Help interpreting fishless cycle readings

drolmaeye

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unless the ammonia test is not working, the tank is not cycled and another ammonia test is not going to change that.
Agree 100%, but it may be helpful to try to get a better idea of the current ammonia (TAN) level to determine next steps. Currently we just know it is 2.5 or greater (and definitely not cycled). My understanding is: next steps might be different depending on whether the actual concentration is 3 ppm or 10+ ppm.
 

drbrivers

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Whether the ammonia level is 3 or 10 ppm I would consider both too high to put any fish in at this time. And I would worry Fritz Turbo would be enough to bring the levels down enough to be safe quickly enough.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Whether the ammonia level is 3 or 10 ppm I would consider both too high to put any fish in at this time. And I would worry Fritz Turbo would be enough to bring the levels down enough to be safe quickly enough.

It will help and would have kept levels from rising much.

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drolmaeye

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Whether the ammonia level is 3 or 10 ppm I would consider both too high to put any fish in at this time. And I would worry Fritz Turbo would be enough to bring the levels down enough to be safe quickly enough.
I agree; 3 or 10, either is still too high. And I do not believe any bottled bac can -- with certainty -- bring the (unknown) ammonia concentration down to a safe level in under 24 hrs. That said . . .

To my mind the OP had two issues yesterday. One was what to do with fish arriving the next day (today), and two, how to handle the cycle in his 100 g tank. I hope OP was able to address the first issue using one of the solutions in my/others' earlier posts. For the second issue, OP may or may not want to do a water change depending on if the ammonia level is 10+ ppm or 3 ppm, respectively. In either case, I think it makes sense to add some additional, proven bacteria to get things moving (assuming time is of the essence). But again, it's not at all clear to me that any bacteria could get the big tank safe in time.

OP, any update? Hoping everything works out. I know how stressed I can get when I feel like livestock additions aren't lined up with my tank status/maintenance.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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I agree; 3 or 10, either is still too high. And I do not believe any bottled bac can -- with certainty -- bring the (unknown) ammonia concentration down to a safe level in under 24 hrs. That said . . .

Since we may not agree on this, I’m curious what ammonia level you’d consider “safe”for a few days while the new bacteria kicked in?
 
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OP, any update? Hoping everything works out. I know how stressed I can get when I feel like livestock additions aren't lined up with my tank status/maintenance.

Yes, thanks for asking.

Since I couldn't stop the shipment (lesson learned-- my fault), on Tuesday I drove to the nearest LFS (3 hrs round trip!) and purchased the API ammonia test kit, Fritz Turbo, and Seachem Prime-- which claims to detoxify ammonia present in a tank. I did a 30% water change because that's all the salt water I could make in time, and immediately added the Turbo, and then the Prime.

On Wednesday I had something of an adventure when UPS alerted me that my fish had arrived-- except they hadn't. Their proof was a pic of the inside of someone else's garage, which I didn't recognize. I'll make another post about that. Suffice it to say that by 1:00pm Wednesday I had located and rescued the fish. The API test showed ~ 2.0 ppm ammonia, so my guess is the Hanna checker may have been pretty accurate at 2.5 (the 2.5 wasn't blinking IIRC), although obviously precise comparisons aren't possible for various reasons here, including different tests, the imprecision of visual color interpretation, and, not least of all, a newbie reefer.

I don't have a QT tank; my plan is to buy stock from reputable dealers who quarantine, which I did. So, after temp and salinity acclimation, I added the fish (1 clown and 4 Banggai cardinals; -1 and +1 from planned, respectively, due to an honest seller mistake and a free extra Banggai; today a bonded pair of clowns arrived as ordered, so now I have 3 clowns and 4 Banggais, all quite small, in my 100g DT).

It's now Thursday and all of the fish seem active and happy. I realize that doesn't mean we're out of the woods, but I'm hopeful. Now if they will just eat.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Just an fyi, the Seachem product appears to not work as claimed, which is why we didn’t recommend it.

 

drolmaeye

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Since we may not agree on this, I’m curious what ammonia level you’d consider “safe”for a few days while the new bacteria kicked in?
Bottom line up front: I don't have a specific concentration, but instead I just have a general approach to err on the side of caution.

My understanding is -- for the typical hobbyist aquarium salinity/temperature/pH -- the amount of free/toxic ammonia can be approximated at ~10% of the measured TAN. In this particular case I was assuming a TAN of greater than 2.5 ppm for the OP tank (let's call it 3 ppm), so an NH3 concentration of 0.25 ppm or greater. This number "feels" too high to me (I think anything above 0.1 ppm would give me pause), but I don't have the knowledge/experience to insist this would be harmful for fish -- either immediately or after prolonged exposure of tens of hours.

With the additional info from the OP, it appears the TAN after a 30% water change is likely in the range of 2-4 ppm and he reports his fish are thus far doing well. Obviously this is good news.

I guess one caution I would raise for the OP is that if ammonia is still not being readily processed by the tank, and efforts are being made to entice feeding, I would stay extra-vigilant on the ammonia testing.

@Randy Holmes-Farley do you have a numerical guideline for safe levels of ammonia? If yes, does that number apply to both cycled and uncycled tanks?
 

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Yes, thanks for asking.

Since I couldn't stop the shipment (lesson learned-- my fault), on Tuesday I drove to the nearest LFS (3 hrs round trip!) and purchased the API ammonia test kit, Fritz Turbo, and Seachem Prime-- which claims to detoxify ammonia present in a tank. I did a 30% water change because that's all the salt water I could make in time, and immediately added the Turbo, and then the Prime.

On Wednesday I had something of an adventure when UPS alerted me that my fish had arrived-- except they hadn't. Their proof was a pic of the inside of someone else's garage, which I didn't recognize. I'll make another post about that. Suffice it to say that by 1:00pm Wednesday I had located and rescued the fish. The API test showed ~ 2.0 ppm ammonia, so my guess is the Hanna checker may have been pretty accurate at 2.5 (the 2.5 wasn't blinking IIRC), although obviously precise comparisons aren't possible for various reasons here, including different tests, the imprecision of visual color interpretation, and, not least of all, a newbie reefer.

I don't have a QT tank; my plan is to buy stock from reputable dealers who quarantine, which I did. So, after temp and salinity acclimation, I added the fish (1 clown and 4 Banggai cardinals; -1 and +1 from planned, respectively, due to an honest seller mistake and a free extra Banggai; today a bonded pair of clowns arrived as ordered, so now I have 3 clowns and 4 Banggais, all quite small, in my 100g DT).

It's now Thursday and all of the fish seem active and happy. I realize that doesn't mean we're out of the woods, but I'm hopeful. Now if they will just eat.
I don’t think that feeding them is going to lower ammonia levels but it could increase them and cause distress.

I would wait a few days before trying to get them to eat.
 
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I wasn’t feeding to lower ammonia, but because I thought they might be hungry. :)
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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@Randy Holmes-Farley do you have a numerical guideline for safe levels of ammonia? If yes, does that number apply to both cycled and uncycled tanks?

I don’t have a specific number, but healthy fish wont die in a few days at 5 ppm total ammonia. It may not be ideal, but in a scenario where the hope is for it to be dropping, it may be ok.


From it:

1. While ammonia is toxic at high levels, the levels needed to be lethal to a marine fish are higher than many people think. I’ve not seen any study in the literature that shows an LC50 (half of fish die) in less than 15 ppm total ammonia in seawater over 4 days or more of exposure at normal pH.

2. Sublethal toxic effects of ammonia, such as gill lesions observed by histopathology, do not seem to become significant until levels reach 5-10 ppm total ammonia at pH 8.1.

3. The toxicity of ammonia is a function of pH. At pH 8.5, toxic effects kick in at ammonia levels 2.5x lower than at pH 8.1. Likewise, at pH 7.8, it takes twice as much ammonia to be toxic as at pH 8.1. In a situation where ammonia might well reach toxic levels, such as a shipping bag, raising pH in the bag should not take place.

4. Toxic levels of ammonia are just not reached in typical operating reef aquaria. Seeing a measured value of 0.2 ppm, whether real or test error, is not a concern. It may be a benefit.

5. Commercial chemical methods to control or detoxify ammonia in marine systems at doses recommended are seemingly ineffective at impacting ammonia, despite folks thinking they were effective. If you believe that 2 ppm ammonia will kill a fish, and you add an ammonia detoxifier and it survives, you may falsely conclude it worked, as opposed to misunderstanding how toxic ammonia was.
 

drolmaeye

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I don’t have a specific number, but healthy fish wont die in a few days at 5 ppm total ammonia. It may not be ideal, but in a scenario where the hope is for it to be dropping, it may be ok.


From it:

1. While ammonia is toxic at high levels, the levels needed to be lethal to a marine fish are higher than many people think. I’ve not seen any study in the literature that shows an LC50 (half of fish die) in less than 15 ppm total ammonia in seawater over 4 days or more of exposure at normal pH.

2. Sublethal toxic effects of ammonia, such as gill lesions observed by histopathology, do not seem to become significant until levels reach 5-10 ppm total ammonia at pH 8.1.

3. The toxicity of ammonia is a function of pH. At pH 8.5, toxic effects kick in at ammonia levels 2.5x lower than at pH 8.1. Likewise, at pH 7.8, it takes twice as much ammonia to be toxic as at pH 8.1. In a situation where ammonia might well reach toxic levels, such as a shipping bag, raising pH in the bag should not take place.

4. Toxic levels of ammonia are just not reached in typical operating reef aquaria. Seeing a measured value of 0.2 ppm, whether real or test error, is not a concern. It may be a benefit.

5. Commercial chemical methods to control or detoxify ammonia in marine systems at doses recommended are seemingly ineffective at impacting ammonia, despite folks thinking they were effective. If you believe that 2 ppm ammonia will kill a fish, and you add an ammonia detoxifier and it survives, you may falsely conclude it worked, as opposed to misunderstanding how toxic ammonia was.
Thanks for that link. I think I was already fairly familiar with points 4-10 (due primarily to info shared by you and others here at R2R), but the boundaries outlined in points 1-3 are clearly higher than I had been working with in my mind. I may need to recalibrate my "take evasive action" threshold(s).

This thread may not be the best place to extend the conversation, but as long as we are here (and with the above in mind), what do you think about "new tank syndrome?" Is it an issue in the marine aquarium hobby? Or is it more prominent in the freshwater hobby owing to nitrite toxicity? When new marine hobbyist lose fish, my impression is that people suggest ruling out ammonia first (at least if there is no obvious sign of disease). The above info suggests ammonia may rarely cause death in the (uncycled) marine aquarium.
 

klc

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I don’t have a specific number, but healthy fish wont die in a few days at 5 ppm total ammonia. It may not be ideal, but in a scenario where the hope is for it to be dropping, it may be ok.


From it:

1. While ammonia is toxic at high levels, the levels needed to be lethal to a marine fish are higher than many people think. I’ve not seen any study in the literature that shows an LC50 (half of fish die) in less than 15 ppm total ammonia in seawater over 4 days or more of exposure at normal pH.

2. Sublethal toxic effects of ammonia, such as gill lesions observed by histopathology, do not seem to become significant until levels reach 5-10 ppm total ammonia at pH 8.1.

3. The toxicity of ammonia is a function of pH. At pH 8.5, toxic effects kick in at ammonia levels 2.5x lower than at pH 8.1. Likewise, at pH 7.8, it takes twice as much ammonia to be toxic as at pH 8.1. In a situation where ammonia might well reach toxic levels, such as a shipping bag, raising pH in the bag should not take place.

4. Toxic levels of ammonia are just not reached in typical operating reef aquaria. Seeing a measured value of 0.2 ppm, whether real or test error, is not a concern. It may be a benefit.

5. Commercial chemical methods to control or detoxify ammonia in marine systems at doses recommended are seemingly ineffective at impacting ammonia, despite folks thinking they were effective. If you believe that 2 ppm ammonia will kill a fish, and you add an ammonia detoxifier and it survives, you may falsely conclude it worked, as opposed to misunderstanding how toxic ammonia was.

I recently watched a very informative video on YT regarding fish collection and transport. It appears the reputable receiving stations for freshly caught marine fish withhold all food for 3 days and then ship them in water with very low pH to help counter the effects of ammonia buildup in the shipping bag. I did not know this and is very interesting information.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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I recently watched a very informative video on YT regarding fish collection and transport. It appears the reputable receiving stations for freshly caught marine fish withhold all food for 3 days and then ship them in water with very low pH to help counter the effects of ammonia buildup in the shipping bag. I did not know this and is very interesting information.

Yep, that makes sense for long transport.
 

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