Normal ammonia rise in new live rock

[TriggerFinger]

It should be fine. I didn’t do any water changes when mine came in; I was very new to the hobby and didn’t really understand cycling vs curing at that point. I still have a pistol shrimp, brittle stars, sponges, crabs, macro algae, tunicates & 3 or 4 different coraline.

 

[TriggerFinger]

I'm just afraid of getting some unwanted hitchhiker! I LOVE 95% of my hitchhikers and welcome them into my tank with open arms but I also have a lot of high end corals that I don't need to have eaten. I debated getting live live rock like that at the start because I wanted a bunch of cool random critters

Yea, I completely understand that. I only had a couple rock boring urchins; which I think eats coral; but the urchins didn’t make it through the high ammonia.

 

[FlyingPotato]

I think the color of the algae is already a fading a bit for me but as long as it comes back I’m super happy with it. Hopefully within the next couple months my dry rock will also have some algae coverage. I already got 2 unwanted hitchhikers that I don’t want in my reef tank but I feel bad killing them. The crab is unidentified but I know pretty much all are not reef friendly. As for the pencil urchin it’s tiny but I don’t want it mowing over my zoa garden in the future. The darned thing is incredibly fast. I’ll going to buy a super cheap zoa when I get my cleanup crew just to see if anything eats it so I can eradicate any coral eaters before I plan on getting some real corals.

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

Thanks for all the help. I think I will just leave it for tonight and check the ammonia again in the morning to see how it has progressed. I’m in no rush so as long as nature can do it’s thing and eventually balance out I’ll leave it to do it’s thing. My only worry is I will be gone Monday to Wednesday night. Didn’t know this until after I ordered the rock though. Happens every time . If the worst happens and ammonia doesn’t come down to safe levels by then I’ll resort to using prime for the three days.

Dude, you do have a small tank... a single drop of something in that tank could be major and mine would not even notice It. Maintaining water parameters in a tank that small... that a bigger challenge than I am up to (my personal opinion) I am trying to say... I think that as fast as your ammonia went up.. it will also come back down fast.. there is just not that much water there. ...just do the water changes : )

 

[FlyingPotato]

Dude, you do have a small tank... a single drop of something in that tank could be major and mine would not even notice It. Maintaining water parameters in a tank that small... that a bigger challenge than I am up to (my personal opinion) I am trying to say... I think that as fast as your ammonia went up.. it will also come back down fast.. there is just not that much water there. ...just do the water changes : )

I knew it would definitely be a huge challenge to maintain a tank that small and I’m ready to face it. I would have converted my 40 gallon breeder instead of my 10 gallon but I didn’t have the funds to add 40 more pounds of rock, sand, more powerful power heads, a sump, protein skimmer, extra salt, an RODI unit, a glass lid for the tank, and all the extra stock. Not that I thought ahead and everything including the light I bought could be used for a 40 gallon if I decided to upgrade juuuust in case...

 

[92Miata]

If you bought aquacultured live rock, and you don't do water changes - and let it ride through high ammonia, you're going to lose a lot of what you paid extra for.

There is absolutely nothing to be gained by letting ammonia rise here. The rock doesn't need to cycle. You just need to get rid of the nutrients that are from things dieing in shipping. The people telling you that water changes will slow down your cycle don't understand the difference between aquacultured rock and crappy base rock/dry rock. There is no cycle. The rock already has a full complement of denitrifying bacteria.

KPAquatics specifcally tells you not to let ammonia rise over 1ppm.

Aquacultured Live Rock - KP Aquatics

Aquacultured live rock is one of our specialties. You will get one of the best live rock available in the industry. Forget about painted rock with no life.

www.kpaquatics.com

.

 

[RobB'z Reef]

There will be a good amount of die off and ammonia spike. Pretty normal for live live rock. I’ve ordered live rock from KPA twice now and had crazy high ammonia and die off. I did do a couple 50% water changes at the very beginning bc it was pretty bad (ammonia was at like 4 right before I did the water changes) and I hoped to have at least some of the critters survive.

This is my experience as well, cycling rock from kp at this moment. A sharp rise, but after a few water changes of about 50% it's coming down slowly. It's only been two weeks and it really takes a good month I think.

 

[FlyingPotato]

Okay, I'll keep ammonia low and do lots of water changes. Most of the orange and red algae died overnight and my ammonia was at 1.5ppm this morning so I might have already done some damage unfortunately.

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

I knew it would definitely be a huge challenge to maintain a tank that small and I’m ready to face it. I would have converted my 40 gallon breeder instead of my 10 gallon but I didn’t have the funds to add 40 more pounds of rock, sand, more powerful power heads, a sump, protein skimmer, extra salt, an RODI unit, a glass lid for the tank, and all the extra stock. Not that I thought ahead and everything including the light I bought could be used for a 40 gallon if I decided to upgrade juuuust in case...

I hope that didn’t come across as being negative... I am basically still a beginner and am afraid of trying to maintain such a small ecosystem which is why I went with a 200 gallon tank... it is just more forgiving. Seriousl, nest of luck! : )

 

[FlyingPotato]

I hope that didn’t come across as being negative... I am basically still a beginner and am afraid of trying to maintain such a small ecosystem which is why I went with a 200 gallon tank... it is just more forgiving. Seriousl, nest of luck! : )

Not negative at all. Honestly, I wish I was warned when starting my first tank. It was 5 gallons and always impossibly hard to keep anything alive. Barely any equipment and I didnt get my first test kit until my third aquarium. I'm a couple years older, a little bit richer, and have way more knowledge. If all else fails I'll just upgrade. A 200 gallon system is impressive! Mine couldn't even be a sump .