Cycling stalled and now ammonia is spiked

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Snarbleglarf

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looks great and really clean start. that sand, if wet before adding, was another 4.4 billion nitrifier cells as well...was that wet pack sand? even if not, clearly the live rocks are enough for day to day needs or the system would have fast-crashed due to lack of surface area/and or bac/fast when those fish were added.
The sand is caribsea (not sure I spelt that right) but it says it is live with bacteria. What do you think best corse of action is? Right now I’m planing on getting more bacteria to help with the ammonia and carbon as well would you say that’s a good start?
 

William Mumford

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I would bet like geezer said that in your tank the peice of live rock has made your cycle start over for lack of a better phrase. I would also tell you that API is very bad on low end amonia readings. I used one until I asked on this forum and they told me to switch best move I have made.
 

William Mumford

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I wouldn't panic though time is your friend in this hobby this forum will teach you time is your best friend. If you change to many things you wont know what worked or what will happen as a result of the add. if your fish are not in distress and looking sickly then keep your on your path. Fish cycles are scary in general. the amonia spike is needed every add you make adds wastes waste breaks down and it all cycles again this is why it is best to add fish very slowly and allow time for tank to stabilize to add an new inhabitant. Also if you do not have hermit crabs add a few.
 

ReefGeezer

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If I was in your situation, I'd do a 100%-ish water change using RODI water, probably re-home the clowns, put the Prime away, maybe add some Dr. Tims, and wait. Test like once a week at most. Your API kit is fine if your aren't using a dechlorinator like Prime.
 

Lasse

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If your test is giving you a fault reading, which many facts indicate, I would do nothing more than stop feeding. I would try to get a sea chem ammonia alert and judge what to do after you get a stable result from it.

Sincerely Lasse
 
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bluprntguy

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If I was in your situation, I'd do a 100%-ish water change using RODI water, probably re-home the clowns, put the Prime away, maybe add some Dr. Tims, and wait. Test like once a week at most. Your API kit is fine if your aren't using a dechlorinator like Prime.

I second this and would highly recommend removing the fish and doing a full water change. This type of situation is exactly why I argued in a separate thread that it's not best practice to put a fish in a tank that you aren't sure is processing ammonia. It would be quite a bit easier to solve this (and less stressful) if you didn't have living creatures in there that needed to be protected.

As an alternative, OP could continue to dose prime DAILY to protect the fish and copepods and it will not stall the cycle. From seachem's website, they state: "Prime converts ammonia into a complexed iminium salt. This salt is a nitrogenous compound that can still be utilized by aerobic bacteria. In the same way they consume ammonia, these bacteria consume the iminium salt and release nitrite as a byproduct." Again, you would need to do this daily.

My experience with culturing copepods is that tisbe pods in particular can continue to reproduce in at least 4ppm ammonia and adults can live with ammonia as high as 8ppm. I would never subject fish to those levels. I've heard similar experiences from other people in the online copepod group. I wouldn't rely on the presence of copepods in an aquarium as proof that it's safe for fish.
 

Lasse

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@Snarbleglarf Did you use prime (in the tank or at a WC) before you get your 2 ppm reading of NH3/NH4? I get it that way and as Sea Cheam says - it will give you a false reading. You have now get two opposite recomendations what to do before you have either confirmed or rejected your reading of 2 ppm NH3 / NH4 - just judge by your self what to do.

Sincerely Lasse
 

bluprntguy

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@Snarbleglarf Did you use prime (in the tank or at a WC) before you get your 2 ppm reading of NH3/NH4? I get it that way and as Sea Cheam says - it will give you a false reading. You have now get two opposite recomendations what to do before you have either confirmed or rejected your reading of 2 ppm NH3 / NH4 - just judge by your self what to do.

This isn't really true and the API test will give you total ammonia accurately when using Prime. This is what seachem *actually* says about it (also hinted at in the previous quote):

"With most kits which test for total ammonia, (like the API test kit) you will get an accurate total ammonia reading but not an accurate free (toxic) ammonia reading. What this means is that it will not tell you is the ammonia has be detoxified. Prime works to detoxify ammonia by binding the ammonia and holding it in a non-toxic state for about 48 hours. Total ammonia test kits break this bond and convert it to free ammonia, so you will still get a reading if you test it."

https://www.seachem.com/support/for...ussion/2621-seachem-prime-and-false-positives

I think the OP is using Ammo-lock, but I'm pretty sure that works just like Prime.
 

Pete Hammersley

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RODI eliminates one possible cause of many potential problems later on, so best start from there. If you haven’t got your own filter it’s usually pretty cheap to buy from the LFS.
 

ReefGeezer

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The recommendation to do a total water change is intended simply to reset the system with pure RODI water. That removes the whole chlorimine/Prime/testing error issue. It will probably make the cycle take longer.

It is probably also true that there are enough ammonia producing organics and organisms in the tank to complete the cycle without the fish. I would remove them but not for reasons associated with the cycle. Those little Clowns will become bullies when stocked first and allowed to establish territory. They might not allow you to have other small fish in the tank unless they are very aggressive. If you want Damsels in the tank, you'll be OK. If you want Cardinals & Firefish, you might want to take them out. You can get more later, after the tank is stocked.
 

rknott

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+1 to using RODI water only. This is fundamental and takes care of 1,000 problems and doubts for the life of the system. I am the type that likes to cut corners on pretty much everything and I am totally worn out with people saying everything is a priority to spend money on. You can't spend big bucks on battery backup, lights, coral, fish, wave maker, pump, controller and everything else if you are a person of typical means. You can cut corners on all of those things. Fact is, you must have confidence in your water and RODI removes all the doubts and will keep you from staying awake at night and threads like this wondering.
 

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