HELP Ammonia :(

[eric.20]

You should probably let things settle a bit now and nature take its course. All the water changing is only going to slow your cycle.

Yes we won’t do any more. I think 50% is enough for now

 

[Fiesty]

You should probably let things settle a bit now and nature take its course. All the water changing is only going to slow your cycle.

U read my mind! Been thinking this the whole read of this thread. Not trying to be mean, cause we have all done it and many of us have learned the hard way and still r from time to time. Including myself! But seems this is a situation of chasing your tail and u never going to catch it. And this coming from me ....... with no patience. This hobby has taught me some. There r fast roads and slow roads to getting things balanced. But it seems to me you are on neither with the muliple times a day changes / everyday changes / etc.. And I dont intend for this to be mean and really want to help u be successful. Seems it time to let things settle and see where the dust lies for awhile and then move forword from there IMHO. It should get u to where u want to be the fastest way possible.

 

[Fiesty]

And I just read the OP's last post and even with my last post, dont just stop water changes all together! That woukd be a drastic devience to what your tank been experiencing lately. If u need to do them then fine, and if u dont then fine, but maybe, if needed, do smaller ones often. That way the impact to your tank is less dramatic and less of a up down effect on all your parameters.

 

[brandon429]

This will help too: it's a no ammonia condition even still. Due to compounding mentioned earlier, you would be increasing daily until a total crash within quick time

That's not occurring you just have angry corals. There is no biological condition in which an aquarium oxidizes 90% of a given bioload and can't handle the last ten percent each day and holds there. Lack of bac is a quick kill for your tank, within a day. Never an extended event.

that polyp behavior comes about due to many issues, proceed either way you choose wchange/no water change as ammonia isn't the risk here.

Im going to reread first post see where these rocks came from, how long they were underwater in total here. The sand appears to be wet pack sand, checking to see if that brought in bac via the sand as well. Need to catch back up on this one.


The first post implies these are the rocks from the twenty gallon just moved into a bigger tank, with no increase in bioload. Changing out corals and cuc doesn't count as heavy loading. The bac moved over along with the rocks if I'm reading the first post correctly

 

[eric.20]

This will help too: it's a no ammonia condition even still. Due to compounding mentioned earlier, you would be increasing daily until a total crash within quick time

That's not occurring you just have angry corals. There is no biological condition in which an aquarium oxidizes 90% of a given bioload and can't handle the last ten percent each day and holds there. Lack of bac is a quick kill for your tank, within a day. Never an extended event.

that polyp behavior comes about due to many issues, proceed either way you choose wchange/no water change as ammonia isn't the risk here.

Im going to reread first post see where these rocks came from, how long they were underwater in total here. The sand appears to be wet pack sand, checking to see if that brought in bac via the sand as well. Need to catch back up on this one.


The first post implies these are the rocks from the twenty gallon just moved into a bigger tank, with no increase in bioload. Changing out corals and cuc doesn't count as heavy loading. The bac moved over along with the rocks if I'm reading the first post correctly

we didn't do water large water changes before that happened with the ammonia. And since the ammonia is up high we put bacteria in there. Somebody told us to treat the tank like a new tank with bacteria.

 

[brandon429]

That's safe to do as backup anytime

It's fun to try and trace out if the move would have worked without it though, just to clarify those were the rocks from the 20 gallon just moved over right

 

[eric.20]

That's safe to do as backup anytime

It's fun to try and trace out if the move would have worked without it though, just to clarify those were the rocks from the 20 gallon just moved over right

yes we moved them over right away on day one. I think we left 2 rocks in the 20 gallon tank and when we moved the corals, we moved the last two rocks too

 

[brandon429]

Perfect history then. There are so many skews for testing nowadays we simply must factor smell, clouding and animal loss within tight time frames/12 hours approx as required before the test is to be believed, good reasons have been stated so far here as to why it's off.

Regarding the initial read which caused the concern and ready for action, that too is hard to pinpoint with today's testing unable to comment. But we have seen several 8 ppm threads this month alone isn't that right MN it's an interesting trend either way.

Api fav numbers= .25 and 8 many threads


Your thread is what we do in the sand rinse thread commonly, move tanks without recycles. Your description seems to cover all bases, not able to pinpoint the original detected spike cause.

 

[Mrwood12]

Cycle your tank takes awhile cant just switch from small to big have to let new tank cycle threw and all watch for brown algae on tank is another good way to know if cycled building that on tank is a good way to tell if cycled water changes every week for awhile ammonia rises when it's going thru cycle stage then will drop I had this problem when I set up a new tank

 

[eric.20]

I just noticed this morning that the sand has kind off brown “dust” not sure what that is now and if that could be problem..
It’s not everywhere just in some spots

 

[brandon429]

Those are part of normal growths that follow tank moves and nutrient upwells by turning over substrates

It's low key can be guided out during routine water changes

The growth is also among the biota that indicate the presence of nitrifying bacteria by association, typical early colonizers of new/open reefs low grazers etc.

 

[eric.20]

Those are part of normal growths that follow tank moves and nutrient upwells by turning over substrates

It's low key can be guided out during routine water changes

The growth is also among the biota that indicate the presence of nitrifying bacteria by association, typical early colonizers of new/open reefs low grazers etc.

Thank you so much for your help

 

[eric.20]

I don’t know what to do anymore

 

[brandon429]

Try this, don't use the test and only post detailed pics of the tank


We already know what causes misreads. So let's just chart the other half of ammonia eventing, the required: cloudy tank water

The death of animals.
The tank smells

White patches are in the tank/rocks due to localized death from sustained high level ammonia

Close ups of the rocks. We are looking for open fanworms or pods, if any. Motile creatures

For the next few days test nothing look at the biology only. Do a large water change now, then proceed. Watch how easily your tank is ok after these two events. The wc exports whatever mix of unstated chems are in the tank. With a clean water column, nothing in there is going to repollute it.

 

[W1ngz]

Don't do anything. Sometimes you just have to wait for the biology to work.

You should probably let things settle a bit now and nature take its course. All the water changing is only going to slow your cycle.

 

[brandon429]

can you take us white led only light pics of the full tank as of now then closeups, also to see how clear things are in the water or cloudy if that's the case

 

[eric.20]

I hope this is ok, I’m using a coral lens

 

[eric.20]

That’s the back wall. Just some fine algae (I hope the snails will eat them that’s why I didn’t remove them) and I think the white spots are spirorbids

 

[eric.20]

I would say the water is clear

 

[brandon429]

How excellent and helpful to cycling science. Flagship example of non testing ammonia assessment. Will help others

This the 8 ppm reading trend we see

But those rics :)

That's your mine canary. As long as those polyps are open you have zero ammonia and the rest reported lines up with the predicted biomarkers.

Your tank belongs as an example in two threads. One is in the chemistry forum/ doubt a test kit get kickback and the other is in the microbiology of cycling thread among ten other exact examples of zero supporting biology for free ammonia + full throttle house is burning indication of yes from API.