Would it be helpful to test for ammonia in my tank after adding fish to ensure I'm not stressing my bio-filter by adding too much at once? If so, how long after the addition would a potential spike occur?
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I have a long and complete answer in my head but let me first ask how you cycled your system. I am also interested in how quickly ammonia is consumed in your system.Would it be helpful to test for ammonia in my tank after adding fish to ensure I'm not stressing my bio-filter by adding too much at once? If so, how long after the addition would a potential spike occur?
No. I transferred two perc clowns into my new, ( 3mo), 150 gal. tank which has about a dozen small fish. I'm planning to move my 7" PBT in though and I'm looking for a chance to use my new Hanna ammonia test kit lol. How long after the addition do you think ammonia would appear if it were going to?You can but I wouldn't worry unless you added a lot (or a big fish. Is this the first fish?
No. I transferred two perc clowns into my new, ( 3mo), 150 gal. tank which has about a dozen small fish. I'm planning to move my 7" PBT in though and I'm looking for a chance to use my new Hanna ammonia test kit lol. How long after the addition do you think ammonia would appear if it were going to?
150 gal. 100 lbs CaribSea LifeRock, 80 lbs AragAlive sand. Turbo 900 x2, Nitrocycle until ammonia registered zero then re-dosed it once or twice until ammonia could be eliminated in 2-3 days after dosed up to 1.0 ppm. , and nitrites negative. Immediately added pods and a few small fish. Dosing phyto daily and pods doing well. Phosphates have always been 0.0 and nitrates have fallen from 11 to 0.0 over the past couple of weeks despite heavy feeding. Started adding Tropic Marin Plus-NP last week with no change yet. Sorry for the long post but you promised a long thoughtful response so I wanted to make sure you had plenty of details to work with. Thanks so much.I have a long and complete answer in my head but let me first ask how you cycled your system. I am also interested in how quickly ammonia is consumed in your system.
If you elect to test for ammonia after cycling a display tank, concerned that slight moves will undo your cycle, expect your enjoyment of reefing to go down due to false mistrust. What non digital test kits do when you make small changes in the tank will drive you to the biggest snipe hunt you'll ever see in the hobby. It'll remove your entire willingness to factor any sort of disease management; hyperfocus on ammonia control is a surefire way to unenjoyment of the hobby.
But if you agree that no testing of ammonia is required post cycle because display reefs run plenty of surface area, and bioload increases aren't a problem due to this abundance, and you apply all concerns to quarantine of the bioload you just added so you stay clear of the causatives found in Jay's disease forum, expect your enjoyment of reefing to go up.
All the loss pattern you can find in post searches for losses after adding a bioload change are due to disease imports. Nobody has a reef tank on the tipping point of bioload carry. There are youtube videos of tanks so ridiculously overstocked with fish that still run days on end without a crash, we shouldn't have such a concern in the dilution + surface area + stock ratios of tanks from the boards.
It's a Hanna test kit and I've used it once for a random test when nothing significant was going on with the tank. The result was a total ammonia of 0.07 which corresponds to an NH3 level of 0.003. An insignificant amount I would imagine.No nerve struck its awesome you can provide digital data we like that
If it's the seachem one please do, we're building logs of how those read in your tank
What does your ammonia run now curious to know
*don't take umbrage to the disease relay, it's merely a summary of info you can clearly see in Jay's forum and likely already applied
That is exactly what a seneye would run
Given your tank age, bioload, surface area (we haven't seen pics yet but a reef is a reef) that reading calibrates your hanna to be used on all kinds of cycling experiments, including biofilter stress tests. Anything you want to log and relate to changes made in the tank, sand cleaning events, big water changes, will really benefit the hobby.
With that meter you'll be able to see how quickly other systems cycle up, you'll be able to watch your own system ensure challenge events just shy of a big fish loss without any issues exactly like an ammonia shock absorber system
If it helps to know, Dr Tim discussed in posts a few times now that adding new bioload doesn't mean more bacteria form; current ones simply go into a faster metabolic production mode and its in instant response to + new bioload
There is of course a tipping point for any reef; in the ratios we all copy we don't have to worry about approaching that tipping point and you are among the rare folks with the meter to verify that ability.
Where would I document these readings you're interested in?One thing is for sure- if you're at .07 nh4 and MrSW was .19 steady, you've got some room to go.
MR Sw's reef was no where near a tipping point himself. So, if his meter posted something like .23 nobody could freak on that minor variance either, .19 is a significant increase above .07 in the realm of nh3 control and both these tanks are fine and healthy within that variance
So far, we're seeing .07-.19 nh4 reported by that meter, in two fully cycled reefs. The pattern logs are now building. That's kind of a large range, not impressed/ but I'd rather know hanna data over api or red sea