Ammonia through the roof! Need Help ASAP!

[Hunter90 HD]

Good evening everyone,

I need some urgent help, my Ammonia levels are through the roof!

I have a mixed reef 120Litre tank consisting of 2 clown fish, 1 yellow wrasse - I feed them twice a day using a mix of Mysis/Marine Mix/Brine Shrimp and only feed what they eat no excess left.

I also dose Red Sea Coral Nutrition 4ml per day every day.

My parameters are as follows:

Salinity	1.026​
Magnesium (Mg)	1280​
Alkalinity (KH)	3.2, 9
Calcium (Ca)	460​
Phosphate (PO3)	0​
Nitrate (NO3)	6​
Nitrite (NO2)	0​
pH	8​
Ammonia (NH3/NH4)	1.3​

So to give some background information, i upgraded my tank over 4 weeks ago and i am on my 5th week, the nitrite raised and is now reading 0.

I have Brightwell Bio Brick, 2000ml of biocubes (from previous tank), Zeolite media, Carbon Media, Purigen, Micro-Lift Sili-Out 2, Brightwell Bio Cubes, and two filter socks for mechanical filtration which i clean every 2-3 days.

I also add in AquaOne Bio balls for additional bacteria.

I dose have been dosing NoPox the entire time and my nitrates are coming down and the water is lovely and clear.

I see what looks like to be alot of bacteria being grown which i believe is as a result of the NoPox (See pics) growing in my filters.

I use Reef Octopus 1000 skimmer which is running 24/7 which produces a fair amount of skinmate which i clean ever 2-3 days.

I use a Red Sea 50 light which i run at 18k.

I have used weekly Microbe-Lift Water Conditioner which suspends my Ammonia to 0 but now i am in my 5 week i have to stop dosing the conditioner to the whole tank and can only use it on my new water with my water changes.

I dose Microbe-Lift Special Blend a few hours after the conditioner is dosed, but my Ammonia is uncontrollable.

I hope this helps to give the full picture as to my setup - I have tested the Ammonia countless times and there i do not believe there reading is incorrect as it has been drifting between 0.6 to 1.3 over the last few weeks and i have retest a few times.

I used the Red Sea Marine Care Kit and the Red Sea Foundation Pro Test kit.

Now (touch wood) the fish are showing no sign of distress and they are eating like piranhas!

I change 10% of my water weekly (17 litres est.) using RODI water only.

Has anyone got any suggestions as to how i get these levels down?

Should i feed less often, give the tank more time to settle?

Any help would be great!

Many thanks...

 

[brandon429]

its a misread.

 

[brandon429]

here's how we can troubleshoot your tank against those from this thread:

Sustained Ammonia spikes are misreads

The reason you think your reef tank can’t control its ammonia is due to false training from old cycling science. That and you don’t own a seneye on the tank in question: if you did, you wouldn’t ever think your ammonia was out of control...

www.reef2reef.com

I am 100% sure your nh3 levels in that reef are in the thousandths ppm, but you'd have to have seneye to see it.

your own ammonia kit likely needs TAN factoring before reporting the actual level, its lower than what you are thinking

the non digital kits cause misread alarms always. none of those corals would be glorious and wide open if you had your free ammonia anywhere above thousandths ppm nh3 which is what seneye would show on any post-cycle reef.

there isn't even a source for that much raw ammonia to be input into this tank, its perfectly balanced. some additive is triggering a false reading, Prime does this routinely and folks don't report it.

 

[Hunter90 HD]

here's how we can troubleshoot your tank against those from this thread:

Sustained Ammonia spikes are misreads

The reason you think your reef tank can’t control its ammonia is due to false training from old cycling science. That and you don’t own a seneye on the tank in question: if you did, you wouldn’t ever think your ammonia was out of control...

www.reef2reef.com

I am 100% sure your nh3 levels in that reef are in the thousandths ppm, but you'd have to have seneye to see it.

your own ammonia kit likely needs TAN factoring before reporting the actual level, its lower than what you are thinking

the non digital kits cause misread alarms always. none of those corals would be glorious and wide open if you had your free ammonia anywhere above thousandths ppm nh3 which is what seneye would show on any post-cycle reef.

there isn't even a source for that much raw ammonia to be input into this tank, its perfectly balanced. some additive is triggering a false reading, Prime does this routinely and folks don't report it.

Will read now thank you , but just to answer your question, a color compare kit - i use Red Sea Mature Care...

 

[brandon429]

nearly half the false reports there are from those kits

but

lets try and calibrate the kit

take the ammonia reading and follow the wait times from the instructions, some require you to wait 5 mins or 9 mins before reporting and shake the reagent very well. re run ammonia


go into another room of white light/window light no reef tint and place it on a white piece of paper, the indicator card and the new read

we'll eyeball it and apply TAN factoring to the reading and see if its too bad. if it is, the kit is still wrong and something like Prime is contaminating the sample but let's see the kit.

I give you my word if you stop testing for ammonia there for several weeks, a few months, and focus on nitrate and phosphate balances you'll be better off. all cycling is completed, and cannot be undone there as long as the surfaces remain wet.

 

[brandon429]

this clause in the description is likely at play here:

after the conditioner is dosed


most water conditioners specifically cause ammonia false positives. I've been reading in the chem forum and the chemists are saying its because nessler-type kits which yours is, are sensitive to water conditioners.

 

[Aqua Man]

there isn't even a source for that much raw ammonia to be input into this tank,

I have a mixed reef 120Litre tank consisting of 2 clown fish, 1 yellow wrasse - I feed them twice a day using a mix of Mysis/Marine Mix/Brine Shrimp

2 times a day?

 

[brandon429]

for sure, that's a huge tank and the implication is that a single example exists in reefing for seneye showing a running reef tank fail to control its ammonia (not ones where fish disease rots fish in the water, normal-running reef examples, there aren't any)

all ammonia noncontrol posts excluding fish death posts are these color compare kits reporting the params.

in our dosing ammonia thread below, seneye owners add liquid cycling ammonia right into running reefs here below and things spike minor then rebound quickly, 5 mins avg on seneye

if this was api-ran below it'd be sheer madness/red sea included


even if this reef above never buys a seneye, that's his dynamic. The food he's adding is contributing nothing compared to dosing actual liquid ammonium chloride into a reef tank:

Does anyone dose ammonia and/or how would one try?

So, after an interesting discussion on nitrate dosing and looking at my Walt Disney coral and seeing it slightly less colorful than I have seen it in others tanks, I have decided I want to learn about and then try dosing ammonia instead of buying 20 damsels. Nitrate additives I see abound and...

www.reef2reef.com

we need to know if he dosed Prime here as water conditioner. that and a clear white light pic of the kit so we can apply TAN conversions to it. The large nice clownfish are not aerotaxing to the surface to breathe, that ammonia is under control.


c. jardenai corals worth $500 look for a reason in life not to extend, that elegance is wide open.

I wouldnt say the water is the clearest Ive seen but that can easily be from feeding, mixed reactive dosing too. we'd simply hold course, do a nice water change and continue reefing here. cease testing for cycling params for the next few mos, focus on how the tank looks and dont allow water clarity to degrade, take physical action not dosing action.


the #1 hallmark of this thread here and that example thread above is that the title of the alert thread is centered around a test reading, there is no actual loss in the tank. that's the universal shared issue in all those collected examples of false ammonia readings, and anytime we can get a seneye poster to post, their readings never cause alarm (tuned seneye reports nh3 live time, digitally no need for TAN conversion work like we're about to do)

systems don't tolerate a burn level of ammonia while everything runs normally, if he was overfeeding the water would be opaque and things would be clearly stressed. I've seen nopox cause that much clarity issue above/harmless stuff.

 

[Hunter90 HD]

this clause in the description is likely at play here:

after the conditioner is dosed


most water conditioners specifically cause ammonia false positives. I've been reading in the chem forum and the chemists are saying its because nessler-type kits which yours is, are sensitive to water conditioners.

@brandon429 - Thank you very much for your support and for your kind words- The corals and fish seems to be loving life now i got the positioning correct (took a few attempts ), That is more likely what the issue is then to do with water conditioners giving false positives! i will retest Ammonia again see as suggested shortly, just in the middle of a water change ..

I read the links you attached and yeah lol i can definitely see the devastating effects Ammonia spikes can have if present - the water is definitely not cloudy, does not smell, and the corals are fully open and fish happily swimming around which would not be the case if i had high Ammonia.

I did wonder they the Ammonia was so high the last few readings, as there is enough surface area in my filters to filter much more water volume but i always went above and beyond as you can never have enough good bacteria.

Thank you for the reassurance, i have tested Phosphates for weeks now and i have never had any phosphates - I tested numerous times using the Salifert posphate test kits but now i am wondering if the tap conditioners is throwing over test readings off?

I do have chemical media to remove Phosphate (Microbe-Lift Sili-Out2) and Ammonia (Zeolite).

I will retest Ammonia again shortly before water change..

 

[Hunter90 HD]

2 times a day?

Yeah 2 times a day i feed my fish once at 4pm when i get home from work and once at 9pm

 

[brandon429]

remove zeolite, cease using water prep conditioners if possible. you should be using ro di water, not tap, so no water conditioners are needed. the filtration approaches and the dosing of items is likely the water clarity issue


remove all zeolite and never use it in a reef tank again, honestly. remove it.
if you want to run po4 stripping media while feeding heavy its fine, but having water clarity issues are known to follow at times in that approach and I'd recommend keeping some level of po4 avail, bone zero is asking for a dinos outbreak.

 

[brandon429]

we want some nitrogen circulating as low level free ammonia, reefs do not ever run at zero ammonia. it will help your corals even more to have a little N and P so that's why no zeolite is needed, reef tanks all control their ammonia and none using live rock need help even with stocking and feed variance.

that being said your system looks great for being low nutrient, low storage / no sandbed really means that system can be fed well because that feed won't pile up as rotting waste. currents will carry it out or into a filter catchment.

I can understand running slightly less phosphate remover but keeping some; you aren't trying to go high nutrients and make an algae farm. let the nitrogen exist as it will from the feed, remove zeolite but continue po4 management using slightly less removal, this is ideal and will likely reinstate water clarity after a few changes balances it out.

hope that helps, pls update this thread in a month or two using the new approach we feed off that kind of feedback to hold course or change methods in our study threads
B

that's a nice reef that coral set is so healthy and $$$

 

[Hunter90 HD]

nearly half the false reports there are from those kits

but

lets try and calibrate the kit

take the ammonia reading and follow the wait times from the instructions, some require you to wait 5 mins or 9 mins before reporting and shake the reagent very well. re run ammonia


go into another room of white light/window light no reef tint and place it on a white piece of paper, the indicator card and the new read

we'll eyeball it and apply TAN factoring to the reading and see if its too bad. if it is, the kit is still wrong and something like Prime is contaminating the sample but let's see the kit.

I give you my word if you stop testing for ammonia there for several weeks, a few months, and focus on nitrate and phosphate balances you'll be better off. all cycling is completed, and cannot be undone there as long as the surfaces remain wet.

Apologies for late replay just finished water change! Catching up on these posts...

So okay, i have re-ran the Ammonia test.

For Ammonia, Red Sea instructions state to wait 15mins before taking a reading - I have read this reading from a white light (bright room and window) against a white background, indicator card and the new read.

Reading down from the glass vial the colour is looking just above 1.2, how would I apply TAN factoring to this?

Apologies i have not come across this term before.

But as you advised a further comment below, the water conditioner is most likely putting this test kit off as this is a Nessler-type kit and water conditioners has been used last week.

That is very re-assuring thank you, I will stop testing for ammonia for a few months and i will focus on nitrate / phosphate balances as advised.

That is good to know, I have been dosing bacteria as i am in the 5th week now and they recommend a final dose.

 

[Hunter90 HD]

Apologies for late replay just finished water change! Catching up on these posts...

So okay, i have re-ran the Ammonia test.

For Ammonia, Red Sea instructions state to wait 15mins before taking a reading - I have read this reading from a white light (bright room and window) against a white background, indicator card and the new read.

Reading down from the glass vial the colour is looking just above 1.2, how would I apply TAN factoring to this?

Apologies i have not come across this term before.

But as you advised a further comment below, the water conditioner is most likely putting this test kit off as this is a Nessler-type kit and water conditioners has been used last week.

That is very re-assuring thank you, I will stop testing for ammonia for a few months and i will focus on nitrate / phosphate balances as advised.

That is good to know, I have been dosing bacteria as i am in the 5th week now and they recommend a final dose.

@brandon429

 

[brandon429]

its almost ready but post the actual vial sitting on that card so we can see it all and make the comparison for color off that pic. that above is just the card.

we will guess what the total ammonia reads off the pic, likely .2 or something

then tan conversion off the instructions in that kit shows we move decimal to the left, .02 to get nh3 and now we're approaching safe zone and that's even considering direct adulterants messing up the test. its just for fun to see it, truly might be pegged to the sky dark green but the reason the tank is ok each day and never crashes is the adulterants messing w the kit's chemistry.

even someone else's nondigital kits can't work accurately on that sample, it'll take seneye to ever know true levels but you can see by the patterns above in the false alert thread we simply don't need to measure ammonia in a post cycle reef tank, it self-controls.

knowing your true ammonia would be fun for tracking purposes but on that water column I don't think we're going to get to ever know it. patterned assessment is how you'll have to view ammonia from here on out...trusting the cycle to stay in place and reef on without concern.

 

[Hunter90 HD]

its almost ready but post the actual vial sitting on that card so we can see it all and make the comparison for color off that pic. that above is just the card.

we will guess what the total ammonia reads off the pic, likely .2 or something

then tan conversion off the instructions in that kit shows we move decimal to the left, .02 to get nh3 and now we're approaching safe zone and that's even considering direct adulterants messing up the test. its just for fun to see it, truly might be pegged to the sky dark green but the reason the tank is ok each day and never crashes is the adulterants messing w the kit's chemistry.

even someone else's nondigital kits can't work accurately on that sample, it'll take seneye to ever know true levels but you can see by the patterns above in the false alert thread we simply don't need to measure ammonia in a post cycle reef tank, it self-controls.

knowing your true ammonia would be fun for tracking purposes but on that water column I don't think we're going to get to ever know it. patterned assessment is how you'll have to view ammonia from here on out...trusting the cycle to stay in place and reef on without concern.

ahh okay apologies i just cleaned the vials, i will retest now and post with picture on vial shortly, thanks again @brandon429

 

[brandon429]

I'm really interested to see it all for sure, thanks for posting and updating it gives us fun stuff to track out. can't wait for 2 month updates too it'll be running just fine in Nov yep.

 

[Hunter90 HD]

its almost ready but post the actual vial sitting on that card so we can see it all and make the comparison for color off that pic. that above is just the card.

we will guess what the total ammonia reads off the pic, likely .2 or something

then tan conversion off the instructions in that kit shows we move decimal to the left, .02 to get nh3 and now we're approaching safe zone and that's even considering direct adulterants messing up the test. its just for fun to see it, truly might be pegged to the sky dark green but the reason the tank is ok each day and never crashes is the adulterants messing w the kit's chemistry.

even someone else's nondigital kits can't work accurately on that sample, it'll take seneye to ever know true levels but you can see by the patterns above in the false alert thread we simply don't need to measure ammonia in a post cycle reef tank, it self-controls.

knowing your true ammonia would be fun for tracking purposes but on that water column I don't think we're going to get to ever know it. patterned assessment is how you'll have to view ammonia from here on out...trusting the cycle to stay in place and reef on without concern.

@brandon429 That is interesting, so we got a reading of 0.8-1.2 i would say? i shook the chemicals properly before re-testing.

This is the reading after i have just done the 10% water change.

I have heard of these Seneye kits before and is something i would love to add to this reef, would be good see this in real time and of course all the more accurate.

I see, it is all a learning curve i was here testing this for the last few weeks whilst it has been cycling and wondering why is it still showing high... will not test again .

Yeah a patterned assessment of Ammonia is how i will view ammonia from now on, just have to trust the cycle to stay in place and concentrate on nitrate / phosphate levels as per your previous advice.

 

[Hunter90 HD]

@brandon429 That is interesting, so we got a reading of 0.8-1.2 i would say? i shook the chemicals properly before re-testing.

This is the reading after i have just done the 10% water change.

I have heard of these Seneye kits before and is something i would love to add to this reef, would be good see this in real time and of course all the more accurate.

I see, it is all a learning curve i was here testing this for the last few weeks whilst it has been cycling and wondering why is it still showing high... will not test again .

Yeah a patterned assessment of Ammonia is how i will view ammonia from now on, just have to trust the cycle to stay in place and concentrate on nitrate / phosphate levels as per your previous advice.

Just to note that it was over 1.2 prior to 10% water change

 

[brandon429]

That is really neat, its not that bad at all after TAN factoring down to the nh3 report level which is the only version of ammonia we care about at the pH we run--per Dan P's writing and Randy's writing on ammonia levels these are the helpful takeaways. Dan has said that Prime conditioner isn't affecting seneye read accuracy, so at least that one water conditioner won't be an issue if you do pick up a seneye and in the end I really think we can stop using any water conditioners and get a better reading in a few weeks of this new maintenance course.

in our ammonia study thread, several concerns were founded off those same reported levels above like yours, and if we message any entrant from that thread their current tank is ok, and I bet that rascal test kit still says .8 lol for them.