Tank transer - stressed clownfish and raised ammonia.

[LucasRe]

Hi guys,

I upgraded a newly cycled 200L tank to a 500L system two days ago, I noticed this evening that my ammonia was above 0 (0.2ppm) and that my two clowns were exhibiting some stressful behavior (mainly swimming erratically (both still eating)) . All material from the original tank was moved to the new tank including the sand, I added some bacter gen m after the tank transfer was complete and have added some each day since. The other parameters I tested are;

Ammonia: 0.2ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 2ppm
Temp: 26C
PH: 8.2
Salinity: 1.022 (Lower than it was in my original tank (1.025)?)

How worried should I be? There's just the two clowns in the tank right now. Any advice is hugely appreciated.

 

[lapin]

Did you rinse the sand?
There could be harmful bacteria trapped in the sand. When you moved the sand the bacteria was released

 

[brandon429]

even a brief spike for ammonia legit caused in the move resolves within about 15 mins, there is no extended ammonia issues possible in reefing. if you are overnite then its already safe, and agreed they might be mad from the stress.

 

[brandon429]

regarding the .2

about five thousand running reefs post that off red sea currently, not uncommon. likely swirling metabolites still, reading as ammonia, but not.

the water would be cloudy, smelly, they'd be dead is how we know. agreed they were likely initially burned on the xfer, but these self resolve in 15 mins. the readers take days or weeks to stop misreading, and for some, never. .2 is the best they'll ever see, it depends on conditions. the way we know about true uptake rates is the dosing ammonia thread in the chem forum where they track uptake rates from reefs dosed ammonia for strong feeding option (because its a very potent source of nitrogen for quick feed and uptake)

a recently moved reef still uptakes free ammonia at the same rate, but the move might have overcame it agreed very likely.