HELP Ammonia :(

[BeejReef]

Don't understand.

If you dropped two jumbo table shrimp into the tank last night (like you were doing a fishless cycle) you would not have 4ppm ammonia now... probably not in two or three days even on a tank with virgin rock and sand.

About the only thing that could possibly be causing recurring spikes like that is if nearly everything in your tank was dead and rotting. I think you'd smell that

For one, I'd want to verify that ammonia test... just to be safe.

Second, we could be going down a rabbit hole here with the whole cycled-not cycled debate. You might want to take a big step back from the direction you were steered at the LFS and think about the whole system.

You did a full tank swap, so there's a lot of reasons your corals might not be happy.
On the ammonia hunt, it could be a dead snail in a pump, huge die off of bristle worms or something. Then there's the obvious - new lights, new flow... etc., etc. That list is by no means inclusive.. lol.

Do you have the same water source you used on the previous tank?

 

[Cell]

Honestly I'd just take a step back, hit reset and consider your tank is starting fresh and not cycled. Remove the livestock to your previous tank so you dont have to worry about high ammonia killing them and how everthing is reacting to all the chemicals you have added recently. Maintain ammonia at about 5ppm, water change as necessary, and wait until your ammonia drops on it's own after that.

 

[brandon429]

want to know how to get your ammonia tester to work right, and we can gain proof?

It requires only one simple effort from you, and without this, it can't be done.


A full water change, all of it at once.

The only way your measure will work:

Do that water change

Wait three hours after take an ammonia reading

Use known zero ammonia prep water for the water make*
Whatever your test says, that's the zero reading. Even if it has some color, that's calibrated zero cuz all the water was reset and nothing is rotting in the tank, you can see.

Use liquid ammonia from dr Tims added a drop at a time until the tester registers one increment up from zero. Not 2 ppm or 1 ppm, the least increment up your tester reads. Post pics of each step.

Wait 24 hours

The color is back to original baseline zero. That is how to clear up a cycling issue using testing, any other way leaves your adulterants in place to misread.

 

[eric.20]

I think all our animals and snails are alive and there. But when we setup the tank we used new dried rock and used rocks from our old tank. We switched them over right away. We only left 2-3 rocks in the 20 gallon tank for the corals and hermit crabs. And after we thought the big tank was cycled we switched the corals. And the corals where all happy and the parameters where good until last week.
Now the zoas don’t even open for days now and the acan looks like it’s cracking.

I would say we have a better water source now. For the 20 g we used tap water with conditioner. Now we used ro/di water.

We had the same issue with the 20g tank that we had all off a sudden ammonia spike. But the corals didn’t close up like this time.

 

[eric.20]

When we switched the corals we dumped the water from the 20g.. So we can’t put the corals somewhere else so I think 100% water change is not possible.

Also I got a sample from somebody of his water and I did a test with our test kit and it showed 0
I also went to big als, as they test the water a few days ago and my test kit showed 1.0 and his did show 1.0

 

[eric.20]

We did yesterday a 50% water change and it was at 1.0 and this morning it’s at 4.0.. very strange

 

[eric.20]

We have some kind of “waste control” which will brake down any waste. But it says when using it ammonia will rise. We are not sure if we should use it now

 

[brandon429]

how did you do a 50% change but not a full one?

look how easy a full water change on a 13 yr reef tank is in its essence




this is next day




So

I drain a 13 yr reef with old old corals down to the air for half an hour, and get no recycle/

That doesn't mean you have to do a full water change, just that you can. ten thousand times. you can also just proceed on, since your tank has no free ammonia.

 

[eric.20]

how did you do a 50% change but not a full one?

look how easy a full water change on a 13 yr reef tank is in its essence




ps you can refill sooner than 33 mins that was just proving a point.




So

I drain a 13 yr reef with old old corals down to the air for half an hour, and get no recycle/ hows that

Only did a 50% water change because people said if you do 100% then we have to start all over again with the cycle

 

[brandon429]

yay



and they say vase reefs are useless.

looks like they teach good microbiology to me. Its fair to say that reef above is packed in corals, no dilution to cover any sort of ammonia event, and your tank is easy to de construct we already have several examples of test misreads logged.

I use a tiny toy mega old reef vase to smash myths about bacteria. it will die the second we make a miss call

pico reefs are scalable bio models, they only show what your large tanks do on a slower, more boring scale heh

 

[eric.20]

But your tank was established already I’m not sure if It will help with ours doing a 100% water change

 

[brandon429]

you don't have to do one, that was written above only as a requisite to using your ammonia tester and getting it to work. the right path is do a water change to export any irritants in the water, then continue on. there are ways you must change your test environment if you want testing to work out.

Right when they said you cant do a full water change, we did one on video (it was number 4000)



Either way, when I check back in a week those rics will still be open ok, no smell, and no clouding in the water. I bet I know what that tester will say/full throttle emergency.


https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-microbiology-of-reef-tank-cycling.214618/


all the assessments in your thread come from that one above.

Your tank is like the several others we have logged doing an ammonia misread with animals doing just fine

 

[eric.20]

Hmm yes maybe you are right. I know what you mean. But for us now; we can tell something is wrong as the zoas don’t even open and few days before we had the ammonia they where open and looked happy

 

[eric.20]

So would it be good to put that waste control stuff in there? Just in case something is rotting in the tank ?

 

[MnFish1]

But your tank was established already I’m not sure if It will help with ours doing a 100% water change

I dont remember - how do you make your water? RODI? Have you tested the ammonia in the water you're using to make your salt. Could it be Chloramines - depending on how you make your water.

If your source ammonia is fine (and my guess is that it will be) - there is no way you have 4 ppm ammonia in your tank - btw it looks closer to 8 ppm in the picture. This is physically not possible. Bacteria in a tank are not floating around in the water - water changes will NOT affect your cycle in any way (IMHO) - If someone has a different explanation as to how (except within the first 5 days of adding bacteria) this could happen LMK. Did you use more Prime? Any other chemicals that can affect that ammonia test?

PS - and most importantly - If (as I believe) you dont have an ammonia problem - you might have another 'toxin' problem - thats the reason to do a large water change. Again - are you using carbon (activate)?

The problem in your tank is whatever was and is affecting your corals (could have been the move, could have been a previous spike of ammonia which is now fixed with Prime. There is NO WAY to read your ammonia test kit until you take out all of the water with Prime. IMHO

 

[BeejReef]

I dont remember - how do you make your water? RODI? Have you tested the ammonia in the water you're using to make your salt. Could it be Chloramines - depending on how you make your water.

If your source ammonia is fine (and my guess is that it will be) - there is no way you have 4 ppm ammonia in your tank - btw it looks closer to 8 ppm in the picture. This is physically not possible. Bacteria in a tank are not floating around in the water - water changes will NOT affect your cycle in any way (IMHO) - If someone has a different explanation as to how (except within the first 5 days of adding bacteria) this could happen LMK. Did you use more Prime? Any other chemicals that can affect that ammonia test?

PS - and most importantly - If (as I believe) you dont have an ammonia problem - you might have another 'toxin' problem - thats the reason to do a large water change. Again - are you using carbon (activate)?

The problem in your tank is whatever was and is affecting your corals (could have been the move, could have been a previous spike of ammonia which is now fixed with Prime. There is NO WAY to read your ammonia test kit until you take out all of the water with Prime. IMHO

The OP did say they just switched their water source to a RODI unit. Ding Ding Ding Ding.

Also, can you elaborate on this OP?

We have some kind of “waste control” which will brake down any waste. But it says when using it ammonia will rise. We are not sure if we should use it now

 

[eric.20]

I dont remember - how do you make your water? RODI? Have you tested the ammonia in the water you're using to make your salt. Could it be Chloramines - depending on how you make your water.

If your source ammonia is fine (and my guess is that it will be) - there is no way you have 4 ppm ammonia in your tank - btw it looks closer to 8 ppm in the picture. This is physically not possible. Bacteria in a tank are not floating around in the water - water changes will NOT affect your cycle in any way (IMHO) - If someone has a different explanation as to how (except within the first 5 days of adding bacteria) this could happen LMK. Did you use more Prime? Any other chemicals that can affect that ammonia test?

PS - and most importantly - If (as I believe) you dont have an ammonia problem - you might have another 'toxin' problem - thats the reason to do a large water change. Again - are you using carbon (activate)?

The problem in your tank is whatever was and is affecting your corals (could have been the move, could have been a previous spike of ammonia which is now fixed with Prime. There is NO WAY to read your ammonia test kit until you take out all of the water with Prime. IMHO

We don’t use carbon as people told us in the store that our tank is to new to use it..
We just and added this morning bacteria (seed) again and prime after we tested the water

 

[eric.20]

The OP did say they just switched their water source to a RODI unit. Ding Ding Ding Ding.

Also, can you elaborate on this OP?

I don’t really understand your question

 

[BeejReef]

I'm asking you about what is the "waste control" thing you say you have that could raise ammonia? Some sort of media or a bacteria in a bottle?

Also, I was trying to get one of the more experienced members to weigh in on your switching water source to a RODI. That's generally a good thing and is a step up from conditioned tap water, like you were using.
I'm not a chemistry person. However, I'm wondering that if your water supply has chloramine in it (a chlorine substitute used in municipal water treatment) it may be the cause of your crazy high and fluctuating ammonia readings. Chloramine is, apparently, difficult to remove with a standard RODI. Do you still use the tap water conditioner, or have you stopped using it since switching to the RODI?

It might also explain how your levels are jumping all over the place from day to day without rhyme nor reason. You have been doing a lot of water changes.

This is all rampant speculation though. See what the experienced peeps say.

 

[eric.20]

I'm asking you about what is the "waste control" thing you say you have that could raise ammonia? Some sort of media or a bacteria in a bottle?

Also, I was trying to get one of the more experienced members to weigh in on your switching water source to a RODI. That's generally a good thing and is a step up from conditioned tap water, like you were using.
I'm not a chemistry person. However, I'm wondering that if your water supply has chloramine in it (a chlorine substitute used in municipal water treatment) it may be the cause of your crazy high and fluctuating ammonia readings. Chloramine is, apparently, difficult to remove with a standard RODI. Do you still use the tap water conditioner, or have you stopped using it since switching to the RODI?

It might also explain how your levels are jumping all over the place from day to day without rhyme nor reason. You have been doing a lot of water changes.

This is all rampant speculation though. See what the experienced peeps say.

It’s this