Is it normal for ammonia to be .25ppm 1 week into cycle with clowns?

[GARRIGA]

No experience with API reagent test kits for ammonia but notice many report an issue using that for ammonia and what I’ve used for cycling or when suspecting a fish loss is the strip. Have tested this against a reference source and it was correct. See it go to 3 ppm then back to zero. Seachem has an ammonia alert that goes inside the tank which only test free ammonia. Since this is temporary. The API strip good enough. End up throwing it out because they expire and I rarely use them.

 

[brandon429]

This isn't an ammonia loss at all. There are no cycling charts with a delayed ammonia drop date, they're all the same for a reason.

 

[Zizzer]

No, definitely not a fish loss from ammonia. Otherwise inverts would have been hit first I think. I almost think it was when I added the flame angelfish. Flame was a little aggressive towards the clown a few times and may have caused an infection that became contagious or the flame already had something. Either way, i did move a bit too fast adding new additions every week. The only other things added at that time was another heater, a hang on back refugium with red ogo, copepods, a duncan coral, and a paired goby/pistol. Ogo was almost dry when I got it and may have had a fungus. Could have been stress from aggression, or parasite from another tank or just stress from adding stuff so soon to a new tank. I don't know. Maybe all the above. I will admit that even today, 2 months in, the Ammonia never has seem to read 0, but I have shrimp, crabs, snails, and corals that are still alive. Dang it's only been 2 months. Feels like 4 months. Yeah I've definitely been moving too fast. I'll try to do better one day.

 

[KrisReef]

No, definitely not a fish loss from ammonia. Otherwise inverts would have been hit first I think. I almost think it was when I added the flame angelfish. Flame was a little aggressive towards the clown a few times and may have caused an infection that became contagious or the flame already had something. Either way, i did move a bit too fast adding new additions every week. The only other things added at that time was another heater, a hang on back refugium with red ogo, copepods, a duncan coral, and a paired goby/pistol. Ogo was almost dry when I got it and may have had a fungus. Could have been stress from aggression, or parasite from another tank or just stress from adding stuff so soon to a new tank. I don't know. Maybe all the above. I will admit that even today, 2 months in, the Ammonia never has seem to read 0, but I have shrimp, crabs, snails, and corals that are still alive. Dang it's only been 2 months. Feels like 4 months. Yeah I've definitely been moving too fast. I'll try to do better one day.

No. No you won’t. I have been doing this hobby since the Iran hostage crisis and nothing can slow me down once the “need” for a reef display at home has crept into a refeers veins. This hobby is a vicious habit (or addiction) that is more demanding than cigarettes, opiates, or meth mixed with all of them in my morning” sunrise” beverage. I am a very old hand at freelance pharmacology and this hobby is more demanding than any of the common vices that squeeze men into doing something costly, impulsively, and totally unnecessary.

See you at the checkout at your LFS, it’s ok to be spun out of control by this hobby. You are not alone here. HTH.

Can I get an amen, reefers?

 

[brandon429]

ammonia is not zero because stocked reef tanks don't run zero; there's always some in active conversion and that's what the test kits pick up.

Old cycling science from the 90s told us it had to be/was/ zero in stocked reef tanks, it never was. the way updated cycling science works is that when someone is using a common stack of rocks in a display, post cycle, that stack of rocks is going to carry any common bioload in reefing and it doesn't matter if their true nh3 ammonia is .001 or .03 it's still safe and nothing will die from ammonia after the cycle, unless a fish kill from non-ammonia issues starts a loss cascade and those fish are left in the tank to rot. it would take a multiple fish kill to crash a reef tank, one or two won't cause it, our rocks can handle decent-size ammonia test loads above par easily.

additionally, your test kits for ammonia are reading as NH4, not NH3, and if you take your stated ammonia levels and reduce them by 10x (the approximate drop from the nh4-3 conversion) you can see how toxicity is so low now it lines up with the greater view of the tank you're reporting. nice troubleshoot here.

 

[Zizzer]

 

[Zizzer]

 

[Zizzer]

I'm not sure what this coral is. This is what it looks like before the lights come on. It was sold to me as a mushroom but didn't look like any I could find when I got home. Looked more like some type of flower pot type coral but the stolens or stalks aren't as tall as they are in other flower pot coral picture's I've seen. I also inherited a crab that came home on the bottom of one of my rocks and it doesn't look like an emerald crab. BTW, all the hermits and new crab love the clove polyps. It's hard to get a good picture of the crab because it runs under the rock every time I get close to the tank.

 

[Zizzer]

 

[brandon429]

its a torch with anthocauli #47

next one is clavularia

 

[Zizzer]

its a torch with anthocauli #47

next one is clavularia

The picture of the clavularia is actually an attempt to take a picture of the mysterious crab that showed up in my tank. As far the touch coral, I've read a little about those but I guess I need to do more research now. Thank you. Never heard of anthocauli. Looked it up but seems like it means a asexual split of the main coral that is making an attempt to reproduce or latch ditch effort to stay alive. Correct me if I'm wrong.