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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.)
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.)