Hi Lasse, thank you for your post! I had quick glance at your thread. Just awesome!Its very interesting observations and there is some possible explanation to this. There is two sources for NH4/NH3 in a matured reef system - fish and bacteria. IMO - bacteria is the most important source in a mature reef with sand/DSB/lot of LS
The sponges you use for nitrification is a well known method in Europe - However - IMO - its important to have a fast flow through.
I have not the same opinion as Hans-Werner according to nitrification in a reef system - but he knows that so give him only a half like for his post I´m 100 % with him according to skimmers - however I run a skimmer in my tank (an oversized skimmer) but its only running for gas exchange and it is tuned in order to get as low amount of skimate as possible - just aerate. Maybe I empty 0.1 litre skimate every month or two.
Please come back with information: Your pH span during 24 hours , time when you measured 0.25 in NH4 compared with light on or off, pH at that time and method of measurements for NH4.
Sincerely Lasse
About flow in the sponge section, coincidentally, I put a small water pump to agitate a bit. I stop my wave flow at the main tank once or twice a day so that my slow-eating mandarinfish can eat things at the bottom of the tank. But when I do it for 10 minutes, gas exchange in the sump is lost. I wanted to prevent it.
Lasse, I don't have Apex system. So I can't do 24H monitoring, but I'm very curious about monitoring maybe once in 4 or 5 hours. I use the following test kits.
NH4 Tetra
NO3/NO4 Red Sea
PO4 Hanna
pH Tetra
I would like to replace those Tetra kits. My Tetra kits could be too old. So I'll have to start from searching alternative test kits for NH4 and pH. I have zero chamical knowledge, and I can't even do the guess work. So all I can do is just test. But if you can help me out from the data I got, that's great!