That’s perfect. We need to be able to demonstrate what it reads against what we know post-cycle reefs run at, always. If it’s not zero still it will help to see, it will help benchmark the test kit for accuracy
High ammonia
- Thread starter huckilt
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EMERGENCY - Crazy Ammonia spike
@Randy Holmes-Farley tanks act normal during nh3 noncontrol issues? when zero sources for input have been discerned, we still headed right towards believing anything the test kit says. Bottle bac was over sold here 3x over. Suddenly the resident bacteria crashed here, with no cause, and killed...
www.reef2reef.com
H
your posted ammonia reading picture which will still show positive will help that fella out, to see the false readings we expect in the hobby,
huckilt
Community Member
well done.
that's .5 in anyone's book (but a false reading none the less)
Betex needs to see this, so we can help them see the commonality of these readings. well done follow up H
that's .5 in anyone's book (but a false reading none the less)
Betex needs to see this, so we can help them see the commonality of these readings. well done follow up H
H
Even when shown your whole thread, and that ammonia is going to claim stuck above. 5 until the end of time, some are never going to disbelieve a test kit.
It hurts too much. It's the loss of trust in our massive investments
Ability to know a parameter was one thing not supposed to be an approximate in reefing, it was supposed to be accurate. It's not.
When you get time read this article from NOAA
Top marine scientists we know of, right there, discussing false test reads and how they account for this in their complex experiments. They accounted by adhering to updated cycling rules that these test kits aren't reliable, when ran in the common manner. They skipped using them, if I'm not misreading.
You updating with that pic helped others to see truth very well, good job.
The tests misread, it's said by our top crew independent from forums right above.
Your single point reading is not accurate, but if that ever pegs dark green as a *change* then it is, and an animal has died.
Even when shown your whole thread, and that ammonia is going to claim stuck above. 5 until the end of time, some are never going to disbelieve a test kit.
It hurts too much. It's the loss of trust in our massive investments
Ability to know a parameter was one thing not supposed to be an approximate in reefing, it was supposed to be accurate. It's not.
When you get time read this article from NOAA
Top marine scientists we know of, right there, discussing false test reads and how they account for this in their complex experiments. They accounted by adhering to updated cycling rules that these test kits aren't reliable, when ran in the common manner. They skipped using them, if I'm not misreading.
You updating with that pic helped others to see truth very well, good job.
The tests misread, it's said by our top crew independent from forums right above.
Your single point reading is not accurate, but if that ever pegs dark green as a *change* then it is, and an animal has died.
@Dan_P
This is a perfect example Dan for your calibration adjustments on api sampling. It is not possible for this reef to have held at even the TAN- adjusted number nh3 of that dark reading above. Notice how low the bioload is here from page one, and lots of open access surface area.
For contrast, here's an undiluted hard yellow zero from Dr Reefs bottle bac thread. Any viewer would agree this is zero. This is how zero we're told to be before calling a cycle complete, and should a running reef tank not run this zero below, something is claimed dangerously wrong
Reposting H's pic for contrast
If we asked ten people to post an api reading from their current tank it'll not be the yellow it'll be H's color I'll bet.
This is a perfect example Dan for your calibration adjustments on api sampling. It is not possible for this reef to have held at even the TAN- adjusted number nh3 of that dark reading above. Notice how low the bioload is here from page one, and lots of open access surface area.
For contrast, here's an undiluted hard yellow zero from Dr Reefs bottle bac thread. Any viewer would agree this is zero. This is how zero we're told to be before calling a cycle complete, and should a running reef tank not run this zero below, something is claimed dangerously wrong
Reposting H's pic for contrast
If we asked ten people to post an api reading from their current tank it'll not be the yellow it'll be H's color I'll bet.
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huckilt
Community Member
The weird thing is that I haven’t had anything die off without me seeing the signs of imminent death causing me to take those 2 turbo snails out and gave them a quick end so they wouldn’t die slowly suffering. but that was several months back when I had a problem with brass fittings used on my tank. I was beginning to suspect it was a nassarius snail that died but yesterday I saw all 3 that I have and my 2 turbos are doing well. I’ve also noticed with diligent turkey baster blastings followed by filter floss changes this are starting to look better not as much is growing back as quickly anymore. Jus need to get in it with the gravel vac and suck up all the clumps mixed with grains of sand. Any info on how to help get rid of the chrysophytes? I’m waiting on a bottle of vibrant from brs should I jus wait for that to come in to use or is there something else I could be doing in the mean time?
In order to fix your reef in 24 hours, do this to it 
trust me no recycle but you can’t stray from the surgical procedure. Don’t customize, do what they did. Two best rip cleans of a nano in existence
www.reef2reef.com
pertinent to our thread here: a rip cleaned nano has the highest surface area exposure of any reef tank because we remove blanketing masses, it’s one reason they never recycle upon setup. The filters are working better, not worse, due to our assault.
see what we did to the sand, that’s critical. The rocks and sand must be pure cloudless upon re assembly. No hesitation, full surgical rinse is what you want due to results logged not just because we break every rule known to mankind
rocks are twisted swished roughly in saltwater and adherents are scored off during cleaning, no chems on the rock. Fish and animals held in clean water, alone, elsewhere during cleaning surgery.
sand is blast rinsed in tap water for an hour. final rinse in ro. Clean like a snowglobe = no recycle. All new water matching temp and salinity of the old tank water. Add animals back
trust me no recycle but you can’t stray from the surgical procedure. Don’t customize, do what they did. Two best rip cleans of a nano in existence
Algae Identification
Any opinions on what type of algae this is growing on my rocks and sand bed?
www.reef2reef.com
pertinent to our thread here: a rip cleaned nano has the highest surface area exposure of any reef tank because we remove blanketing masses, it’s one reason they never recycle upon setup. The filters are working better, not worse, due to our assault.
see what we did to the sand, that’s critical. The rocks and sand must be pure cloudless upon re assembly. No hesitation, full surgical rinse is what you want due to results logged not just because we break every rule known to mankind
rocks are twisted swished roughly in saltwater and adherents are scored off during cleaning, no chems on the rock. Fish and animals held in clean water, alone, elsewhere during cleaning surgery.
sand is blast rinsed in tap water for an hour. final rinse in ro. Clean like a snowglobe = no recycle. All new water matching temp and salinity of the old tank water. Add animals back
If you add vibrant it can kill your reef, chemical soup mix degrading waste is why.
add vibrant in the clean condition above, not the invaded one, that can kill your reef, only our surgical way is safe.
add vibrant in the clean condition above, not the invaded one, that can kill your reef, only our surgical way is safe.
huckilt
Community Member
so I guess I’m gonna try and take advantage of the situation and record a video I can post to my YouTube channel of the rip clean process and will be able to post regular update videos that will I’m sure help a lot of ppl. If there’s any info you guys think I should make sure to put into that video let me know. I’ll be sure to give credit where credit is due. I jus wish I had the money to get some new test kits beforehand so I can add better and more results. Maybe I can borrow some cash from a family member. COVID has this guy broke and out of work...
tsouth
Valuable Member
Huckilt I just wanted to re-iterate a couple of things after reviewing the post.
What I see you are battling are Chrysophytes. There's one item I know that will beat it and that's Vibrant. I literally watched this video earlier today while doing research for you and it's astounding. Check it out:
I want to talk about your setup for a moment. There are many things I think we should change because I want your tank to get down to a baseline. I feel that the root of the problem is that your tank is nutrient deprived. I am going to outline a course of action that's exactly what I would do before going through a rip clean. I do not think you have an ammonia issue and I think it's a false positive. Your livestock would be deadstock by now.
1. Completely stop dosing any and all products
2. Remove 1/4 of your bioballs every 2 weeks. Do not add them back into the tank
3. Remove all of the neocarbonit- z
4. Turn off the algae scrubber. Do not use it
5. Have your tank run on the bare necessities. Heater, water pumps, skimmer, lighting. Do not use any extra filter media like GFO.
6. Do not do water changes as often as you do, or for as how much you're doing. Instead, change out 10% every 2 weeks instead. 2.5 gallons every 2 weeks please.
7. Take a hose and create a continuous siphon loop. One end draining water and the other end pouring it back into your sump. When doing this, add a filter sock to the draining end of it and then suck out all of the chrysophytes. This will remove them but keep the water going. You can also do this when you do a water change if you don't wanna deal with the filter sock and just toss what you pull out.
8. Change your feeding habits and increase your bioload. More fish = more nutrients in your tank. More nutrients come from the poop, and the increased feedings, alongside a larger variety of foods like frozen, flake, and pellet.
Keep this up for 2-3 months and see if there's an improvement. If not, then consider Vibrant.
What I see you are battling are Chrysophytes. There's one item I know that will beat it and that's Vibrant. I literally watched this video earlier today while doing research for you and it's astounding. Check it out:
I want to talk about your setup for a moment. There are many things I think we should change because I want your tank to get down to a baseline. I feel that the root of the problem is that your tank is nutrient deprived. I am going to outline a course of action that's exactly what I would do before going through a rip clean. I do not think you have an ammonia issue and I think it's a false positive. Your livestock would be deadstock by now.
1. Completely stop dosing any and all products
2. Remove 1/4 of your bioballs every 2 weeks. Do not add them back into the tank
3. Remove all of the neocarbonit- z
4. Turn off the algae scrubber. Do not use it
5. Have your tank run on the bare necessities. Heater, water pumps, skimmer, lighting. Do not use any extra filter media like GFO.
6. Do not do water changes as often as you do, or for as how much you're doing. Instead, change out 10% every 2 weeks instead. 2.5 gallons every 2 weeks please.
7. Take a hose and create a continuous siphon loop. One end draining water and the other end pouring it back into your sump. When doing this, add a filter sock to the draining end of it and then suck out all of the chrysophytes. This will remove them but keep the water going. You can also do this when you do a water change if you don't wanna deal with the filter sock and just toss what you pull out.
8. Change your feeding habits and increase your bioload. More fish = more nutrients in your tank. More nutrients come from the poop, and the increased feedings, alongside a larger variety of foods like frozen, flake, and pellet.
Keep this up for 2-3 months and see if there's an improvement. If not, then consider Vibrant.
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huckilt
Community Member
Ok. So the only thing I dose is brs two part alk daily and calcium weekly and only around 10ml of each. Turned off the pump the the neo. and to the algae scrubber this Friday will be 3 weeks no water change. My skimmer will pull out some thick black stuff when running right it’s a constant fight with it to keep it tuned properly. I wish getting new fish were that easy. Lfs is over an hour drive to another city plus moneys a bit tight with COVID and all. This tiny town I live in don’t help much. I alternate between pellets and frozen carnivore medley. Removed some bio balls and will do a good syphoning with a smaller diameter hose as soon as I can get a filter sock. I have a square bucket that holds filter floss or a filter pad atm. But I would rather start by going this route than having to set up another tank for temporary housing to do a rip clean. I’ve noticed things are starting to slowly clear up and places I’ve ran the magnet cleaner on the glass aren’t growing back mostly the rocks anymore. So if I can adjust habits and do this and stop that etc. I’d like to go that route before rip clean or vibrant.
huckilt
Community Member
The brs video is the reason I was considering vibrant I find it awesome the way they do their tank trails and different tests to help the hobby grow with better knowledge that’s coming from a scientific standpoint not just it’s happening to me and it happened to them so I’ll do exactly what that person did. There’s a lot of variables that could be way different from one tank to the next. I love watching brs videos half the reason I want to get a saltwater YouTube channel going but I kinda been waiting to get my new tank pieces all together so I can start the channel with the start of a new build and show everyone the progression from week to week or maybe every other day or something.
huckilt
Community Member
H
heres my recommend, it’s fully opposite from post 51
if you add vibrant you’ll turn that eutrophic reef into a chemical soup and it will circulate rotting mass in the water making things filthy. Do not blend my rip clean with any method or customize it in any way. Wait until you are done taking guesses with your tank to do my method so you can be thorough, don’t customize it or blend it with anything at all.
if you want to rip clean, then use vibrant as a growback prevention you can. All the mass will be removed beforehand and there’s no souping
vibrant has zero pattern documentations for chrysophytes, so yours will be a guinea pig if you choose it.
here’s three posts before your consider.
post one, vibrant killing twenty reefs.
post two are the jobs you want to copy.
post three, six years of rip cleans and no fails. Must study this before you begin, to save from any customizations that can kill your setup.
vibrant is twenty bucks and three weeks wait. Rip clean is clean in 24 hours and the cost is all new water made up to match the temp and salinity of the old.
www.reef2reef.com
these are the two best rip cleans on file. Copy these to a T and attack that sandbed like we did. Rocks are washed off in old tank water, then spray peroxide on the cleaned rocks, set back in on pure rinsed sand (in tap water, last rinse is RO water) and all new saltwater. Thats a rip clean. do not hesitantly or partially rinse sand, attack it like these two.
www.reef2reef.com
lastly, six years worth, not one kill. Totally happy reefs.
www.reef2reef.com
when people ask if rinsing sand in tap water causes a cycle, I can infer our examples werent factored. It’s about 400 examples with follow up on file, some two years later.
when your fish and coral is held in clean water matching temp and salinity of the old water in a holding bucket or container, and you’ve taken rocks out for cleaning, use a knife not a brush to score the growths off like a dentist does plaque, totally clean, swished in saltwater to cast off growths. When clean, spray with peroxide (doesnt cause a cycle) and then they’re ready for use. We wouldn’t use a brush, use a knife, a brush will pestle the growths back down into crevices. No customizing
rocks only get saltwater contact and a light peroxide spray, so they don’t recycle.
the sandbed gets literally attacked back to snow globe clean, it’s bacteria do not matter in *anyones* reef only live rocks matter, thats why we use tap water then ro on sand, so you never run out of rinsing until it’s perfectly clear. Notice in our six year thread there are no ammonia tests, you don’t need to own one. We can tell you what your ammonia is at every interval in this thread. you don’t need to test for ammonia after a cycle in any reef tank, it can’t rise back up and any test that says otherwise is simply wrong.
Google has a million examples of false reads like yours have done. You can also see how cycle callers are not using an objective measure, their calls range from backing the tests to totally hating them, so you aren’t getting anything accurate from their collective guesses on the matter. Work threads, other people’s reefs + updates, are where we get good info
thread highlights:
-we ramp down lighting for five days after the clean, written in post one of the sand rinse thread.
-nobody put back a cloudy tank whatsoever, the whole thread is examples of being thorough, not scared about bacteria. The whole thread we are in now was an example of restoring trust in bacteria, not doubt, its why we didn’t kill 400 reefs above. Nobody had .25 ammonia above just the same.
-you don’t see reassembled tanks with crud or blackened growths in the corners still. These tanks are cleaned to the bone. Live rocks handled in saltwater is why, thats all the bacteria you need.
-use new water matching temp and salinity of the old. If you use new sand, vs old, you still pre rinse just the same, no customizing.
-even though I know dip strips, api, or the big upgrade to red sea ammonia will be ran still after the rip clean, when your tank is acting normal and looking great, the readings didn’t get correct all of a sudden. The rules for ammonia control have not been changed one iota in this thread, or the 400 above looking great. I kicked out testing from the thread because it causes doubt and wrecks tanks, we needed the opposite momentum.
b
heres my recommend, it’s fully opposite from post 51
if you add vibrant you’ll turn that eutrophic reef into a chemical soup and it will circulate rotting mass in the water making things filthy. Do not blend my rip clean with any method or customize it in any way. Wait until you are done taking guesses with your tank to do my method so you can be thorough, don’t customize it or blend it with anything at all.
if you want to rip clean, then use vibrant as a growback prevention you can. All the mass will be removed beforehand and there’s no souping
vibrant has zero pattern documentations for chrysophytes, so yours will be a guinea pig if you choose it.
here’s three posts before your consider.
post one, vibrant killing twenty reefs.
post two are the jobs you want to copy.
post three, six years of rip cleans and no fails. Must study this before you begin, to save from any customizations that can kill your setup.
vibrant is twenty bucks and three weeks wait. Rip clean is clean in 24 hours and the cost is all new water made up to match the temp and salinity of the old.
Vibrant Killing Corals..
Interesting thread, I've never used vibrant specificly but my experience in general with bacteria type products is that you should always start with a much lower dose than manufacturers recommendations to see how your tank reacts. Usually if it's a weekly recommendation I try about an eighth and...
www.reef2reef.com
these are the two best rip cleans on file. Copy these to a T and attack that sandbed like we did. Rocks are washed off in old tank water, then spray peroxide on the cleaned rocks, set back in on pure rinsed sand (in tap water, last rinse is RO water) and all new saltwater. Thats a rip clean. do not hesitantly or partially rinse sand, attack it like these two.
Algae Identification
Any opinions on what type of algae this is growing on my rocks and sand bed?
www.reef2reef.com
lastly, six years worth, not one kill. Totally happy reefs.
Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread
I am fairly worried about moving my freshwater setup as it is fairly overstocked (reduces aggression as no one fish gets singled out). I did fail to think about the toxicity of nitrite on top of ammonia toxicity... Here is my plan for the cichlid tank. I have gradually reduced my pH from 8.2 to...
www.reef2reef.com
when people ask if rinsing sand in tap water causes a cycle, I can infer our examples werent factored. It’s about 400 examples with follow up on file, some two years later.
when your fish and coral is held in clean water matching temp and salinity of the old water in a holding bucket or container, and you’ve taken rocks out for cleaning, use a knife not a brush to score the growths off like a dentist does plaque, totally clean, swished in saltwater to cast off growths. When clean, spray with peroxide (doesnt cause a cycle) and then they’re ready for use. We wouldn’t use a brush, use a knife, a brush will pestle the growths back down into crevices. No customizing
rocks only get saltwater contact and a light peroxide spray, so they don’t recycle.
the sandbed gets literally attacked back to snow globe clean, it’s bacteria do not matter in *anyones* reef only live rocks matter, thats why we use tap water then ro on sand, so you never run out of rinsing until it’s perfectly clear. Notice in our six year thread there are no ammonia tests, you don’t need to own one. We can tell you what your ammonia is at every interval in this thread. you don’t need to test for ammonia after a cycle in any reef tank, it can’t rise back up and any test that says otherwise is simply wrong.
Google has a million examples of false reads like yours have done. You can also see how cycle callers are not using an objective measure, their calls range from backing the tests to totally hating them, so you aren’t getting anything accurate from their collective guesses on the matter. Work threads, other people’s reefs + updates, are where we get good info
thread highlights:
-we ramp down lighting for five days after the clean, written in post one of the sand rinse thread.
-nobody put back a cloudy tank whatsoever, the whole thread is examples of being thorough, not scared about bacteria. The whole thread we are in now was an example of restoring trust in bacteria, not doubt, its why we didn’t kill 400 reefs above. Nobody had .25 ammonia above just the same.
-you don’t see reassembled tanks with crud or blackened growths in the corners still. These tanks are cleaned to the bone. Live rocks handled in saltwater is why, thats all the bacteria you need.
-use new water matching temp and salinity of the old. If you use new sand, vs old, you still pre rinse just the same, no customizing.
-even though I know dip strips, api, or the big upgrade to red sea ammonia will be ran still after the rip clean, when your tank is acting normal and looking great, the readings didn’t get correct all of a sudden. The rules for ammonia control have not been changed one iota in this thread, or the 400 above looking great. I kicked out testing from the thread because it causes doubt and wrecks tanks, we needed the opposite momentum.
b
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My staunch reply isn’t meant to be mean to anyone it’s merely a rip cleaning nerd plying his craft. I didn’t want you to risk your tank by blending methods or customizing the surgical part.
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tsouth
Valuable Member
For sure. With Brandon's suggestion of the rip clean first, and then only the changed habits I outlined too regarding more feeding and less water changes, that should increase your nutrients - the chrysophytes would definitely be cornered.
Again, the tank is much too clean - weird right? Time to get dirtayyyy. Definitely do one at a time so you can watch the impact and don't blend like he said. My one caveat here is that I have never done a rip clean or have experience with it, therefore I'm not understanding the logic behind "Rip clean a tank that has problems because it's already too clean which caused this problem in the first place" other than I suppose it's meant to remove all the bad stuff and letting you start good habits from scratch?
Again with regards to vibrant - do not do this first or even second. I had mentioned in my last sentence to wait a couple of months at least before resorting to this.
Good luck on this journey! We'll be here to help!!
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All the offered methods have fixes and cures on file. They really do, we are all recommending working options that can be found online
the difference is this: rip cleans have the only reference so far for a given method on hundreds of reefs. If such a proof exists for dirty method, then forty pages of that should be easy to find
vibrant does have work thread patterns in support, but it also has the losses noted and rip cleans have none. Dirty method threads have a low recovery rate, and a very high Ive been waiting eight months I’m about to leave reefing rate. They do have some cures, for dinos threads.
the thing about rip cleans is how all the work is already on file for inspection
we tend to discuss the action in theory, or how it conflicts with other methods, but that’s six years of work in one thread. At some point, the assumption about rip clean has to be drawn from the reports on file and not the theory. If the logs of follow up reports and pictures are bad, do not run the method. If they’re good, run it without changing any aspect. There is no problem in trying other methods first, and rip clean last, thats what most did we can see.
and next time, they‘ll do that first/trial by fire complete~
only the lucky get to avoid the big work.
the difference is this: rip cleans have the only reference so far for a given method on hundreds of reefs. If such a proof exists for dirty method, then forty pages of that should be easy to find
vibrant does have work thread patterns in support, but it also has the losses noted and rip cleans have none. Dirty method threads have a low recovery rate, and a very high Ive been waiting eight months I’m about to leave reefing rate. They do have some cures, for dinos threads.
the thing about rip cleans is how all the work is already on file for inspection
we tend to discuss the action in theory, or how it conflicts with other methods, but that’s six years of work in one thread. At some point, the assumption about rip clean has to be drawn from the reports on file and not the theory. If the logs of follow up reports and pictures are bad, do not run the method. If they’re good, run it without changing any aspect. There is no problem in trying other methods first, and rip clean last, thats what most did we can see.
and next time, they‘ll do that first/trial by fire complete~
only the lucky get to avoid the big work.
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huckilt
Community Member
yay!!! Finally I was able to make to the fish store and pick up a few things I dunno if I overdid it or didn’t get enough. I got a peppermint shrimp 3 hermits 3 big nassarius snails and 3 other snails of the same variety I forgot exactly which at the moment and I also grabbed a six line wrasse and a green bubble tip anemone. And so far everyone is happy. I plan on going again after payday for at least one maybe two more fish. I’ve been feeding a lot more even before the new additions so hopefully adding some more livestock will help with the chrysophytes. There’s a lot that’s apparently dying and coming loose from the rock or glass it’s on. I need to get in there with a tube and suck up as much as I can on week 6 no w.c. Jus the skimmer running for 24hrs every 48 waters crystal clear but I been noticing the main panel has been growing algae w bit quicker than normal
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