Q tank ammonia spikes.

[JessKaye]

Hi everyone,

A friend of a friend recently shut down their tank due to a leak so I decided to take on an adult clownfish pair and 3 blue green chromis. I set up a 90L tote for the clowns and a 52L tote for the chromis and added a large piece of live rock from my main tank into each (about 1.5kg each) and then a sponge filter in both, the sponge had been in my canister. But every 24 hours I’m getting 0.5ppm ammonia building up. Ive been doing daily large water changes (about 50%, maybe a tad more). But still getting to same reading next day.

Any advice on making this sustainable? Daily water changes is going to be exhausting (and expensive!). Do I give up on the q tanks and take the risk of adding them? How do people run q tanks without this headache?

Thanks :) Jess

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

You did not mention a powerhead? There must be water movement, it shouldn't be stagnant.

I'm also not sure how much filtration one rock can handle until the rest of the tote cycles, I would feed sparingly and I might add more rock.

 

[JessKaye]

You did not mention a powerhead? There must be water movement, it shouldn't be stagnant.

I'm also not sure how much filtration one rock can handle until the rest of the tote cycles, I would feed sparingly and I might add more rock.

Sorry of course there is a heater and water movement in both tanks, sorry I specifically was focusing on the issue at hand and forgot to mention those!

 

[martin.a]

I had a similar problem with two 80L q-tanks. Both were started with media cured in display's sump, and both struggled with ammonia for first 3 weeks. Not as dramatically perhaps, under 0.2 ppm total ammonia, but still I was a bit surprised and worried. I was emergency dosing ReefAlicious Live Bacteria which was helping for a short time and needed daily dosing.

Someone on R2R said that whatever you do a tank needs 3 weeks to cycle and settle. Probably a generalization, but I am going to follow this advise next time.

 

[Fish Fan]

What are you using for testing? The API brand ammonia test kit often reports like 0.25 ppm or even 0.50 ppm when the concentration is likely lower (such as in a mature, running tank).

Either way, if real or not, 0.50 ppm ammonia isn't dangerous. I wouldn't worry about it until it hits about 1.00 ppm, then I'd do water changes to lower it.

There are members of this forum that dose 0.25 ppm ammonia to their tanks daily to raise nitrate.

Good luck!

 

[Uncle99]

+1 above.
Perfectly stated.