Presence of ammonia in my QT

LaloJ

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So I have a 20 gallon quarantine tank that I set up a couple of months ago, store water from my partial water changes and some rock from the tank for several weeks before putting them in the QT tank. When I install it, just put in 50% water and 50% new water to start, put in a small wave generator and HOB filter, put in sponge to store bacteria and some ceramic rings from my main tank, that was in June , I have a couple of fish since last August 4th (Coral beauty angelfish % damselfish) and since always my ammonia test has read 0.25 ppm, I use API test and I have read about the false readings, but doing the ammonia test in my main tank has always shown 0 . Since I have fish the test has marked 0.50 on occasions, I have made water changes every 72 hours since I have them, fortunately they have never stopped eating and they are not sick either, I bought AmGuard from Seachem to help me a little, for several days I have I'm using after each water change, but I see that the ammonia readings still do not drop below 0.25, so does AmGuard alter the test result? Should I add more biological elements to my main tank? I have read that in 10 and 20 gallon tanks the biological filtration is poor, I think I realize that, by the way, every night I remove my fish waste and unused food, my tank has bare glass, PVC and rock , and if the fish show any signs of disease then they will be removed and treated in a hospital tank. I also change the mechanical filtration material daily since using AmGuard, so what am I doing wrong? I have thought about cleaning the HOB filter thoroughly, without touching the sponge or my ceramic rings, let me know your opinions.
 

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Are yoy seeing 0.25 with freshly mixed salt? If so, then ignore it. If you are worried, add a bottle of bacteria
 
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LaloJ

LaloJ

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I did the routine water change about 6 or 7 hours ago, I still haven't put the AmGuard in, I just measured the ammonia and it shows 0.25 ppm, I have never tested the ammonia level directly in freshly mixed water.
 

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I did the routine water change about 6 or 7 hours ago, I still haven't put the AmGuard in, I just measured the ammonia and it shows 0.25 ppm, I have never tested the ammonia level directly in freshly mixed water.

I would test the freshly mixed water as that should at least tell you something
 
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LaloJ

LaloJ

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So today I was able to test the freshly mixed water, it shows 0.25 ppm ammonia, I'm using instant ocean.
 

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So today I was able to test the freshly mixed water, it shows 0.25 ppm ammonia, I'm using instant ocean.
Instant Ocean has a tiny amount of ammonia. To put the problem in perspective, you are measuring total ammonia which is the total of ammonium plus free ammonia. Only the free ammonia is toxic. The proportion of free ammonia is a function of pH and temperature. Very roughly, there is less than 10% free ammonia at aquarium temperature and pH. In your case where you estimate 0.25 ppm total ammonia, the amount of free ammonia is 0.025 ppm, an amount that is not a concern but something to monitor. The Seachem ammonia alert badge is another way to monitor free ammonia, rather than calculating it from total ammonia.
 
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LaloJ

LaloJ

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Sure, I always had doubts about ammonia, but little by little I was solving my doubts and I find myself calm with the level at 0.25 ppm. I was thinking of putting a Seachem ammonia alert but on a hospital tank if it needs to be installed, I hope that is not the case. Personally I think that my QT skills to manage the levels and monitor the fish have improved, I feel calm now after I did not understand almost anything a while ago, and having lost 3 or 4 fish in QT due to poor execution.
 

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So today I was able to test the freshly mixed water, it shows 0.25 ppm ammonia, I'm using instant ocean.


In that case, I would ignore it. You can always get a better ammonia test if need be.
 
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LaloJ

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A few days ago I did not do a water change in the QT, the fish are approaching their exit to the main tank, I just wanted to measure the levels out of curiosity and I'm surprised that I have 0 ppm of ammonia in the tank, so this It means that something was probably causing a little sprout in the tank, I have no idea what it was but I'm glad the fish never had any problems, I had a lot of sponges growing on the rocks and now they have largely vanished, in fact I was expecting more ammonia now that the sponges die (I guess they die because they just disappear from the rock and many come off easily) but it wasn't like that, once again I don't know what happened but it was good to take it easy, nitrite too it was present in a low measure, perhaps 0.10 or 0.15 ppm after the power outage two days after Hurricane Grace, but it has also finally disappeared.
 

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