Unknown Ammonia Spike

[KMcGill]

Hey all,

Relative beginner here, I am having an issue that I think is just an issue with the test kit. I have a Biocube 32 that was cycled about three months ago and all levels have been fine until one day ammonia spiked to .50ppm (Using API). I started the tank using API and have slowly been upgrading to Hanna. I have done about a 10-15% water change for the last three days but the levels do not change (using API). The issue is I am waiting on the Hanna tester reagent to come in the mail. I used the last of my Hanna stuff on a Red Sea reefer 350 as it’s starting its cycle. I am confused on the spike and have seen in the past huge differences in the results between my Hanna and the API. Should I be doing anything different or what am I missing?

I have not added anything recently but coral and I have an in house plumed in RO/DI system. None of the livestock looks to be hurting or unhappy.

Biocube 32 equipment
- protein skimmer
-intank media/filter insert
-seachem Matrix
-carbon
-intank refugium
-chaeto
-hygger heaters
- galaxypods (added long before the livestock)
-Red Sea coral pro salt used


livestock
-1 DaVinci clown
-1 royal Gramma
-1 fire goby
-1 cleaner shrimp
-5 Small scarlet hermit crabs
-2 tiger conches
-5 snails
-2 turbo snails
-torch coral
-star polyps
-pulsating Xenia
-clove polyps-
-Duncan’s

Levels
Ammonia- .50 (API)
Nitrite- 0.00 (API)
Nitrate- 0.00 (API)
Phosphate- 0.00 (Hanna)
Calcium- 440 (API)
Alkalinity- 9.5 (Hanna)
Salinity - 1.025
Ph- 8.0 (API)
Temp- 77.5-78.9

 

[TX_REEF]

API could easily yield false results based on advice I’ve heard here. Are you certain nothing has changed? Nothing died? Did you do any scape changes or stir up sand? It’s simply impossible for it to spike for no reason, try to think about anything that may have happened or changed

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

I expect you're right about it being a test kit issue - a number of different Ammonia tests are known for reading 0.25-0.5 when Ammonia levels are actually (for our purposes) 0. Personally, I wouldn't worry about the Ammonia at all at this point.

As a general rule of thumb (partially brought about by the false readings), you don't need to test Ammonia in a cycled tank unless something died in the tank. You also don't need to worry about testing Nitrite really at all in a saltwater tank.

That said, your nutrients levels (Nitrate and Phosphate) are low, and that can potentially cause issues with your corals, so you may want to hold off on the water changes for a little bit or potentially adjust your tank's nutrient input/output.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Hey all,

Relative beginner here, I am having an issue that I think is just an issue with the test kit. I have a Biocube 32 that was cycled about three months ago and all levels have been fine until one day ammonia spiked to .50ppm (Using API). I started the tank using API and have slowly been upgrading to Hanna. I have done about a 10-15% water change for the last three days but the levels do not change (using API). The issue is I am waiting on the Hanna tester reagent to come in the mail. I used the last of my Hanna stuff on a Red Sea reefer 350 as it’s starting its cycle. I am confused on the spike and have seen in the past huge differences in the results between my Hanna and the API. Should I be doing anything different or what am I missing?

I have not added anything recently but coral and I have an in house plumed in RO/DI system. None of the livestock looks to be hurting or unhappy.

Biocube 32 equipment
- protein skimmer
-intank media/filter insert
-seachem Matrix
-carbon
-intank refugium
-chaeto
-hygger heaters
- galaxypods (added long before the livestock)
-Red Sea coral pro salt used


livestock
-1 DaVinci clown
-1 royal Gramma
-1 fire goby
-1 cleaner shrimp
-5 Small scarlet hermit crabs
-2 tiger conches
-5 snails
-2 turbo snails
-torch coral
-star polyps
-pulsating Xenia
-clove polyps-
-Duncan’s

Levels
Ammonia- .50 (API)
Nitrite- 0.00 (API)
Nitrate- 0.00 (API)
Phosphate- 0.00 (Hanna)
Calcium- 440 (API)
Alkalinity- 9.5 (Hanna)
Salinity - 1.025
Ph- 8.0 (API)
Temp- 77.5-78.9

Stop. Testing. Ammonia.
It's not necessary once the tank is initially cycled unless you're adding a bunch of fish all at once (and don't do that, lol)

 

[brandon429]

These are among my top favorite troubleshoot threads in all reefing let me tell you why

we all copy the same surface area setups pretty much tank to tank…one gallon pico or 180 gallon reef it’s still rock stacked or arched in a middle contact display where wastewater is quickly handled

it doesn’t just fall back, or starve, or cease to function one day

however, there’s a documented phenomena where non digital test kit misreadings cause total unfounded doubt in ones biosystem

I have a collection of ammonia misreads

Sustained Ammonia spikes are misreads

The reason you think your reef tank can’t control its ammonia is due to false training from old cycling science. That and you don’t own a seneye on the tank in question: if you did, you wouldn’t ever think your ammonia was out of control...

www.reef2reef.com

the #1 thing all ammonia misreads have in common is they aren’t a digital reading posted from a calibrated meter. They are color chart interpretations from nh4 readings that haven’t been converted yet, I don’t think for one second your tank has an ammonia lag. Even a minor overfeeding event has transient rise and fall, all the variances are kept in check

non digital test kits take a long lag time to fall back into line and they almost never read zero ammonia in a running reef tank

because nh4 is ten times higher than nh3, and nh3 is what reefing wants to know.



when people report numbers from a non digital test kit, they’re automatically ten times overstated compared to an nh3 conversion in ammonia levels if it’s the common api or Red Sea kit

this is why loss of bioload isn’t in the title

it’s always a post about what a non digital kit says, that’s the top link among ammonia noncontrol posts with no known input sources for boosted ammonia so I voted no issue.

post a tank shot for the win: clean water

even placed fish (vs hovering at the top)

inverts open and active, no dark zones of rot visible, all fish accounted for…those pic details are what we collect in the thread as the misread proof. All ammonia alert tanks look fine and run fine because it’s a misread. It’s the kits inability to rise and fall in precise increments due to common daily fluctuations in ammonia levels in reef systems. They don’t run at zero ammonia, several factors from the test kits combine to make a false alert in display tanks.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Stop. Testing. Ammonia.
It's not necessary once the tank is initially cycled unless you're adding a bunch of fish all at once (and don't do that, lol)

Or, as @ISpeakForTheSeas said, something dies and you can't remove it, you dump in a whole container of pellets, etc.

 

[littlefoxx]

Stop. Testing. Ammonia.
It's not necessary once the tank is initially cycled unless you're adding a bunch of fish all at once (and don't do that, lol)

Okay so Ive heard this a lot on the form recently. LFS and my cousin stress the importance of testing ammonia. So what exactly does this do in a cycled tank? Like why is it not recommended to test for? I just dont understand (I also am not good with chemistry in general if Im being honest) so sometimes the scientific explanations just dont make sense to me. If someone could explain please

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Okay so Ive heard this a lot on the form recently. LFS and my cousin stress the importance of testing ammonia. So what exactly does this do in a cycled tank? Like why is it not recommended to test for? I just dont understand (I also am not good with chemistry in general if Im being honest) so sometimes the scientific explanations just dont make sense to me. If someone could explain please

In a cycled tank, Ammonia should be safely turning from Ammonia to Nitrate, so unless something massively disrupts the nutrient input, Ammonia should remain (for our purposes here) 0.

Just to put this out there - the Nitrogen Cycle goes:

Ammonia to Nitrite to Nitrate ( and then to Nitrogen Gas)

"This conversion from ammonia to nitrite to nitrate to nitrogen gas is known as the nitrogen cycle."*

*Source:

Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services

Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

www.fdacs.gov

Edit: To add, basically it's not recommended because it's not necessary, and - because of false readings - it tends to cause people to stress/panic when nothing is actually wrong. So, it's usually better to just not test it.

 

[littlefoxx]

In a cycled tank, Ammonia should be safely turning from Ammonia to Nitrate, so unless something massively disrupts the nutrient input, Ammonia should remain (for our purposes here) 0.

Ah okay I see thank you

 

[littlefoxx]

In a cycled tank, Ammonia should be safely turning from Ammonia to Nitrate, so unless something massively disrupts the nutrient input, Ammonia should remain (for our purposes here) 0.


Edit: To add, basically it's not recommended because it's not necessary, and - because of false readings - it tends to cause people to stress/panic when nothing is actually wrong. So, it's usually better to just not test it.

Ah okay this makes sense. So what does that mean for water changes then? I was told if any ammonia is seen (as you said the colors could be off) I do a water change. Is this more harmful than good?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Ah okay this makes sense. So what does that mean for water changes then? I was told if any ammonia is seen (as you said the colors could be off) I do a water change. Is this more harmful than good?

Unless you have genuinely high Ammonia for some odd reason (like a dead thing in the tank, way too many pellets in the tank, etc.), you shouldn't need to do a water change for Ammonia. Changing water for a false high reading wouldn't be harmful unless it bottoms out your nutrients or something.

People do use water changes to help with nutrient export (i.e. lowering Nitrate and Phosphate levels), and it would help lower high Ammonia levels too, but again, it shouldn't be needed for Ammonia unless there's an emergency situation.

 

[littlefoxx]

Unless you have genuinely high Ammonia for some odd reason (like a dead thing in the tank, way too many pellets in the tank, etc.), you shouldn't need to do a water change for Ammonia. Changing water for a false high reading wouldn't be harmful unless it bottoms out your nutrients or something.

People do use water changes to help with nutrient export (i.e. lowering Nitrate and Phosphate levels), and it would help lower high Ammonia levels too, but again, it shouldn't be needed for Ammonia unless there's an emergency situation.

Gotcha! That makes sense thank you!

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Okay so Ive heard this a lot on the form recently. LFS and my cousin stress the importance of testing ammonia. So what exactly does this do in a cycled tank? Like why is it not recommended to test for? I just dont understand (I also am not good with chemistry in general if Im being honest) so sometimes the scientific explanations just dont make sense to me. If someone could explain please

For all intents and purposes, the absence of ammonia is what tells you a tank is cycled.

 

[KrisReef]

For all intents and purposes, the absence of ammonia is what tells you a tank is cycled.

And then there is the special case when a reefer trying to Cycle a new tank and they keep adding Mr Clean's Ammonia Starter to their tank because they want to make sure it's really, really cycled.

I think if you add enough ammonia the tank may actually uncycle if you add enough to mimic the atmospher of either Jupiter or Saturn?

But generally, tanks on earth don't have a lot of ammonia in them if the fish are still swimming normally and the water isn't cloudy.

 

[brandon429]

Need full tank picture to see if the predictions line up then I'll add this to that thread as another example of false alarm from nh4 non digital test kit

 

[KMcGill]

API could easily yield false results based on advice I’ve heard here. Are you certain nothing has changed? Nothing died? Did you do any scape changes or stir up sand? It’s simply impossible for it to spike for no reason, try to think about anything that may have happened or changed

Ya I have also read they (API) can indicate false results. I use Aquarimate and track and note every change I make in the tank, and all livestock is accounted for.

 

[brandon429]

along with the full tank pic can you take a new reading of the ammonia tube and comparison card and post those so we can tie it all in

 

[KMcGill]

Need full tank picture to see if the predictions line up then I'll add this to that thread as another example of false alarm from nh4 non digital test kit

 

[brandon429]

all predictions for the pic are in place and were the day of the event as well is the solid bet based on precedent linked in the ammonia false reading thread.

what caused your issue was old cycling science rules (that ammonia must always be zero, it's not in reefing) and a non digital test kit, there was never a cycle issue here.

Dr. Tim's has a video on the internet from macna teaching us old cycling science, that reef water doesn't have nitrifying bacteria and that nitrite must be factored in a reef tank cycle to make sure it doesn't stall. There's a big sales industry revolving around old cycling science because it always makes people doubt their bacteria, and they sell things to remedy that concern (bottle bac, if people believe in cycle stalling they buy multiple bottles to 'unstick')

what we've shown in the false alert collection is that basing a cycle's status at any time on a non digital ammonia testing kit is asking for problems.

 

[brandon429]

any feeding event can cause those spikes you see, or odd test variables such as holding the dropper sideways vs straight up and down to get smaller drops of reagent. the time we wait to make the reported ammonia level must be per directions, most just take the reading and post the first color noted. so many variables.

what a calibrated seneye would register as .002 changing to .007 then back down to .002 within 2 minutes, the feed spike example, api would show as .25 ppm changing to nearly solid green and holding for days...some kits will show a quicker rebound rate but not all of them

the noncompliant kits are the ones that make up all the thousands of false cycle stall threads



updated cycling science does not use testing whatsoever for ammonia and nitrite for any type of cycle, that's why it's so handy. it lets reefers focus on fish disease preps skipped, fallow and quarantine, as the real sneak attack coming for their fish. it's not the biofilter that is the risk in most setups. how they prepped against cryto and brook and uro is the real concern

the reason updated cycling science does not need testing is because we can solve a cycle by knowing how long it takes for filtration bacteria to seat among a given set of surface area in a reef tank, we didn't have to measure (and risk misreads to throw off course) to get the terminal ready date. every cycling chart ever published in a book all show the same ammonia control date for just that reason.


and ammonia doesn't rise back up after it drops on a cycling chart for a reason, we have to get away from API or red sea ammonia kit use to believe those rules of biofilter control in reefing.