Nano Tank - Sudden Ammonia Spike

[Chriskim858]

Hello,
My tank was cycled using Dr Tim’s one and only and ammonia 3 weeks ago. It was completely cycled about a week and a half ago, tested by adding ammonia drops and next day reading 0.
I waited another week before adding my clownfish and he’s been doing fine. I got a few frags 6 plugs and this morning my ammonia read .5. It is a 10 gallon nano tank so I know it can fluctuate easily. I mean they’re some food rolling in the sand but I wasn’t sure why it’d spike today. I did a small water change just in case. Any suggestions appreciated.

also, any reason why my ph keeps dropping? I am manually topping off everyday but I have a line drawn on the tank that I fill up back to every morning. Not sure what else could cause it. I added a small amount of alk 8.3 to help buffer it back but I don’t want to keep doing that. Thank you in advance!

 

[brandon429]

it hasnt spiked at all, post a tank pic for proofing.

false ammonia spike= only a non seneye test says so; no effects in the system indicate inability to control ammonia.

true ammonia spike=massive problems are reported where no test whatsoever is needed, and then testing afterwards happens to confirm an ammonia spike


*if there is no indication of spike in pics...cloudy water, fish hovering near death with burned gills at the top, then there was no spike. a test-only non seneye spike doesnt have merit, those tests just have trouble reading safe level bioload conversion from free ammonia to less harmful forms. ammonia troubleshooting is so consistent in reefing, that we often close the matter even before first pic or clarification on cycle approach.

reefs can't uncycle when they're completed, and if adding that fish was more than the surface area you cycled (not likely, have never seen it in 20 years reefing) then your clown would be already dead.

there is no half level ammonia or irritation level ammonia, our active surfaces dont permit this. post cycle reefs + new fish either control the ammonia within spec or they totally crash and die within about 48 hours.

you specifically do not have to ramp up new bacteria to match the new fish, cycling doesnt work that way. Your active surface area carries as many fish right now as it will in 2 years waiting with slow ramp up. whether or not thats prudent for disease control/sep issue to ammonia.

 

[Cell]

And confirm API test kit!

 

[Chriskim858]

I use the API ammonia test kit. Everything looks fine but I’ve never had it spike to .5 before and this occurred as I put in the frags. It could have a been a false spike. I’ll monitor it next two-3 days and check. Nitrite/nitrate 0 ammonia at .5. But water is clear and the frags are starting to open up. I might be just overreacting

 

[Big G]

You could easily double check with a Seachem Ammonia Alert badge.

FWIW, api test kits are very unreliable.

 

[brandon429]

we r all pretty much guessing but I attribute hard yellow API before bioload and then some green after to mean its trying to report the conversion rate as best as possible...no true zero ammonia in reefing when bioload is present, even if the reef was 500 gallons it will still convert the same rate as a pico reef.


api and its variables report this as best as possible. when api does seem to help: total purple change indicating a dead rotting fish. its helpful for big alerts. we already know its controlled ammonia though due to hardfast rules about how cycles work, and how they start macna conventions all on time without doom. further verification not req'd because the reported condition cannot occur in a reef tank even recently cycled when bioload lives and eats fine day to day, among rocks and sand.

even people who brought up dry rocks with seneye never held free ammonia in the tenths ppm for any length of time, even when the bac were legit ramping up it was hundredths briefly and thousandths nearly the entire cycle wait.

accurate ammonia measures have really helped us carve a viewing window into cycle truths in my opinion. the patterns we can mine are procedural gold. I think we can proof your entire ammonia action based on 2 variables stated in your first post.

pics

 

[Chriskim858]

Appreciate all the viable feedback. The LFS told me to do API tests daily and has been stressing me out as like anyone, I don’t want to mess up or hurt/kill anything. I’ll get the Seachem ammonia alert badge just to have. I can post a pic when I get home from the office but the tank is clear, clean nothing out of the ordinary. I do spot clean daily and do my water changes and top off regularly. And I don’t have a carbon or chemipure blue yet. Was going to add it in later so. Thanks again everyone.

 

[brandon429]

100% ammonia controlled reef, nice one. APi is searchable on google to the tune of a million pages and 20+ years of causing cycle doubts just like this one.

I got banned from a forum once in about 2010 for troubleshooting like this heh. rtr = free thinkers society.

there are api kits with hard yellows in the presence of fish, Ive seen the posts for sure. they're just not the majority. whatever factor there is causing that range, we get good mileage off submersion time cycling as its a 0% fail rate when predicting ammonia control, even though we arent using any test kit to apply the judgement

I have never in my life online seen a reef aquarium that could not control ammonia post cycle not once not ever. Ive seen dead tangs wedged in rocks, and when removed, all set.

 

[brandon429]

Can the size of your nitrifying bacteria colony be measured?

Brilliant topic #brandon429 How do you measure surface are based on a picture? Or did I miss understood? Surface area is tridimensional. The internal structure of the media (rock) will play a vital role on how much is usable, as you said yourself (w example). The roughness of the surface area...

www.reef2reef.com

your thread belongs in a thread where the top microbiologists in reefing science can see it. nice timing for your post



what your bacteria are doing or need to be doing is the total heart of the matter.

whether ammonia control varies tank to tank post-cycle is the heart of the matter.

 

[brandon429]

remove all free uneaten food in the next water change

surface area accounts for that type of variation. we have seneye logs where a dead fish completely rotted in the system and base ammonia conversion still didn't spike, some wasted food isn't going to kill your system but its algae fuel and good practice to keep free food out of waste and bed sinking.

the fact your clown is not dead for days, plus that feed in clean water, plus the stated sand and assumed rocks confirms you have completed your cycle.

 

[Chriskim858]

Yeah everyone looks fine. Might just have been API or some outlier. I’ve been told to swear by API from the LFS so it kind of scared me. But my clownfish is as happy as can be and I clean it pretty rigorously.

 

[brandon429]

excellent. tons of surface area + open corals, they will close up tight when a crash is occurring. I feel your post and details time well in the next phase of reef cycling for the hobby -- the total reliability of a reef cycle.

we even caught seneye misbehaving, the one test in the world I trust. but when it didn't line up with the biology of the tank and pictures, the tester was at fault:

Ammonia slowly climbing?

I can't see a need to ever monitor ammonia in a reef. even if you have a fish die wedged in, its not going to spike that tank as a cascade thats a bunch of water rocks n sand. Monitor for dangerous ammonia, I agree. pretty hard to make a case that it's an actual danger. But ammonia might be...

www.reef2reef.com

the specific recommended action for your tank is proceed, its darn awesome. doesn't need supplementation or anything, its plain old off and running great.

your ammonia will never fail to be in compliance in this reef for all its days if the accumulations are kept low, the circulation kept high, and no dead fish. ammonia cannot do surprising things in a reef tank. just as gold coins will not be left long unattended on a random street, free ammonia above common conversion rates will not be allowed in a reef tank with hungry surface area. cycles do consistently predictable things, and they don't vary in major timing. theory still holds.

if our science is accurate, then you’ve saved money vs buying verifiers and bacteria. If its not accurate then a total wipeout will occur within 48 hours after you first noticed free ammonia, there is no middle ground.

 

[brandon429]

Fact

ammonia tracing works as fast as southern hog tying.

if you trust this massive surface area you can save lots of money as a reef aquarist: You’d be able to swap the sandbed out on command and never recycle or lose animals, you could move that reef home or to a convention and start on time and not recycle, or upgrade it in place to a bigger reef and effect a skip cycle.

instead of entertaining a massive invasion one day that runs months and has you buying $ supplements as a guess (recurring theme in reefing) you can just deep clean the system if needed, heading off completely a months long headache, all because that much rock and sand isn’t going to let ammonia misbehave *if you keep out detritus accumulation.

you’d never have to pay to boost the bacteria or add probiotics if you simply manage accumulation and maintain open surface area...if you know what that surface area is capable of your reef confidence goes up, your money stays put, your time is not wasted.

experimenting with additives that use biology to reduce your workload or lessen frequency of cleaning isnt bad at all to try, we all jazz it up somehow at times and some of it is pretty advanced X in a bottle. its nice to know what the true reefing baseline is: self support. you just keep surface area clean of mulm and the rest balances out literally by its own surface area management, free.

look how common your issue is in the hobby, and how common the fix is:

Ammonia and Nitrite spike

I've got a newly set up Red Sea Reefer 250 and have slowly been adding livestock. 2 clowns and some cuc. The tank is very young and I know I've rushed this but here I am, 3 weeks old. I did kick start my cycling with FritzZyme Turbo Start 900 and FritzZyme 9. I forgot to check my levels...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Chriskim858]

Hah thanks, I’m actually going to be upgrading to a 20g nano as the 10g seems way to small for my clownfish and I don’t want to do it disservice. The first lfs screwed me and now I’m going to a more reputable one but there’s so many different way they want you to do things and I’m sure it’s all a sales pitch at the end but I want to do my moral part in it. Will probably do a 1 month cycle even though the dr Tim’s trick did it in 1-2 weeks. Start clean and see what happens. This forum has saved me a lot

 

[brandon429]

since that reef is so new, you just move it all over into the new tank and that one will continue on as a skip cycle setup, changing the glass out wont harm the biology.


*as days go by, your clouding waste base increases in rock pores, and sand, and that has to be removed before you transfer like-new surfaces into the new tank. never transfer stuff into a cloudy new tank, transfer into a perfectly snowglobe clean tank with all new water, that's the ideal. don't move waste tank to tank and you won't recycle.

clean the sand with tap water then lastly RO if you want, it doesn't matter, but clean the rocks only with saltwater. sandbed bacteria are not required only rock bacteria.

with that approach you can infinitely upgrade the reef and not have to purchase any cycling supports unless you are changing out that otherwise perfect rock already cycled. moving tanks does not require new cycling or new investments other than in the new glass. if you transfer no waste among rocks or sand into the new tank and it fills with totally clear water, you will not have a recycle whatsoever. that is specifically the science of skip-cycling. Ive never cycled a reef tank in 20 years of owning them, 100% skip cycles.