Is my qt ready for fish

[George81]

I have my 30 gallon qt set up for about 5 days. Maxijet 1200, aquaclear 50 gallon hob filter heater and some pvc parts.
All ro/di water. Sg 1.025,
I dosed 4 0z of bio Spira and added 1.5 ml of pure house hold ammonia. That brought my ppm up to 4.


I’m using API test kits(I hate them. I should have got salifert)
I dosed that at 7pm on the set up day. At 11 am the following morning the ammonia was down to .25-.5ppm. Nitrates were between 5-10ppm nitrite was 0. Ph was 8.2.
The ammonia hadn’t dropped to zero for a few days so I looked on line and found that API is notorious for giving false readings of ammonia.

Worried that I let my bacteria culture die without food I added more bio Spira and I added 1.5ml of ammonia.
The ammonia is reading around .5 for two days. I went and got a Seachem ammonia badge which shows 0ppm. The API test kit shows I’m guessing between 0.5 and 1.
I ordered the test kits from amazon and it got delivered in -20c (-4F)weather. I checked and they weren’t frozen when they delivered it. A week or two prior to me setting up the qt tank


What do I trust here. The Seachem badge or the test kit. I also picked up some stability and dosed 3 capfuls. I had to buy some prime to soak my bleached rocks in and picked up a Seachem badge and some stability.
I can see what appears to be diatoms like brown stuff covering my filter sponges.
The aquaclear has filter sponge -bio pellets -filter sponge.
I’m looking to get a couple of clown fish and being the qt process.
My current readings are
ammonia approx 0.25
No3-0
No2- The shade of yellow is not on the card so It’s approx 5 I’m guessing.
Ph: 8.0
Sg 1.025
These API test kits are by far the worst I’ve ever used. Never ever again. It’s way to difficult to get an accurate reading
Thanks for the input.

 

[Big G]

It's not just the ammonia you need to watch. The progression is ammonia in the tank that goes to zero within 24 hours of dosing at least 1 ppm. And then the nitrites in the tank that goes to zero within 24 hours of dosing at least 1 ppm. Once that is done and both are reading zero after 24 hours. You will need to do a bunch of water changes to get the Nitrates down to 10-15 ish. This usually takes about 30 days for the bacteria to develop to the stage where it can eat that much ammonia.
Also consider dosing the HOB filter pad with BioSpira or Seachem Stability, etc. Also some ceramic media like BioMax in a mesh bag for the HOB dosed with Biospira. And lastly a foam bubble filter with the foam pad also dosed with BioSpira. The bigger the bacteria concentration you can build up, the better the tank will be able to absorb/eat ammonia from your fish = few water changes.
Nothing good happens fast in this hobby. ;)

 

[George81]

I’ll pick up foam bubble filters. I have just been dosing the bio Spira and stability directly in the tank water. My nitrates are definitely not in the 20ppm range. They are at max 5 ppm.
Dosing the stability and bio Spira directly in the filter media is better?

 

[Big G]

I soak my filter media: sponges, pads, ceramic in my sump 24/7. That way I have them if I need to quickly put together a hospital tank. But to answer your question. Yes. Pour the Stability or BioSpira, etc. into a bowl. Soak the sponges, pads, ceramic media for at least 24 hours. Then put those items you've soaked into the HOB, bubble filter and pour the left over liquid that's in the bowl into the tank. So you are dosing two separate catagories: the water columun in the tank, and the filter materials. This really works well. It totally changed my success rate for QT'd fish.

Back to the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate cycle. So ammonia gets high then drops; nitrites get high and then drops; nitrates are what is left over and is dealt with by lots of water changes. It's amazing how much water you have to change. The bigger the changes, like 50% at a time, the fewer changes it will take to get to nitrate concentrations of 10-15 ish range. Usually for me it's about a total of 110% - 120% of the tanks water capacity. Lots of salt mixing. LOL.

Just noticed you are a new member. Welcome to R2R! Lots of really good folks here with incredible knowledge :D

 

[George81]

I am new, I used to have a 90 gallon reef tank about 12 years or so ago. I just spent the week cleaning up the old tank, re siliconing the inside, re bracing the broke top brace with glass braces. I’m gonna do a leak test once the hose thaws out and drill it out once it passes the leak test. I have my old rock soaked in bleach air dried for a week and now soaking in ro/di and prime. I almost bought a 120 today for 400, I’ll keep that as a back up plan though, so I’m kind of hoping this tank fails lol.

I’ve never used these bacteria in a bottle nor quarantined my fish in the past. I remember just putting live rock and sand into the tank and waiting for the readings to level out. These bacteria deals seem to speed stuff up and because these readings are raising and dropping so fast it seems odd to me. so I’m just confused as to what exactly is going on.
I guess my ammonia spike is when I add the ammonia.
I saw my nitrite spike where it went up to .5 ppm but was back to zero about 4 hours later (actually I restested prior to posting this and they had dropped back to zero)
And my nitrates are at 5 maybe 10 max.

I’m just concerned with the ammonia test results. The Seachem badge shows zero and the API test kit isn’t yellow and isn’t quite green to match the colours, so I’m being conservative on the safe side and pegging it between .25 and .5. So while the API is detecting something, The Seachem badge is detecting nothing.
I read an amazon review that said Seachem only detects ammonia nh3 which is the toxic ammonia and test kits test ammonia and ammonium. But I want to verify that the badge is actually accurate. From what I have read once dosing copper ammonia test kits give a false positive and since ill be relying on the badge during copper treatment I wanna make sure it’s good and not defective and not put fish into a toxic situation.

 

[Big G]

Tip for the Seachem ammonia badge. Use a small flashlight and illuminate the badge from "behind". This will give you the best color show on the badges.

Sometimes the ammonia test kits and the nitrite kits will give false positive readings if the Nitrates are high enough. Have found the Red Sea and Salifert kits to be the most accurate. But once the QT process is ongoing and fish are in the tank, trust the badge. Never seen one give a false reading.

 

[Big G]

Here's my normal QT setup and process for non-emergency:

Prophylactic Treatment: No observed symptoms of disease or injury

20 gal QT cycled:
- HOB with both the foam pad & BioMax treated with Seachem Stability or Bio Spira/Dr Tims, and foam bubble filter with foam soaked in the same, or all of them soaked for at least 2 weeks in DT sump.
- heater, powerhead, Seachem Ammonia Alert Badge.
- Tank lights off. Ambient room lighting only.
- Feed fish high quality fiber packed frozen food (LRS or your own "fish smoothie") with Selcon/Zoecon added for at least 3 days
- Freshwater dip to check for flukes. If no flukes treat first with copper.
- S-l-o-w-l-y (8-10 days) bring up copper to therapeutic levels for prophylactic treatment for 30 days: Tank lights off until therapeutic level is reached. Best to dose several times a day (AM, lunch, PM) rather than one large dose. Highly recommend use of Copper Power and a Hanna HL Copper Checker.
- Carbon & Cuprisorb to remove copper. Water changes. Observe.
- General Cure 2 doses 5-7 days apart. Turn up bubbler and turn on powerhead aimed at surface to increase O2. Like GC over Prazipro. GC has Metro + Praziquantel, so you are getting the Praziquantel which kills flukes and "some" internal parasites and Metro that kills all internal parasites/worms. And the dose of Praziquantel is lower but does the job and is easier on sensitive fish.
- Carbon & water changes.
- Observe 10-14 days.

 

[George81]

Thanks so much. I have cupermine and Prazipro on the way. They were supposed to be delivered on Wednesday but in typical Canada post fashion it’s not gonna be available for pickup until Monday.
I’ll look into getting metro if I can find it here. I also have a salifert copper test kit in that order. I don’t think I’ve come across a Hanna copper checker. I have their ph meter for making beer and it’s incrediably inaccurate and unreliable. I religiously recalibrate and keep it stored properly in the proper storage solution and it’s not trust worthy at all.

My choices here are salifert, api, Red Sea and aqua forest. I always used salifert or elos. But because of the ease of amazon I mistakingly ordered API from what seemed like mostly positive reviews.

I wasn’t planning on running lights over the qt. Just ambient light.
Thanks for the tip on the badge. I feel better getting confirmation that it’s trusted.
I’m gonna try out your method I had a similar plan based off a thread how to quarantine by Humblefish?

I screen captured your method for future easy reference.

 

[Big G]

Best of luck. The goal here is happy healthy fish and happy reefers. :)