thanks.

 

[brandon429]

Ammonia Pegged at 8.0 After 50% Water Change, Nitrate 10ppm, What's is happening!

*hey can you do us one favor pls: post the reading now from the ammonia kit so we can see the actual vial + indicator card in clear light. we need this to track the impacts of non digital testing on cycle challenges / need the pics in pattern to show the readings that cause these concerns you...

www.reef2reef.com

I wanted you to see that trainwreck for these reasons:

-had both API AND seachem badge peg out at 8 ppm / full impending death mode, and then for weeks on end nothing happened we can see.

not any troubleshooter in the entire thread agreed on whether that tank was dying...but did it die? :) did any of them, ever, in any thread we can find, die due to free ammonia


*I do not know nor understand what causes confounding readings across kits. I don't know why in this recent example, that dudes tank which was perfect showed absolutely pegged ammonia when it was not.

*he had a giant starfish in the tank the whole time, it would have died if his free ammonia was 1/10th stated levels. big starfish are very very very sensitive for sure

it's the polar reverse of your thread, but with the same test trending and no symptoms in the main display/provided the clear water holds since you had a real causative at work.

I'm not denying that perhaps more than a few bits are still in your tank degrading: my bet is your live rock surface area has it handled and that's why I would not test anymore.


*I too would have recommended you get a badge to at least have an idea, preferable to API, but I also wanted to show how badges can be bizarre as well. that dude had to input some type of direct confound to get API black/green color along with a pegged-out badge at full alert levels.

but it was not, at any time, ammonia as an issue in his thread. that thread above is the greatest trainwreck false alert thread I know of where literally everyone disagreed on status/outcome likelihood.

 

[Dan_P]

Believe it or not, I didn’t start the aquarium. Someone was moving out of their house and couldn’t take it with them. Offered it to me for basically free.

I was able to save all the water. I purchased three 55 gallon food grade plastic drums, pumped the water out into the bed of my truck. Putting the live rock inside of them with the water so they never got dry. Got the tank in place in my living room and pumped the water from the barrels back into the tank. It worked out great.

Of course because of the massive change and disturbance I treated with seachem stability and water conditioner for a while.

A wonderful story! Good luck.

 

[coltpwrs7]

let's see the full tank picture again to check for clarity changes. if there's rotting mass in the tank in the form of a lump rotting in between rocks, remove the rocks and remove the mass.

if there is not but a teaspoon of loose materials we can't even locate that were distributed around the tank, and can't be seen as a mass to be removed, then if that reef was mine I'd remove the ammonia badge and quit self torturing.

this is not because denial is best :) it's because in my thread history, ten years here, that's always my recommend after a known causative has been removed.

I have my cyclers reach a point of design where we know ammonia can not rise uncontrollably due to arrangements in the tank, a teaspoon of distributed material cannot leak high ammonia every day for five days in your tank, and then we stop ammonia testing. that's every thread I've been in, every post on cycling I've been in, at least it's consistent and so are the outcomes.


*others may disagree, and feel that your tank might die today by 3 pm unless you buy and add lots of things to stop it. this is still the wild west of tank cycling, it's why none of us agree on status nor ideal mitigating action.

my advice is to do nothing/add nothing/cease testing for ammonia whatsoever as long as the fish behavior and daily presentation of the front-shot picture does not change in clarity to that one from yesterday

Here is the full tank picture you asked for. A bit cloudy. If you zoom in and look close, on the far left you can see my foxface hiding in the rocks and his color has gone away. He’s usually out cruising around and color is very vibrant. Trigger fish is also hiding.

Also I noticed within the last two weeks I’ve had the bottom grow some kind of algae in the sand? It was never like this before it was bright white sand.

Ammonia badge is still reading a very light blue (alert color) API test is the same as the pictures I posted yesterday.

 

[brandon429]

Excellent. I can see no place that a large degrading mass can hide.

I'll hold course on my ammonia angle. I'll be the only one aiming concerns totally away from ammonia.

Nice open scape. The lighting remains consistent and bright in our reefs as we don't change lighting intensity in relation to tank events, so that means these recent challenges and additions and tank tests have brought on some algae. Siphon it out, don't let any algae remain ever. They capitalized on new nutrients and excess light is there to fuel the growths. Physically remove them.

*delayed invasions are why we do rip cleans (complete and total rinsing of a sandbed with tap water before it goes into the new reef at your home) for all tank moves in our tank transfer thread.


How you move substrate from the old house to the new determines how much waste is kept, and that can fuel events like this one if the sand was not rinsed during the move. Not knowing transfer details/ this is just a guess but you mentioned moving homes with it so those small details apply.

When algae gets infested in a large tank it's sometimes impossible to fix so remove it if possible.

If the clouding has persisted or increased then the steps listed prior to remove it are indicated. Do not permit clouding in $ reefs at all it is the one harbinger to react to when present. Even if it's just common bac bloom you don't want oxygen sapping at night, that can cause a crash cascade.

I don't believe ammonia is the irritant here, I think it's other compound(s) and confounds for the test kits at hand

Adding ammonia binders, something done here, has been implicated in prior misread threads as well.

 

[brandon429]

Further brainstorming so you have a tool kit to pick actions from in case things turn bad from partial actions we're doing in your large tank


This is the transfer thread.

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

The reason it's a possible tool for you here is because a rip clean arrests any bad chemistry/ biological irritants in a challenge system. The only reason we haven't done this day one for you is practicality, hard work for you to attain 120 gallons of brand new water and rinse out all that sand

But if your tank had 100% new water, and totally clean skip cycle sand, then you couldn't have a single irritant in play and we'd have fixed your issue in two hours if you owned a nano reef.

The reason I got so many hundreds of large tank owners to rip clean for us on file is because they were moving homes and had to take it apart anyway.

But we get to see their benefits of rinsing in pattern, for nine straight years. We can click on their name avatar, select find all threads, and read the system updates after our rip clean up to date.


We did hundreds of tanks your size in that thread, cook's 120 gallon rip clean is right there on page one for comparison. Every tank in that thread: my one gallon vase reef up to the 300 gallon giant system was cleaned the exact same way.

You need to study those jobs so you know how to force your tank to comply if required. That method will save any reef from crashing if you catch the tells early enough. You'll see how to rinse and handle materials without ever recycling.

Also notice: how much ammonia testing did we do there - it's important to see we predict what ammonia does there, we don't have to test for it.

I estimate that's over two million bucks of other people's reef tanks handled there in the roughest way known to reefing, and ammonia control still remains and no seneye audit ever fails a rip clean test.

I do not believe ammonia is being produced at such a rate by a source we cannot see whatsoever from an event rectified days ago. There's no precedent for it in reefing, there's no threads we can see about it. It's the mythical beast that's challenged our hobby for ages, only seneye owners can catch a break it seems.

 

[coltpwrs7]

Excellent. I can see no place that a large degrading mass can hide.

I'll hold course on my ammonia angle. I'll be the only one aiming concerns totally away from ammonia.

Nice open scape. The lighting remains consistent and bright in our reefs as we don't change lighting intensity in relation to tank events, so that means these recent challenges and additions and tank tests have brought on some algae. Siphon it out, don't let any algae remain ever. They capitalized on new nutrients and excess light is there to fuel the growths. Physically remove them.

*delayed invasions are why we do rip cleans (complete and total rinsing of a sandbed with tap water before it goes into the new reef at your home) for all tank moves in our tank transfer thread.


How you move substrate from the old house to the new determines how much waste is kept, and that can fuel events like this one if the sand was not rinsed during the move. Not knowing transfer details/ this is just a guess but you mentioned moving homes with it so those small details apply.

When algae gets infested in a large tank it's sometimes impossible to fix so remove it if possible.

If the clouding has persisted or increased then the steps listed prior to remove it are indicated. Do not permit clouding in $ reefs at all it is the one harbinger to react to when present. Even if it's just common bac bloom you don't want oxygen sapping at night, that can cause a crash cascade.

I don't believe ammonia is the irritant here, I think it's other compound(s) and confounds for the test kits at hand

Adding ammonia binders, something done here, has been implicated in prior misread threads as well.

Just spent the last hour skimming about an 1/8 of an inch of sand out. Took the sucker and got the little bits in and around the rocks. Also changed the filter socks again.


Lighting - So I typically shut the lights off at night. Tank is pitch black. But during the day I have those two 3 foot light bars on full blast as high as they can go. Any changes there you'd recommend?

I'm actually pretty pleased with the clarity now. It seems to of improved slightly within the last 2 hours. Still a bit to go but steps in the right direction anyways.

 

[coltpwrs7]

Update on the tank after my little ammonia deal.. tank has never been better. Crystal clear. Fish are out and about eating like crazy. Algae appears to be receding. API kit and ammonia badge still have readings but at this point all my fish would be dead if they were accurate….
Thanks everyone for the help!

 

[Garf]

API kit and ammonia badge still have readings but at this point all my fish would be dead if they were accurate….

Not necessarily;

How toxic is ammonia, really?

In the context of trying to understand why so many people believe Seachem Prime was useful for them in an elevated ammonia situation, against the data in the link below about Prime potentially doing nothing to free ammonia in seawater, the question arises, why...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[coltpwrs7]

pH ^

Ammonia ^

Nitrite ^

Nitrate^



Ammonia alert badge is reading ZERO! Which is awesome.
Now the nitrate has spiked.
Also still having an algae issue.

Any suggestions @brandon429
Or anyone willing to share information? Thanks!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

pH ^

Ammonia ^

Nitrite ^

Nitrate^



Ammonia alert badge is reading ZERO! Which is awesome.
Now the nitrate has spiked.
Also still having an algae issue.

Any suggestions @brandon429
Or anyone willing to share information? Thanks!

Suggestions about algae, or something else?