What is going on with my ammonia tests?

[AlohaReef]

Hey reefers! I'm doing a fish in cycle, about 2 weeks in. I started with live sand a chunk of live rock and a bottle of One & Only & a damsel per my lfs recommendations. ( will be doing fishless cycling in the future now that I know better). Anyway, my ammonia is starting to spike. 2 days ago it was at .51 . What confuses me, is the seachem badge that clearly reads safe levels in the background. I realize the Hanna checkers test all ammonia & the seachem only tests NH3. I don't have all of my testers in yet so I don't have my ph and thus can't determine my NH3 til Thursday. I'm assuming my pH is low since the seachem test isn't reading much? Anything to be concerned about here? Fish seems completely fine btw.

 

[Fish Fan]

I know you've posted before about the SeaChem Ammonia Badge. I'd ditch it, and use your Hanna Checker.

 

[AlohaReef]

There's a difference between the Hanna and the seachem though, and seachem only tests for NH3, which is the ammonia toxic to fish, and hanna tests for both NH3 & NH4+. The Nh3 is correllated to ph, so you can calculate the nh3 using some math if you know your pH. I will update this post when my pH checker comes and see what is happening. From what I hear, the seachem is a fairly reliable test.

 

[Miami Reef]

I actually really like the seachem ammonia badge.

The badge vs the checker are measuring different things, but they both equal the same low levels that won’t kill fish.

Here are some useful quotes from Randy:

Seachem alert is detecting and reporting free ammonia (assuming their claim is correct).

At pH 8.1, 0.2 ppm NH3 corresponds to about 3.7 ppm total ammonia. That would not seem to kill, but may be very stressful.
At pH 8.1, 0.5 ppm NH3 corresponds to 9 ppm total ammonia. That's approaching the kill zone.

Higher pH makes these worse. lower pH makes them less toxic.

In a QT tank, I'd change water at 0.2 ppm NH3 and above.

I would not do anything special about a Hanna reading of 0.5 ppm or less total ammonia. It takes more than 10 ppm total ammonia to kill a fish.

Basically, your tank is cycled. You can add more fish if you’d want; ammonia poisoning isn’t likely going to happen since the nitrifying bacteria will quickly reproduce to handle the bioload IMO.

 

[AlohaReef]

I actually really like the seachem ammonia badge.

The badge vs the checker are measuring different things, but they both equal the same low levels that won’t kill fish.

Here are some useful quotes from Randy:





Basically, your tank is cycled. You can add more fish if you’d want; ammonia poisoning isn’t likely going to happen since the nitrifying bacteria will quickly reproduce to handle the bioload IMO.

Awesome!!!