Tank transfer then ammonia spike at 0.25ppm.

alfieh0

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Hi there, a few days ago i transferred my 2 and a half year old 10 gallon tank with 2 clownfish and some corals and inverts into a 15 gallon. I transferred nearly all the water and nearly all the sand. I kept the same live rock, some biological filtration where the bacterial lives was lost but the majority i transferred over into my new tank. The only thing my new tank hasn't got is a refugium, which i didn't transfer over.

Today i have checked the water with text kits. My Nitrate is 0 but my ammonia is 0.25 according to API test kit. I did the ammonia test twice and its showing the same results. What can i do, i'm currently making some more salt water to preform a 10% water change. Should i go out and buy some bacteria to add to the tank?

Side note; would aqua scaping constriction epoxy cause this? As yesterday i had a disaster when trying to epoxy my rocks together. The tank got extremely cloudy. I haven't seen my clowns since.

Not had an ammonia spike like this before, could anyone please let me know how to solve this.
Thanks. Alfie.
 

Aclman88

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My guess is the sand bed being disturbed and then used again kicked up a ton of detritus which is why you might be seeing that spike. Also, as stated, API isn’t the greatest and I have definitely gotten false ammonia readings on an established tank.
 
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alfieh0

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I'm sure @brandon429 will tell you but the API ammonia test kit is garbage. Get a better test kit and maybe dose start up bacteria as a precaution (that's what I did).
Thanks for the response. Going to get some bacteria tonight to add, just in case.
I'll also get a new ammonia test kit, any recommendations for ammonia kits, i use Salifert for the rest of the chemical test in my tank, but i just didn't like how you have to test NH3 and NH4 separately with Salifert.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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No bac needed buy nothing

no new tests are needed for ammonia, after tank transfers spikes are resolved in minutes not hours, no new testing is needed

the spike self resolves in fifteen mins and the test isn’t likely to ever show it back down. It’s simply ok. No reef tank can hold at .25 its physically impossible due to the active surface area we use.

how we know how fast ammonia spikes are resolved: seneye owners in the dosing liquid ammonia into full reef tanks thread. About five mins actually.
 
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brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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Transferring old sand can kill your entire reef make sure next time not to, not worth the risk. It usually works ok, but a few % of the time it’s total loss of fish. Whether or not epoxy curing causes the cloud is independent from the substrate transfer. There is no lack of bacteria, adding the bottle bac is bad not good because it competes for o2 and has no place to attach, it’ll just float in the water competing for air. Proceed with no new purchase is best

you were able to transfer old sand in this case, reef onward
 
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brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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@40g Nano can you post a pic of your api ran on your reef tank we are collecting visuals on api read pics for another comparison thread, to show how the kits vary slightly tank to tank for bottom end reads.
 
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alfieh0

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Transferring old sand can kill your entire reef make sure next time not to, not worth the risk. It usually works ok, but a few % of the time it’s total loss of fish. Whether or not epoxy curing causes the cloud is independent from the substrate transfer. There is no lack of bacteria, adding the bottle bac is bad not good because it competes for o2 and has no place to attach, it’ll just float in the water competing for air. Proceed with no new purchase is best

you were able to transfer old sand in this case, reef onward
Thanks for your response. I cleaned the sand out before i added it into the tank, but i guess it still has potential to cause the ammonia spike. The cloud was definitely from the epoxy, as when i started molding it, the cloud appeared, worried it may have killed some bacterial due to low oxygen levels, as on the epoxy packet it says if there is a cloud it may lower oxygen, could have this killed the bacteria? or would have fish died before the bacteria?
So no need for any bacteria supplementing then, what about a 10% water change?
 
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alfieh0

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My guess is the sand bed being disturbed and then used again kicked up a ton of detritus which is why you might be seeing that spike. Also, as stated, API isn’t the greatest and I have definitely gotten false ammonia readings on an established tank.
Thanks for your reply, have heard a lot about API ammonia kit being inaccurate, its just because normally i get a 0 result. I tried to clean the sand as best i could before adding it into the tank. But i guess it still has potential to release detritus and cause the ammonia spike.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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Water change is ideal agreed

no combo of events has harmed your bacteria the reading is false from the kit, it’s an over report. You could likely get zero on drinking water but that means nothing about the reef, it’s over reporting basic nitrification as it does in 80% of tests
 

brandon429

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In any system lacking true nitrification due to any cause, all fish will be dead in 48 hrs. When you mentioned a few days ago, that shows all filtration is fine
 

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