Quaratine Tank - Ammonia

[Kiala]

Hi,

I am upgrading to a reefer 425 and I cycled the tank using a prawn and dry rock, took about 2 months to complete the cycle- at the same time I had added media for a hob filter in the sump for my quarantine tank as planned to get a one spot foxface and wanted to seed the media whilst the tank was cycling. It's been aprox. 3 months now and nothings been added from my old tank to the reefer, however as the tank is cycled and I am planning on adding my fish to the new tank soon I decided to go ahead and get a foxface and quarantine it whilst I sort the move from the other tank out.

Anyway, its been in qt for 3 days now. I checked ammonia yesterday using API test kit and was reading 0, checked again today and its reading 0.25. So I took a very very small bit of the rock from the reefer out and added it to the qt about 5 hours ago, but still reading 0.25, so it's obviously too small a piece- but I can't really remove any more. I've got an ammonia alert badge on the tank which hasn't changed at all, although I don't entirely trust it anyway, have never used one.

Just wondering what I should do, am getting water ready for water change, but it's not going to be ready until tomorrow probably. I've got a bottle of ATM Colony here, but I've never used it before and I'm a bit worried about using it with the fish already in the tank. Also my pH has dropped to 7.8 and it says pH has to be 7.9 upwards to be effective.

Should I use the Colony anyway? I've never used it before so like I said not sure if its ok whilst the fish is in the tank. Or should I wait until tomorrow and do a wc?

TIA

 

[Eagle_Steve]

With the API test kit there is a large margin of error. I use 2 badges in my setups and have never had any issues with them. Also do you have any copper in the QT right now? If so the test kit will give a false result. As for the media you seeded, how large was it? In my QT setup I use about a 5"x4" square of sponge it the HOB and then a 3"x4" sponge tucked under where it overflows to the tank. These were of course seeded in the sump, as there are always a few in there.

In some instances where I had a few more fish then I should have, I have had to add more sponges and seed the QT with bac in a bottle. BioSpira is easily available where I am, so I have used that when a small ammonia spike is noticed. Being as I treat with copper from day 1 of arrival, an ammonia binder like prime is out of the question for me.

Edit: If there was no copper and you were not planning on copper for a bit, you could use it, and then wait a few days for it to become inert in the sense of changing copper to a toxic state. After a few days copper can be added, just be sure to never add any ammonia binder, water treatment to remove chlorine, etc with copper.

 

[Crazeh]

Have you got any prime you could dose to detoxify the ammonia?

I think you'll be ok to add the ATM but I've not used it before, so strongly suggest someone else confirm first. You'll want media in there for the bacteria to establish on.

Keep on top of water changes - I suggest doing one right before the ATM as you won't want to do one immediately after.

 

[Kiala]

Yeah the API test kits aren't great, just the fact that it did show up as zero yday is making me think it's probably right. I've tested a few times today and each has been .25. I haven't started treatment yet, I wanted to give it a few days to start eating and settle a bit and then I was going to start with fluke treatment first anyway. It's just the media that came with the filter there's two sponges and some biomass stuff aswell. I've got some prime here, but I know colony works for a lot of people so was wondering if that would be better

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I think colony is the one with the shark on the front, right? If so I have used it in the past and it worked. It took a couple days to get going good, but worked. If you are gonna wait a few days, put the colony in and add a little prime. You should be fine as long as the colony works. Water change works as well since no meds are in the tank, this is if you didn’t want to use prime.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I think colony is the one with the shark on the front, right? If so I have used it in the past and it worked. It took a couple days to get going good, but worked. If you are gonna wait a few days, put the colony in and add a little prime. You should be fine as long as the colony works. Water change works as well since no meds are in the tank, this is if you didn’t want to use prime.

Meant to add, you may need some more sponges for surface area. The bac may not have enough space to colonize for you ammonia load.

 

[Kiala]

Yeah it is. I just wasn't sure whether or not mixing prime and colony would work. I've got some spare sponges from an inbuilt juwel rio filter I removed from another tank. I could add those with the colony and put an airstone near them?

 

[MnFish1]

Hi,

I am upgrading to a reefer 425 and I cycled the tank using a prawn and dry rock, took about 2 months to complete the cycle- at the same time I had added media for a hob filter in the sump for my quarantine tank as planned to get a one spot foxface and wanted to seed the media whilst the tank was cycling. It's been aprox. 3 months now and nothings been added from my old tank to the reefer, however as the tank is cycled and I am planning on adding my fish to the new tank soon I decided to go ahead and get a foxface and quarantine it whilst I sort the move from the other tank out.

Anyway, its been in qt for 3 days now. I checked ammonia yesterday using API test kit and was reading 0, checked again today and its reading 0.25. So I took a very very small bit of the rock from the reefer out and added it to the qt about 5 hours ago, but still reading 0.25, so it's obviously too small a piece- but I can't really remove any more. I've got an ammonia alert badge on the tank which hasn't changed at all, although I don't entirely trust it anyway, have never used one.

Just wondering what I should do, am getting water ready for water change, but it's not going to be ready until tomorrow probably. I've got a bottle of ATM Colony here, but I've never used it before and I'm a bit worried about using it with the fish already in the tank. Also my pH has dropped to 7.8 and it says pH has to be 7.9 upwards to be effective.

Should I use the Colony anyway? I've never used it before so like I said not sure if its ok whilst the fish is in the tank. Or should I wait until tomorrow and do a wc?

TIA

If you are trying to QT - I think its best not to add rock from the display. Firstly - the rock will absorb any medication you're putting in - secondly if there are issues in your DT - it will spread to your QT (less likely)

 

[Salt1972]

I'm 8 days into our first quarantine and we're BATTLING ammonia as well. We have 5 Lyretail Anthias in a 20g L with a HOB, Powerhead, and an Airstone. We are also using Sea Chem badge - so far it has been pretty accurate next to our Red Sea Ammonia test kit. We have been doing water changes almost every day - 10 - 18g. I'm trying to resist the urge to put them in the display. Trying to maintain these fish in a small tank without a mature nitrogen cycle is daunting.

 

[Kiala]

Hi MnFish1,

It was literally like a piece of rock rubble or a the equivolant of a few pieces of rock rubble that I added, not what I would call a proper rock, I didn't really expect it to do much, but I had to leave and the pH was too low to add colony, plus I wanted more opinions on adding colony before doing it. I also forgot about prime so I just panicked a bit and thought it wouldnt hurt especially because the ammonia level may actually be much smaller than 0.25 if the badge isn't registering it and the api test only begins at 0.25.

I didn't want to use any larger pieces because I know I can't put them back in the dt and because I know they will absorb meds. Also the rock is from a completely new tank none of my other fish have been moved to yet because I'm waiting for pod populations to increase and I'm taking it very slowly for this upgrade.

Salt1972, yeah I didn't want to add too many fish into qt, I thought the media I seeded that came with the filter would be sufficient because it's only a very small foxface, but I guess not.

I've added prime for now, I've got water mixed and heating up for a wc tomorrow, then will add more sponges and colony and hopefully things improve. I'm a bit worried just because the foxface is breathing rapidly and showing stress colours anytime I go in to the room, but I'm not sure if that's just because it's really stressed or because there's some sort of parasite or because of the ammonia :s

From what I've read they just seem to get pretty stressed anyway and breathing rapidly may just be "normal" in the context that it's in a strange tank it doesn't like much and because I'm in the room. Resisting the urge to just put it into the main tank is difficult, but I'd at least like to treat it for flukes and observe it a bit first, but it seems as though it's going to be impossible to tell if it's acting normally or not due to how stressed it is at the moment

 

[4FordFamily]

I use BioSpira to help cycle QT tanks. Allegedly fritz turbo start 9000 is even better, @Dr. Reef has found it to be phenomenal during his testing.

I would avoid prime in quarantine tanks where meds will he used.

 

[Kiala]

I just added the prime because I'm going to do a decent wc tomorrow and then possibly add colony, will have to see how things go. I've never really used prime before for this purpose, only as a dechloronator for my newt/ freshwater tanks. I can't get biospira in any local shops, I did try when I was cycling the reefer, but nowhere sells it. Ended up with pro bio I think or whatever the one from aquaforest is... dunno if it did much tbh