Amonia problem in established tank help

Jon Fishman

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Just driving it to/from seems crazy to me....... if my local shop (literally walking distance from my house) gave me water for free, I'd still make my own for top-off etc.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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This aquarium never had free ammonia bc the levels didn’t rise.

There is no mechanism possible to have sustained .25 or .5 in a system that can oxidize likely up to 4-6 ppm in one day (every aquarium that’s matured) given no deaths or no meds or no constant source water addition

You haven't listed any mechanisms that kill bacteria but instead are pressed to find reasons a .25 seems accurate when it isn't


Misread, nice details provided. It’s possible to have brief spikes when an organism dies or a cruddy sandbed is upturned, but they’re spiked not daily constants at the classically-reported levels

Ammonia is the most predictable compound we work with such that reefing without testing for it is possible. We can even cycle dry systems wo testing ammonia bc we know how much time it takes to grow bac, that they don’t leave after establishment if you keep them wet, and we know how many drops of pre measured liquid ammonia to input per gallon to get one ppm. That’s what it takes to cycle, not a test kit.

Ammonia can be smelled when it’s in a system, organisms we can see do certain counter behaviors when it is there truly (you’ll know) and water goes cloudy when ammonia truly rises, bc ammonia means death at levels it would take to overcome what our biosystems command already for it
 
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Derek Asbury

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I'm pretty sure either my pH drop or Kh spike killed off or lowered my bac ability to process ammonia I have had to do daily water changes since posting this to try to keep the levels at bay along with doseing new back and running my second sump solo not attached to my main tank to give it time to grow back alone while I do the water changes on my DT doing everything i can to keep my tank healthy not sure what killed it but its hurt hope I dont have todo this too long
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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You're going to have to trust me but see this link for other examples just like yours of false positives

Source: microbiology of tank cycling
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-microbiology-of-reef-tank-cycling.214618/

See test error section, and examples of twenty situations like yours. Most people will not read a large link not even any of it... But if you want to see what bacteria really do give it an hour's read


There are no parameter changes you can do in your reef tank to kill those bacteria

You have no free ammonia unless you have an unaccounted for dead fish in there

Second source: predicting whether or not twenty pages of different reef tanks are going to register free ammonia as we literally destroy the sandbed in every one:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445 not one mis call
 
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brandon429

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So the question moves to now what:

Take no action, your reef was fine the whole time, cease testing for ammonia and manage the alk or other params as you see fit. It was three pages of false alarm here, feels nice to let the concern go

If you want a really specific diagnosis post a full tank shot real quick
 

brandon429

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If you had free ammonia:

Levels rise daily they never hold at low .25. this alone is proof. You would have a daily ppm -gain- amounting to many ppms free ammonia by now

Cloudy water

Smells

All micro life like brittle stars pods worms acting abnormal, all migrating to the surface of the tank for air, escaping some mysterious source of ammonia able to produce above the 4-5 parts per million it can already digest as a cycled tank (stated above)

All fish panting at the surface, pics of your fish alone will confirm the prediction or not

Sustained free ammonia at the levels it takes to overcome a cycled tank will wreck your biosystem within 2 hours and all pictures will show those details above aside from testing

If you posted pictures they would be of a totally normal looking reef tank I bet, where every visual indicator says there is no ammonia but only the API says there is
 
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Derek Asbury

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Well I had all fish die from an ich out break so I have no fish to post pics of and I have now had the test confirmed at two different lfs I have changed my water every day to keep my levels where they are and I still have had small gains in the ammonia levels but what can move in my tank that's still alive is not acting abnormal but I also dosed my tank with ammolock I just recently up graded this tank to a coral tank so I dont have many corals and the corals that are not happy could of been from my kh spike not sure

15542109515798306235520822049332.jpg
 
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Derek Asbury

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I take good care of my tank this is why I'm worried about the ammonia problem it's not a testing error not sure how much it gains on a day because I do 20% water changes daily my second sump hopefully will grow enough bac to give the main tank time to go some I dont have a huge bio load now cause no fish so the ammonia is only comeing from coral food and waste I have been spot feeding some of them that are struggling hopeing to save them so that may cause a little excess food therefore waste
 

Saltyreef

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I take good care of my tank this is why I'm worried about the ammonia problem it's not a testing error not sure how much it gains on a day because I do 20% water changes daily my second sump hopefully will grow enough bac to give the main tank time to go some I dont have a huge bio load now cause no fish so the ammonia is only comeing from coral food and waste I have been spot feeding some of them that are struggling hopeing to save them so that may cause a little excess food therefore waste
What brand test did your second LFS use?
 

Dr. Dendrostein

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Hey is real ocean water good to do water changes with I have used several brands and every store I go to recommends there brand of course so just looking for advice I dont have an R.O so it's not easy to make my own
Just do your homework on what company for real ocean water. Here in Socal I know of two sources, one filters the heck out of the water the other company not much so alot of the plankton still there.
 

Saltyreef

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Well honestly....i still dont think its an ammonia issue. This test kit measures total ammonia. Free ammonia is what we're really concerned about.
Your bacterial colony and algae should be keeping the free ammonia in check just fine.
Forgive me for not re reading back thru comments but have you tested for stray voltage in your tank? Have you measured your tanks water turn over?
 
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Derek Asbury

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I live in corona so I'm in socal as well I'm haveing two corals bleaching out but not sure if it's the ammonia or the kh spike I had

15542226638033384407086151834841.jpg
 
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Derek Asbury

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I haven't measured either but I used to have stray voltage before I had coral from my lighting but then I found some better lights and got rid of the old ones and haven't had any issues as far as I can tell as for water return short of emptying the tank during water changes and timing the fill rate from sump if I had to guess now from memory I would say it takes my pump about 4 min to put the 20 gallons I normally change
 

Saltyreef

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Did you have a submersible light or something?
How did you know you had stray voltage at the time and how did you know the issue was fixed?
Do you have a multi meter?
 

BeejReef

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For sure, I bet that would even hurt your skin if you were in your tank lol. The ammonia I deff think is the api test, who ever said that was spot on with the false positives.
have not used them, but have seen many many posts and videos where people note that API is notorious for showing low levels of ammonia where there is none
 

Saltyreef

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I haven't measured either but I used to have stray voltage before I had coral from my lighting but then I found some better lights and got rid of the old ones and haven't had any issues as far as I can tell as for water return short of emptying the tank during water changes and timing the fill rate from sump if I had to guess now from memory I would say it takes my pump about 4 min to put the 20 gallons I normally change
That sounds fine. Thats roughly 300gph and is an ok turn over for your tanks size and shouldnt cause these issues. Curious to see voltage measurement of running system.
 

brandon429

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nice pics this is a zero ammonia tank regardless of your readings

in that thread I posted, we also show things that adulterate your test kit(s) and make them read zero when its not zero. we can track the thread over time to watch for changes and logged test levels showing compounding above .25

The stated causes here for loss of bacteria are not antibacterial actions nor params. if they were, when hospitals clean up for the day, they'd just wipe their labs down with water of slightly high alk.
 
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Derek Asbury

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Well not sure if my test kit is malfunctioning along with two other fish store but I do have micro life flourishing like feather dusters and spagetti worms plus I have some corals that are doing great and I tested my ro top off and tap water just as a sort of control and the ro read 0 but my tap reads like 25 scary if that's true better not drink the water at my house

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15542244294313086571884491990133.jpg
 

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