HELP... 1.5ppm ammonia spike out of the blue

ArtisticOceans702 · Mar 31, 2023

Hello, i am wondering if anyone else has come across this and if so what they found to be the cause. We have a 200 gallon system with sump, full of biological media and we regularly replace carbon as well as doing 30% monthly water changes. All of a sudden the tank is reading...
1.5ppm ammonia
0ppm nitrite
10ppm nitrate
Salinity is 1.020 (FOWLR)

We have double checked and searched through everything in the tank, we did have a couple small fish die but assuming it's due to the ammonia and not the cause, as two small wrasses shouldn't cause such a large spike so quickly. Anyone have any thoughts? Rest of fish seem to be doing great, have dosed the tank with Cloram-X to detoxify ammonia for the moment. I appreciate any info or ideas!

SlugSnorter · Mar 31, 2023

Are you sure your tests are right?

could you or something in your tank have suddenly stirred the sandbed or deep sediment after it was not disturbed for a while?

ArtisticOceans702 · Mar 31, 2023

SlugSnorter said:
Are you sure your tests are right?

could you or something in your tank have suddenly stirred the sandbed or deep sediment after it was not disturbed for a while?

It's a bare bottom rack system, I've double checked with API Aquaspin, API ammonia, AND Hanna Ammonia as well as testing against other aquariums. Unfortunately it's accurate/:
I've checked all plumbing, overflows, filtration, etc literally anything I could think of. And there's no possible way chlorine or chloramine could have entered the aquarium either so I'm really stumped...

SlugSnorter · Mar 31, 2023

ArtisticOceans702 said:
It's a bare bottom rack system, I've double checked with API Aquaspin, API ammonia, AND Hanna Ammonia as well as testing against other aquariums. Unfortunately it's accurate/:
I've checked all plumbing, overflows, filtration, etc literally anything I could think of. And there's no possible way chlorine or chloramine could have entered the aquarium either so I'm really stumped...

Any additives? New salt? Could there be some issue with your RODI setup?

Do you have a fuge? any bio-filtration media that was left undisturbed for a while?

ArtisticOceans702 · Mar 31, 2023

SlugSnorter said:
Any additives? New salt? Could there be some issue with your RODI setup?

Do you have a fuge? any bio-filtration media that was left undisturbed for a while?

No new additives, salt is the same as always (instant ocean) and tested to be safe. Both RO/DI and Salt have been tested. No refugium as we do enough water changes to keep nutrients relatively low (10ppm nitrate).
Biofiltration has been the same and is only about 6-8 months old, and I've dose Dr Tim's one and only several times and microbacter over the past couple months so should have plenty of biological filtration to keep up with everything. There's maybe 14-15 fish in the system all relatively small.

brandon429 · Mar 31, 2023

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

Problem solved

brandon429 · Mar 31, 2023

In line with that fix thread would you post a picture of your reef tank please

Also post the ammonia test kit reading so we can see the color

I collect misreads on non digital test kits

brandon429 · Mar 31, 2023

All your tests were nh4

None were nh3 that matters.

brandon429 · Mar 31, 2023

I may make this my #1 misread thread once we get pics

Crashed tank: dead animals. Gray water. No inverts survive like starfish, worms, especially shrimp

Fish hover near death, burnt gills, reddened, opercular rates elevated

Not crashing reef, a misread: the pic is of a completely normal reef any day we want to sample it. The only alert ever given was a test kit, not an actual cause for sustained ammonia misreads in large running reef tanks. The top most harmful compound, nh3 free ammonia, is claimed to be at stellar rates each day but no symptoms exist in the tank.

if we take your hanna reading, and per instructions convert it to nh3 by estimate from the chart, then apply the .5 ppm +/- stated error range for it, we land at nontoxic and that's what lines up with the tank pics I'm betting. I'm betting nothing lines up with actual ammonia noncontrol given the clean details in the opening description. I'll believe this when someone posts it on a calibrated seneye.

brandon429 · Mar 31, 2023

two small fishes in that much sand and rock will not hold at 1.5 for multiple days, it will be eaten right up by the live rock easily. its 200 gallons.

*ammonia did not rise to kill the fish, that does not happen. fish death happens due to gaps in disease prep, then they die. old age rarely gets the fish. seneye posters have already tracked fully degrading tangs in the system, the release is too slow to make any change. it takes a nearly complete fish kill to actually drive up ammonia and keep it days in a tank of the degree of surface area and dilution we're about to see. those cheap kits are easily tripped up by a large feeding, so its understandable that some fish/a large feeding/degrading would spike them

I had one poster last year who read 8 ppm on those kits solely because he did a large water change on his tank. panic ensues, but the biofilter is fine I'm betting pics will show.

if your wrasses weren't left in the tank to fully rot they aren't a possible factor in the reading and if they were left, it didn't undo your cycle or even overcome it briefly. those kits can't take any form of boosted organics in a tank it all registers as a pending ammonia crash.

ArtisticOceans702 · Mar 31, 2023

brandon429 said:
All your tests were nh4

None were nh3 that matters.

According to what I've read and researched up on as well as using a calculator, it looks like NH3 levels are 0.07ppm and NH4 levels are 1ppm+, especially with PH being at 8.0-8.1 I can see why there would be more non-toxic ammonia vs free ammonia (NH3), BUT its still not making sense to us as to why there would be a high level of NH4...? I have tested against other tanks here at the shop, have used multiple test kits, even triple checked the readings on the system with high NH4 just to be safe as user error is always possible, but to no avail, there is definitely a decent amount of NH4 and cannot figure out what the cause is...

brandon429 · Mar 31, 2023

that's really good, are u able to upload cell phone pic of the system/full tank shot

ArtisticOceans702 · Mar 31, 2023

brandon429 said:
I may make this my #1 misread thread once we get pics

Crashed tank: dead animals. Gray water. No inverts survive like starfish, worms, especially shrimp

Fish hover near death, burnt gills, reddened, opercular rates elevated

Not crashing reef, a misread: the pic is of a completely normal reef any day we want to sample it. The only alert ever given was a test kit, not an actual cause for sustained ammonia misreads in large running reef tanks. The top most harmful compound, nh3 free ammonia, is claimed to be at stellar rates each day but no symptoms exist in the tank.

if we take your hanna reading, and per instructions convert it to nh3 by estimate from the chart, then apply the .5 ppm +/- stated error range for it, we land at nontoxic and that's what lines up with the tank pics I'm betting. I'm betting nothing lines up with actual ammonia noncontrol given the clean details in the opening description. I'll believe this when someone posts it on a calibrated seneye.

There has been a few fish that died over the past few days, a couple of them had ammonia burn to the gills and a bit of red blotchiness, but the rest of the fish seem to be good for the most part besides a couple gasping. IMO I think the recent water change brought up PH levels and was the cause of some fish death due to more NH3 being converted, but now that PH is back down to 8.0-8.1 they dont seem to be falling out as quickly. Was afraid to transfer fish and add extra stress on top of everything else. My biggest concern is there is obviously some form of ammonia in the tank regardless if it is in toxic form or not, my curiousity is where in the world it would have come from. With using other test kits (some Salicylate based) AND testing against other aquariums, we know for sure its not an accuracy or misread issue...

brandon429 · Mar 31, 2023

those are disease symptoms, from skipping fallow and quarantine

ammonia does not rise up first

ammonia affects the little things in your tank, starfish, snails etc, it can't just target fish, that's disease from biosecurity breaks.