HELP - 2 weeks Seachem Stability + PRIME = NO NITRATES, HIGH AMMONIA

[DragonStone]

I am working on a reef tank. I have some corals and a single green clown goby. I have been adding Seachem Stability for bacteria with Seachem prime everyday.

Ammonia is staying high - I have to do daily water changes to keep it low.

Nitrates have not appeared at all.

TWO WEEKS of stability bottled bacteria and prime. What is going on??

 

[brandon429]

a prime-induced misread is what's going on, your ammonia isn't stuck.

post a pic of the tank and the position of the animals, water clarity etc will show the details we need

a cheap non digital test kit for ammonia isn't how you fix this, those misread, prime causes misreads don't use prime in reefing. throw out the bottle, don't own prime for reefing use/do a thread search on the false claims made by seachem regarding prime from the chem forum here: it doesn't work. it hasn't been keeping your ammonia low because the ammonia isn't high, and if it is your pics will show a crashing tank (gray water, animals hovering near death at the top of the water, all corals closed etc)

 

[brandon429]

here is the bet: if you do a water change to export all the additives we don't need, and you put away all the test kits for cycling and simply run the tank normally, the tank will continue each day looking as the pics we're about to see look now. this is a false ammonia alert.

here is nine pages of false ammonia alerts, all caused by cheap non digital test kits.

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

 

[DragonStone]

a prime-induced misread is what's going on, your ammonia isn't stuck.

post a pic of the tank and the position of the animals, water clarity etc will show the details we need

a cheap non digital test kit for ammonia isn't how you fix this, those misread, prime causes misreads don't use prime in reefing. throw out the bottle, don't own prime for reefing use/do a thread search on the false claims made by seachem regarding prime from the chem forum here: it doesn't work. it hasn't been keeping your ammonia low because the ammonia isn't high, and if it is your pics will show a crashing tank (gray water, animals hovering near death at the top of the water, all corals closed etc)

So I only have the one Green Goby and he hides 90% of the time but I can see him, sitting in his normal spot. 2 hermits seem fine, snail seems fine.

However, pulsing Xenia is "draped over" - pulsing but not standing up pert any longer.

 

[DragonStone]

Any why do I not have ANY nitrates?

Should I use a different bottled bacteria?

 

[brandon429]

post the tank pic

we need that pic, not the relay of the test levels from non digital test kits

your cycle isn't in doubt, the bottle bac works fine and your animals are alive + daily feedings without crashing because the cycle is fine.

I'm fixing your cycle via testless methods, that's how we do it with updated cycling science.

my xenia closes when I add freshwater for topoff; a single xenia closed up means nothing about a cycle. your tank getting daily feed for the fish for two weeks without crashing or the water going gray is proof of cycle in place.

regarding nitrate: hundreds of tanks on the site are years old and have no nitrate, so they dose some. it relates nothing to the cycle. many thousands of tanks can be zero nitrate and fully cycled. eliminate that factor from your cycle analysis and it'll be easier to see why your animals stay alive even after we stop dosing prime and doing daily water changes.

the tank pic also shows critical surface area details. everything we need to know about your cycle comes from the pic and the known timeframes in place.

this bottle bacteria was already reviewed in Dr. Reef's 100 page bottle bac thread: it's ready in ten days or less.

it's true your tank isn't matured like the many from our example thread, but you've also done a bottle bac + fish cycle and it's worked out fine like all the thousands of them already on file. two weeks with both bioload in place and with daily feeding and added bottle bac is still cycled.

 

[DragonStone]

post the tank pic

we need that pic, not the relay of the test levels from non digital test kits

your cycle isn't in doubt, the bottle bac works fine and your animals are alive + daily feedings without crashing because the cycle is fine.

I'm fixing your cycle via testless methods, that's how we do it with updated cycling science.

my xenia closes when I add freshwater for topoff; a single xenia closed up means nothing about a cycle. your tank getting daily feed for the fish for two weeks without crashing or the water going gray is proof of cycle in place.

regarding nitrate: hundreds of tanks on the site are years old and have no nitrate, so they dose some. it relates nothing to the cycle. many thousands of tanks can be zero nitrate and fully cycled. eliminate that factor from your cycle analysis and it'll be easier to see why your animals stay alive even after we stop dosing prime and doing daily water changes.

the tank pic also shows critical surface area details. everything we need to know about your cycle comes from the pic and the known timeframes in place.

this bottle bacteria was already reviewed in Dr. Reef's 100 page bottle bac thread: it's ready in ten days or less.

it's true your tank isn't matured like the many from our example thread, but you've also done a bottle bac + fish cycle and it's worked out fine like all the thousands of them already on file. two weeks with both bioload in place and with daily feeding and added bottle bac is still cycled.

 

[brandon429]

extra proofs:

see the diatoms on the sand> that's called visual benthic cue proofing for no-test cycles. I'm 100% positive the surfaces in the tank are coated in live bacteria: those growths form after ammonia control sets in. those growths on the sand remark upon the surface area for the entire tank

the water is so clear after 10+ feedings it doesn't even look like there's water in the tank, this is a simple misread.

how to fix: focus on disease preps from the fish disease forum and cease testing for any cycle parameter. meaning no more testing for ammonia and nitrite. wait 60 days before testing for nitrate (gives nitrite time to clear though we don't test for it) and don't use a brand nitrate test kit that is easily searched to show as grossly misreading compared to digital nitrate test kits.

you need to know that even testing for nitrate isn't needed, it's just something the masses currently do. my nano is 17 yrs old and never been tested for nitrate.

 

[Malcontent]

Stability has been scientifically proven not to work.

 

[DragonStone]

extra proofs:

see the diatoms on the sand> that's called visual benthic cue proofing for no-test cycles. I'm 100% positive the surfaces in the tank are coated in live bacteria: those growths form after ammonia control sets in. those growths on the sand remark upon the surface area for the entire tank

the water is so clear after 10+ feedings it doesn't even look like there's water in the tank, this is a simple misread.

how to fix: focus on disease preps from the fish disease forum and cease testing for any cycle parameter. meaning no more testing for ammonia and nitrite. wait 60 days before testing for nitrate (gives nitrite time to clear though we don't test for it) and don't use a brand nitrate test kit that is easily searched to show as grossly misreading compared to digital nitrate test kits.

you need to know that even testing for nitrate isn't needed, it's just something the masses currently do. my nano is 17 yrs old and never been tested

This is very helpful. A few other questions though:

Why did my corals, especially Duncan, curl up in the last hour? I did do a 20% water change, could that be it?

Zoas are open, Xenia is puling rapidly but its not "pert" like usual.

**Most important: my water smelt like "skunk" when I did a water change. I have never had this in my freshwater.

 

[DragonStone]

Stability has been scientifically proven not to work.

Should I try adding a diff bottled bacteria?

 

[brandon429]

I'm leaving now since we're back to stuck cycle. message me if you want updated help.

your corals can close at any time unrelated to the cycle. those corals are in a system that has zero microbial food web establishment/just enough to cover ammonia but not run a food web so I expect they can make any kind of change up or down in the coming weeks. they're still adapting from the light they came from to the lighting of that tank. the system has many inputs of prime/these organisms like clean water with few additions in reaction to cycle issues/water change is the right move.

it's all independent to the cycle though. your cycle is fine and needs no extra bottle bac, no further testing, you can see you've been reefing a while now as the tank goes through the common uglies phasing and handles the fish and animal waste + feed everyday without ever crashing and while maintaining crystal clear water.

as we begin to make a contrast between old cycling science and new, any reader here I have a fun challenge:

show me 1 example of a seneye cycle that wasn't ready in two weeks/unable to control ammonia

there are ten thousand + seneye readings for reefs uploaded to the web. find only one that shows no ammonia control by second week, just a single example of ten thousand data sets.

if you're having trouble finding some data, go to a thread where a seneye user posted and send them a private message asking them to post their first and second week nh3 data to you, then post that here.


we'll be waiting a very, very very long time for that data because there are no stuck cycles in reefing when the right ammonia test kit is the reference.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I’d stop dosing Prime since it does not work to bind ammonia as Seachem claims.

 

[Malcontent]

Should I try adding a diff bottled bacteria?

Yeah, FritzZyme is a good option.

 

[nereefpat]

What is the ammonia reading? What kit?

Is that live rock?

 

[HighlandReef]

I used Fritz turbo start this last time around and my tank cycled in a week.
Like others have mentioned, throw away the prime.
It seems like this may be a new setup and you’re going through the cycle, which would be normal.
Is this a new system ?

 

[aSaltyKlown]

The zero nitrates is most likely due to all the water changes, this lack of nitrate could be the cause of the coral issues as well. I'd stop doing that water changes, and just let things be for a week. No need to add more bottled bacteria either.

 

[DragonStone]

What is the ammonia reading? What kit?

Is that live rock?

Live rock!

Seachem alert reads 0

but API FRESHWATER test kit (same reagents??) reads like 1.0 ammonia