Ammonia

[Chucky]

setup Biocube 32 gallon
So what does this ammonia look like to y’all? Okay let me fist start by saying I’ve had an apparent ammonia spike, what brought this to my attention was a damsel acting really weird laying around breathing rapidly and my scooter bleeny the same but they was only 2 showing signs rip scooter blue damsel made full recovery but I checked params learned I had ammonia, nitrites and nitrates I don’t remember the exact numbers now this has been an ongoing battle for over a week now. The tanks been running since July 26th started it with live sand, live dry rock and bio sira bacteria along with 4 fish 2 clowns a cardinal and blue damsel one clown perished a few weeks later due to aggression I believe anyways after about 2 weeks of it being up I found a great deal on some established rock with hairy mushroom on it. I was showing tank being cycled before adding the additional rock and mushroom via api master kit so as it was going good I added more coral a green chromis and scooter bleeny this brings total of fish to 5 I also added cuc over the period as well the basics snails and crabs everything was good until roughly 2 weeks ago I bought an emarld crab and couple more snails and hermits 3 days later is when all hell broke loose and I found the 2 fish I mentioned above suffering and found empty snail shells which isn’t a surprise but just throwing that out there. After finding the 2 suffering fish I immediately did ammonia test and learned it was nearly 2.0ppm nitrite was .50 and nitrates was 60ppm! I’ve been doing wc like crazy since last Tuesday and have only been testing ammonia with api and Red Sea test kits any input is appreciated sorry if this is hard to understand I’m at work making this post lol

 

[taricha]

Here's the good news. Your nitrite measurement tells us that you have a functional biofilter that is working to catch up in processing the ammonia. And that test color is less than 2 PPM ammonia. Take a picture looking straight down on the vial and see what color it is the closest match to.

I wonder how big the snails were that died. I'm considering what the nutrient input would need to be to generate your ammonia spike.

Like I said, your tank is actually processing the ammonia as evidenced by the nitrite reading, so once you get the ammonia level down, which you can just do by a couple of 75% water changes, your ammonia problem will be behind you.
Not 100% sure that the ammonia on that test is the only reason the fish are in distress, but it doesn't help.

Water changes, give aeration, flow and light.

 

[Chucky]

Here's the good news. Your nitrite measurement tells us that you have a functional biofilter that is working to catch up in processing the ammonia. And that test color is less than 2 PPM ammonia. Take a picture looking straight down on the vial and see what color it is the closest match to.

I wonder how big the snails were that died. I'm considering what the nutrient input would need to be to generate your ammonia spike.

Like I said, your tank is actually processing the ammonia as evidenced by the nitrite reading, so once you get the ammonia level down, which you can just do by a couple of 75% water changes, your ammonia problem will be behind you.
Not 100% sure that the ammonia on that test is the only reason the fish are in distress, but it doesn't help.

Water changes, give aeration, flow and light.

Test was performed yesterday and it’s showing to me between .08 and .04 would you agree?

 

[Chucky]

Here's the good news. Your nitrite measurement tells us that you have a functional biofilter that is working to catch up in processing the ammonia. And that test color is less than 2 PPM ammonia. Take a picture looking straight down on the vial and see what color it is the closest match to.

I wonder how big the snails were that died. I'm considering what the nutrient input would need to be to generate your ammonia spike.

Like I said, your tank is actually processing the ammonia as evidenced by the nitrite reading, so once you get the ammonia level down, which you can just do by a couple of 75% water changes, your ammonia problem will be behind you.
Not 100% sure that the ammonia on that test is the only reason the fish are in distress, but it doesn't help.

Water changes, give aeration, flow and light.

Snails wasn’t big at at all 3 bumblebee snails 3 idk the name of lol have silver spot on the top shell and 3 smaller hermits

 

[taricha]

Test was performed yesterday and it’s showing to me between .08 and .04 would you agree?

If that's the color it looked like to you looking straight down, then that's probably a decent estimate, 0.4 to 0.8ppm.

 

[Chucky]

If that's the color it looked like to you looking straight down, then that's probably a decent estimate, 0.4 to 0.8ppm.

I’m thinking about going and getting another bottle of bio spira when I get off work and dosing the bottle to tank and monitor ammonia over next several days and not do wc to let the bacteria take hold

 

[taricha]

I’m thinking about going and getting another bottle of bio spira when I get off work and dosing the bottle to tank and monitor ammonia over next several days and not do wc to let the bacteria take hold

Or do both.
Water change first to lower ammonia and biospira to immediately boost the population of nitrifying bacteria.

 

[Chucky]

Or do both.
Water change first to lower ammonia and biospira to immediately boost the population of nitrifying bacteria.

I did a 40% last night was going to check it when I get off work today and go get some more bio

 

[Chucky]

Or do both.
Water change first to lower ammonia and biospira to immediately boost the population of nitrifying bacteria.

So I got some api quick start i unfortunately couldn’t get anything else will it work with same benefits as bio spira ? I’ve used it many time on fresh setups but never salt

 

[mehaffydr]

I would not test ammonia every day if even at all. Your tank has been up and running and is processing ammonia. API test kits are known to be off and you will just created stress for yourself. Just don't add anything more for the next few weeks and do regular water changes. Ammonia will not be a problem

 

[Chucky]

I would not test ammonia every day if even at all. Your tank has been up and running and is processing ammonia. API test kits are known to be off and you will just created stress for yourself. Just don't add anything more for the next few weeks and do regular water changes. Ammonia will not be a problem

But the Red Sea test is showing signs of nh3/nh4 as seen in the pictures right

 

[mehaffydr]

Yes I agree that you have some but with the tank cycled you had something spike or possible false positive. But the bacteria in the tank will take care of things as long as you go slow and don't make any additions until things balance out which they will do. Short term control with some water changes 25-50% and let the bacteria do its work.

 

[Chucky]

Yes I agree that you have some but with the tank cycled you had something spike or possible false positive. But the bacteria in the tank will take care of things as long as you go slow and don't make any additions until things balance out which they will do. Short term control with some water changes 25-50% and let the bacteria do its work.

So you wouldn’t dose it with more bacteria to help keep up?

 

[mehaffydr]

Adding bacteria sure won't hurt but not required. With fish in there it might help keep them from getting stressed but you already have bacteria in the system that are rapidly multiplying.

 

[Chucky]

Adding bacteria sure won't hurt but not required. With fish in there it might help keep them from getting stressed but you already have bacteria in the system that are rapidly multiplying.

Can I dm you?

 

[mehaffydr]

Can I dm you?

sure

 

[taricha]

So I got some api quick start i unfortunately couldn’t get anything else will it work with same benefits as bio spira

Nah, different kind of nitrifier ("add fish immediately" = Heterotroph) than biospira.
At this point (a couple of days after your initial post), your nitrifying bacteria have probably basically scaled up to the challenge anyway, and there's minimal benefit to adding more bottled product, IMO. You can add some - it won't hurt. But I don't anticipate any benefit.

 

[brandon429]

fish disease, skipping preps started this issue

crabs took your snails


the issue was never, ever ammonia at the start and your ammonia on a digital kit would not read like it does above.

your cycle isn't broken, your disease prep approach was missing/this is the price documented for years in the fish disease forum.

specific next steps

testing for ammonia didn't help here, there isn't a problem we can see in your tank pics. you have living animals, not yet taken by disease, focus on those/ammonia isn't an issue now.


this post will be added to our false ammonia alert red sea thread, for obvious reasons.


if you fallow out this tank of the remaining fish, and have a disease protocol in place before restocking, your fish retention rate will increase to the degree you want it to


can't skip preps nowadays

this thread also upholds the rule that where old cycling science is applied, cycling fear takes over never in the presence of digital meters and 100% to the exclusion of fish disease loss, even though an entire forum exists detailing these symptoms/broken cyclers are never aimed there.


this cycle isn't broken, the eaten snails didn't crash your tank or the other reefs where that happened, crabs like to eat snails.

 

[brandon429]

and here is eight pages of tanks with your exact presentation, all ammonia issues were long resolved by the time of their post, all red sea panic posts we show:

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

meanwhile, when tested on seneye...

the color of that red sea nh4 reading directly matches the same tint that API causes in its myriad ammonia noncontrol posts. after tan conversion, I deem that an acceptable color / that explains why your whole reef is running fine even as of today.

your current fish are at risk from delayed disease loss, within the first 8 mos however (a rule taken from updated cycling science, where ammonia is never concerned over after the initial cycle)

ammonia rising did not precede nor cause your fish loss, and stocking crabs with snails is a fine explanation for snail loss which any nano reef can endure without crashing, your pics show.

in fact, testing for ammonia after your cycle was done misled you on a causative hunt 100%. this was a broken cycle post, up till now. most folks who use updated cycling science don't use ammonia or nitrite kits at all (we count the # of days to know when a cycle is complete, a chart shows us) but we certainly don't use them after a cycle. that rule would have saved you time from posting in the chem forum, and instead sent you right to Jay's forum to read the 300 tanks that directly match all your symptoms.

 

[Chucky]

and here is eight pages of tanks with your exact presentation, all ammonia issues were long resolved by the time of their post, all red sea panic posts we show:

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

meanwhile, when tested on seneye...

the color of that red sea nh4 reading directly matches the same tint that API causes in its myriad ammonia noncontrol posts. after tan conversion, I deem that an acceptable color / that explains why your whole reef is running fine even as of today.

your current fish are at risk from delayed disease loss, within the first 8 mos however (a rule taken from updated cycling science, where ammonia is never concerned over after the initial cycle)

ammonia rising did not precede nor cause your fish loss, and stocking crabs with snails is a fine explanation for snail loss which any nano reef can endure without crashing, your pics show.

in fact, testing for ammonia after your cycle was done misled you on a causative hunt 100%. this was a broken cycle post, up till now. most folks who use updated cycling science don't use ammonia or nitrite kits at all (we count the # of days to know when a cycle is complete, a chart shows us) but we certainly don't use them after a cycle. that rule would have saved you time from posting in the chem forum, and instead sent you right to Jay's forum to read the 300 tanks that directly match all your symptoms.

Thank you that’s a lot of reading but was definitely worth it!