Food / ammonia equivalence

[pseudorand]

At what rate does decaying food produce ammonia?

I'm asking because ammonia and nitrite spiked in my bottle-cycled QT tank. I cycled it over about two weeks, starting with Fritz quickstart and NitroCycle ammonia from AlgaeBarn. I verified that nitrite spiked and then went to 0 as nitrate went up. Just to be sure, I added a second does of NitroCycle and verified the same thing. Then I added a few hermits and snails and gave it another two weeks. I fed them algae discs and crab pellets. They all seem fine.

Then I added frags. I wanted a baseline on alk/calc, but I I tested ammonia, nitrite and nitrate while I was at it. To my surprise, ammonia measured 0.25 and nitrite was off the charts (5+). A have a Seachem Ammonia Alert disk, which is mostly yellowish (<0.02). It may be somewhat greenish (0.05, warning), but I figured it was just my bad lighting because I'd tested cycling.

I know nitrite is not too bad in salt. And I just re-read the cycling sticky thread, so I know my new tank will have less bacteria with a higher metabolism that are less capable of adjusting to a higher input of ammonia. But that implies 3-4 algae discs and and a few dozens crab pellets are decaying to produce more ammonia than the 5floz of NitroCycle I added to my tank and got processed in 24 hours. That seems unlikely to me. What am I not understanding? Why could my tank burn through that much NitroCycle but allowed an ammonia and nitrite spike with a bit of decaying food.

(And yes, I've already done a water change to get things under control.)

 

[Brew12]

At what rate does decaying food produce ammonia?

I'm asking because ammonia and nitrite spiked in my bottle-cycled QT tank. I cycled it over about two weeks, starting with Fritz quickstart and NitroCycle ammonia from AlgaeBarn. I verified that nitrite spiked and then went to 0 as nitrate went up. Just to be sure, I added a second does of NitroCycle and verified the same thing. Then I added a few hermits and snails and gave it another two weeks. I fed them algae discs and crab pellets. They all seem fine.

Then I added frags. I wanted a baseline on alk/calc, but I I tested ammonia, nitrite and nitrate while I was at it. To my surprise, ammonia measured 0.25 and nitrite was off the charts (5+). A have a Seachem Ammonia Alert disk, which is mostly yellowish (<0.02). It may be somewhat greenish (0.05, warning), but I figured it was just my bad lighting because I'd tested cycling.

I know nitrite is not too bad in salt. And I just re-read the cycling sticky thread, so I know my new tank will have less bacteria with a higher metabolism that are less capable of adjusting to a higher input of ammonia. But that implies 3-4 algae discs and and a few dozens crab pellets are decaying to produce more ammonia than the 5floz of NitroCycle I added to my tank and got processed in 24 hours. That seems unlikely to me. What am I not understanding? Why could my tank burn through that much NitroCycle but allowed an ammonia and nitrite spike with a bit of decaying food.

(And yes, I've already done a water change to get things under control.)

Just saw this post. It's a bit late, but wanted to respond in case you still had questions or concerns.

I've never used NitroCycle so am not overly familiar with it. What was your peak ammonia after you added it? How long did it take for the ammonia to go to 0ppm?

 

[pseudorand]

I actually think it may have been measurement error (see this thread). Reports are that color continues to increase in the API test kit after the recommended 5 minutes, and I was letting it sit longer than that.

Peak would have been right after adding the NitroCycle. I added 20ml to a 20g, as per instructions, so whatever that gets you.

Nitrite was the darkest color on the scale at peak. Both went to 0 within 24-hours after adding NitroCycle, which (per instructions) is why I considered the tank cycled.

The good news is that it now seems fine. I've even added small amounts of food again, and no ammonia spike noticable via seachem ammonia alert.