What would cause low ammonia and high nitrates to switch numbers?

Miami Reef

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I had 0 ammonia and 50ppm nitrates.

Now I have 0.25 ammonia (salifert)
And 2ppm nitrates.

I understand the ammonia spike...but why would nitrates drop?

Prime is dosed on schedule until ammonia drops.
 

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I had 0 ammonia and 50ppm nitrates.

Now I have 0.25 ammonia (salifert)
And 2ppm nitrates.

I understand the ammonia spike...but why would nitrates drop?

Prime is dosed on schedule until ammonia drops.
I imagine you’ve been getting high nitrate readings because there is actually nitrite in the water, which messes with the nitrate test. Now nitrite is gone, your getting a realistic nitrate reading, maybe.
 
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Miami Reef

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That sounds like a likely explanation to me.

Is this a new tank?
Is it true that dosing prime will cause false positives in a salifert test kit? I’m dosing prime (which I know doesn’t lower ammonia, just temporarily makes it not toxic)

I honestly expected ammonia to be gone by now.

My skimmer is coming today. Will this help remove ammonia too?
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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your ammonia is gone based on the test kit you read from, how its ran and prepared etc. room lighting, reagent wait time...so many variances possible.


use seneye report back
thats a matter of trimming it then looking at the readout. bet it'll say thousandths nh3 species.

cease dosing all prime, as no reef fails to control its ammonia after a cycle you are having a false ammonia alert concern.
 

brandon429

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also can you post a full tank shot so we can see your fish positioning and surface area details and water clarity for our ammonia alert pattern study thread. it runs on the tank pics as compared to the stated params.
 
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Miami Reef

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also can you post a full tank shot so we can see your fish positioning and surface area details and water clarity for our ammonia alert pattern study thread. it runs on the tank pics as compared to the stated params.
Do I post the picture here? Would a video be better?

How about my blue lights? Will they need to be turned to white for the pictures?
 
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Miami Reef

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F3419F9B-8D5E-40E8-8525-AE4905B13078.jpeg
EB15C691-3A18-448E-8858-23D945BE9DA3.jpeg
 

brandon429

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stunning!
and its quiet, silent, you had live room noise in that vid and its silent calm. that was a nice swap out on scaping you did a month or so back, looking sharp.
 
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Miami Reef

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Thank you. What do my fish look like? Do they look distressed from ammonia? The water is super super clear. Not much algae either.

The tank has prime so maybe that’s why they look ok?
 

brandon429

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In my opinion that reef will show thousandths ppm nh3 on a tuned, calibrated seneye. That is a known safe level we see nearly all reefs showing when digitally tested, I think it applies here because you and I discussed that reef even before you swapped out the major filtration components for the current setup and if you lacked cycle control, that bioload and days of feed would compound and overcome your system causing a stinky bloom of bac, it would smell. And your fish would hover at the top needing air



because you have that clean water on a daily basis and can carry that fish load, with corals, and feed them daily and the tank processes waste each minute I have no doubt your cycle is done.


not everyone agrees that cycles cannot be partially completed, loads of people believe a reef tank can do all that listed above and still not oxidize .25 of free ammonia overnite, I’m just not one of those people lol


nice reef and nicer cycle
truly I feel you should never test for free ammonia or nitrite for the rest of that tanks life because those two params will self control from here on out.
 
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brandon429

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Miami reef I wanted you to see this thread below






he shows what ammonia truly does in the presence of high surface area, your reef has arches of live rock directly in the water flow path alongside the bioload...its high surface area. the fact its stayed alive longer than three days means its enough, its sufficient.

He shows what truly, truly carved down surface area does/ it causes ammonia to rise and stay at .0x hundredths ppm
and if we carve more off, a lethality point would be reached though we didn't press that far.


to merely see what it takes to drive control down to hundredths was the goal, on a meter we felt had been dynamically proven so far. as best as any meter can possibly read for nh3 in 2021



the thread answers an age old question as to whether peroxide added to a reef is good or bad for it/harms filter bac



Jon shows what a truly, truly calibrated seneye can do. I do not believe Hach ran accordingly will find vastly different readings, until that happens you are seeing the tightest nh3 testing in reefing above, in my opinion.

Jon is showing us what the most common actions in reefing have on free ammonia control. I use this information to prevent lots of reef crashes in the threads we do. Jon shows the best ammonia measurement I've seen there.



the thread ends the debate on whether fish-in cycling + bottle bac, and no wait time, harms fish. it doesnt. I feel the thread offers six dimensions of cycle study that are not found in other locations.
 
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Miami Reef

Miami Reef

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My LFS has this digital test.
 

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brandon429

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hey thats neat never seen that kind before. agreed all reefs that look like yours in pics/ratios/animal status would run zero in the tenths as nh3 (we dont know if thats total ammonia or free ammonia above) that meter looks pretty neat. it will be great when more meters like that arrive, we can use it to benchmark all these seneye jobs that are reflecting updated cycling rules.

five years from now i cant wait to know if seneye was right or not. I feel if it was not right, the rules we make based on its readings would have us about four hundred totally dead reefs and angry feedback by now.
 
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