8.0 Ammonia for almost two months

[Jon Fishman]

Also, I know many do canister filters/sumpless tanks etc. with great success..... but I'll just put it out there..... You probably do alright if you're traveling that much, so just spend the coin for a really nice all-in-one setup, or a turn-key setup from someone here..... lights/skimmer/etc.... and just bite the financial bullet once. It'll pay off in the end.

 

[Vic73]

I’m not sure. But reefs need 0 tds water, with an RODI unit. You just adding more liquid to your salt mix over and over again when topping off. When your using tap the heavy metals and other bad things accumulate eventually turning catastrophic. Sometimes you can get away with it for a little bit if you water source is great, but in most cases it’s a nightmare. You really need RODI water, most LFS’s sell it, I still buy mine and lug 50gals of water every week.

Wow this is kind of bummer news for a couple of reasons. The water I am drinking is this bad and I had saltwater tanks as a kid up to 22 before joining the Navy and it wasn’t this hard. I’ve attached my latest results after this 72 hours of possible bacteria bloom. Test on left is my tap water, yes traces of ammonia but obviously not what is in my tank.

 

[Vic73]

The rocks certainly look cool though. I would drain/start over. Get a RODI filter and make your own water, and start a new cycle.

What is a RODI filter and making my own water? Here is my tap water and tank results 72 into this possible bloom.

 

[Vic73]

Thanks for the notes, not sure what RODI is though. And really no fresh water decor? They should put this on labels of all this stuff.

I think your live rock may not have been that alive unfortunately also RO/DI water really is the only way to go the “treated” tap may have been the culprit of killing of the bacteria the rock had. And I don’t mean to add more but I don’t think the little boat is going to do well in saltwater either I could be wrong but I have read most freshwater decor and certain plastics are toxic in a reef system

hanks

 

[Vic73]

You need to sit down and read. You jumped into the hobby without a sufficient knowledge base.
Any sand from "the world" you bring in needs to be rinsed thoroughly for contaminates.
Dechlorinators can be used to render tap water "safe" for fish, but how effective a solution this is depends on the quality of your tap water.
It surprises you that advertising sticks to the letter of the truth as opposed to the spirit of it?

I am definitely leaning on the mixture of sands at this point. So drain it all and rinse with what?

 

[Xanthurum]

RODI stands for reverse osmosis and de ionized. Really pure filtered water, drain the tank, and fill it back up with saltwater made with RODI water or buy pre mixed at your local store. I would just stir the sand up as you drain it which will basically be like rinsing it.
Also you may want to reconsider those airstone decorations. Those will cause salt to build up on everything and may even create a brown foam at the top of your tank.

 

[Pdash]

Thanks for the notes, not sure what RODI is though. And really no fresh water decor? They should put this on labels of all this stuff.


hanks

Like I said before you need to do research, not everyone uses ro/di water but if you aren't going to use it, then to make an informed decision you at least have to know what it is. Ro/di stands for reverse osmosis and de-ionization. It is a type of water filtration that gives you very pure water, then you mix your salt mix into that water.
It's hard to even give you advice at this point because you don't have much (any?) background knowledge, you need everything explicitly spelled out step by step. I don't think you will have much success if you don't seek out, on your own, information on saltwater fish keeping in general, and instead keep asking questions on here each time you have a catastrophe. That's going to get expensive fast, both in useless equipment/addatives you don't really need/want and dead livestock that you couldn't meet the requirements of or was incompatible with your other livestock etc.
My advice is find a couple youtube channels of people who keep awesome reef tanks you like, and watch their videos. Check out the stickied posts on the forum and read through them. Checkout the beginner forum here and learn. Read the articles here and elsewhere on reef aquariums.

 

[Vic73]

RODI stands for reverse osmosis and de ionized. Really pure filtered water, drain the tank, and fill it back up with saltwater made with RODI water or buy pre mixed at your local store. I would just stir the sand up as you drain it which will basically be like rinsing it.
Also you may want to reconsider those airstone decorations. Those will cause salt to build up on everything and may even create a brown foam at the top of your tank.

Wow thanks this is good info and now have confirmed my worst fears for the water start over. Does my “cycle” start over now with this RODI water? Do you think my live rock are just rocks now? And didn’t realize air would be bad for a tank but thanks for saving me pain later.

 

[Xanthurum]

Live rock is only live when its covered in bacteria and other living things it will eventually become live.
As the air bubbles pop tiny droplets of water that also contain salt go everywhere, as time goes by and those droplets evaporate the salt will build up everywhere.

 

[MnFish1]

I understand how the cycle should work and I am definitely not interested in more water changes so I will wait longer. It is just frustrating not seeing an end to this high ammonia.

An ammonia of 8 is toxic to many of the bottled bacteria. If you are going to use it - use Fritz 900 - the others will not work at that level. When your test kit is reading '8' it could be much higher - did you dose ammonia? I would do a water change to get it down to 2-4 (you will need to change 50% at least to do this).

 

[MnFish1]

I re-read thorough some of the posts - If it was said - I cant find the answers to these questions:

1. Could the 'live rock' 'sand from all over' have contained partly decomposed 'stuff' that is leading to the high ammonia. (doubt it because there would be nitrites as it is decomposing).
2. Did you put ammonia into the tank yourself?
3. What is the 'bacteria starter' you used?
4. Starting a tank with tap water (with the conditioners) should be ok - topping off the tank with tap water will not be ok (depending on how good your tap water is to begin with- usually I would not use it to start a tank - but I dont see how it could be causing an ammonia of 8 - what water conditioners did you use. After a month - your water should not be that cloudy - are you absolutely sure something dead is not in there (or in the rock/sand)?

Remember - your Ammonia may not be 8. 8 is the highest your test kit reads. It could be 15 or whatever. Either way if its that high - it will be detrimental to the bacteria you're trying to grow.

 

[brandon429]

Vic

Things are so much simpler than have been made so far

your tank is cycled, you didn't kill anything. All you have to do is drain out the water you used from tap to cycle, and replace it with ideal reef made water/ ro di and when you fill it up that clean water will reside above the biofilm-coated surfaces and be able to pass an oxidation test set at reasonable levels. You are testing wastewater with uncalibrated testers, this is why your readings are all over the place. You didn't do anything wrong, it was cycled a month ago.

Testing wastewater vs testing clean change water/two different outcomes. There are ways to calibrate your testing much differently than you've done here as well, but you don't need to. Its cycled once you change out the water.

I know opinions vary wildly here on the matter that's just my take considering our cycling work thread where your tank will still pass all assessments when you test like we do.
If you drained your whole tank to empty for 24 hours and filled it back up, it would still be cycled.

One visual proof there's bacteria filthy all over that system: green tint of algae. algae are not bacteria. Coralline is not bacteria, but they're bioindicators in your case....you passed the known submersion time frame of 30 days to complete cycling.

Most approach a cycle challenge thread listing the ways the bacteria might be dead, Im opposite. They will be the first to come and the last to go when you hydrate something

 

[MnFish1]

Vic

Things are so much simpler than have been made so far

your tank is cycled, you didn't kill anything. All you have to do is drain out the water you used from tap to cycle, and replace it with ideal reef made water/ ro di and when you fill it up that clean water will reside above the biofilm-coated surfaces and be able to pass an oxidation test set at reasonable levels. You are testing wastewater with uncalibrated testers, this is why your readings are all over the place. You didn't do anything wrong, it was cycled a month ago.

Testing wastewater vs testing clean change water/two different outcomes. There are ways to calibrate your testing much differently than you've done here as well, but you don't need to. Its cycled once you change out the water.

Question - why is the nitrite 0? and nitrate 0? (at least thats what I understand)

 

[MnFish1]

Wow thanks this is good info and now have confirmed my worst fears for the water start over. Does my “cycle” start over now with this RODI water? Do you think my live rock are just rocks now? And didn’t realize air would be bad for a tank but thanks for saving me pain later.

Depending on what kind of 'live rock' you put in your tank (i.e. covered with stuff, with invertebrates, etc) or just rock sitting in a bucked - if your ammonia is that high as you have seen when you added crabs, etc - fish and inverts will not survive.

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-microbiology-of-reef-tank-cycling.214618/

that's the framing I have to use to discuss cycling or results go all over the place. We kick out nitrate, nitrite and only go with what ammonia does after 30 days. We only factor ammonia testing in that thread to cycle, the other two are distracting info

with that as the context, every single cycle passes the same date.

Regarding his nitrate and nitrite I can't answer it accurately, testing ranges just too much and has too many known adulterants for us to use the info. The new school way of cycling is with ammonia behavior and known submersion time frames, this is the great equalizer.

Since nitrite doesn't matter in marine tanks, and nitrate is for algae tuning, that's 2 less test misreads for us to consider.

We can see on any cycling chart that nitrite complies when ammonia complies in a cycling system, somewhere near day 30. that's one of the reasons we landed with ammonia-only cycling in order to make sense of it all.

 

[MnFish1]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-microbiology-of-reef-tank-cycling.214618/

that's the framing I have to use to discuss cycling or results go all over the place. We kick out nitrate, nitrite and only go with what ammonia does after 30 days. We only factor ammonia testing in that thread to cycle, the other two are distracting info

with that as the context, every single cycle passes the same date.

Regarding his nitrate and nitrite I can't answer it accurately, testing ranges just too much and has too many known adulterants for us to use the info. The new school way of cycling is with ammonia behavior and known submersion time frames, this is the great equalizer.

Since nitrite doesn't matter in marine tanks, and nitrate is for algae tuning, that's 2 less test misreads for us to consider.

We can see on any cycling chart that nitrite complies when ammonia complies in a cycling system, somewhere near day 30. that's one of the reasons we landed with ammonia-only cycling in order to make sense of it all.

Well aware of the nitrite issue - one problem is that nitrite can also cause a false positive nitrate - that said - unless something is 'wrong' they should not be '0'. I think your missing part of my point - lets say someone started with 20 ppm ammonia - by mistake. Would nitrifying bacteria grow? BTW - I'm not disagreeing with you - I think he needs a 100% or close to it - water change. . Just want your reasoning as to why they would be 0.

 

[MnFish1]

Wow this is kind of bummer news for a couple of reasons. The water I am drinking is this bad and I had saltwater tanks as a kid up to 22 before joining the Navy and it wasn’t this hard. I’ve attached my latest results after this 72 hours of possible bacteria bloom. Test on left is my tap water, yes traces of ammonia but obviously not what is in my tank.

IDK - but does the API test measure chloramine? Did you use something in your tank that would detoxify chloramine?

 

[MnFish1]

What is a RODI filter and making my own water? Here is my tap water and tank results 72 into this possible bloom.

No offense - this doesnt make sense - unless im misreading - it seems like you are saying here is my tap water and tank results - but it looks like you're doing an ammonia and nitrite test (because the second one looks purple). Were there 2 pictures? PS - If the tube on the left (light green) is your tap water - its probably reading chloramine. The the dark tube on the right is your tank - your ammonia level in your tank is FAR higher than 8 ppm. Are you sure (no offense) that you're doing the testing correctly?

 

[brandon429]

That's another reason I don't want 3x param information (trite trate and ammonia) per tank in that thread...too many vials to contend with. Half are using the freshwater indicator card, just too many factors that affect final read. I think horseshoeing as a game is more accurate than reef titration testing. we might as well just be making up our numbers, really I see it that varied and unusable info in all cycling threads. seneye emergence should help over time...

we wanted a way to show that tanks cycle in a predicted timeframe even if we do not test for anything, that's where the thread came from. its a no test kit tank cycling thread (though everyone keeps posting readings anyway lol, we align them to make them make sense)



I don't have the upper limits charted for free ammonia to actually stall a cycle, I just know we've never encountered a stalled cycle in that thread where we align variables specifically. Too many confounds, nobody testing with seneye here/not sure of any readings but in our cycling thread I clipped one google scholar works showing 300 ppm ammonia not stopping nitrification in sludge digestion tests. That doesn't mean anything directly to aquariums/extrapolating upper limits/but neither does any of the other sources we use to estimate ld50 levels of free ammonia during tank cycles-its unknown. I suspect nothing he does to this tank will be antimicrobial, but rather booster feed for it all, thereby speeding up the cycle which is already done but not being measured ideally. The bioindicators show us that much...the greenwater algae. they'd be dead too in a killer environment.

If this poster wanted to demonstrate his cycle done, he could:
1. change all water for whatever quality reef water @ 1.023 you want.
2. take a new ammonia reading on that kit, note the final color. Whatever that final color reads is zero. now the test is calibrated.
3. add dr tims liquid ammonia one drop at a time, wait a few mins mixing, until your ammonia tester taken from the water reads a new change in ammonia, the slightest increment up you can detect with your eyes. Stop dosing.
4 test the tank in 24 hours, if its back to zero calibration color you are cycled. If not, we want your new example for our thread

 

[Pdash]

That's another reason I don't want 3x param information (trite trate and ammonia) per tank in that thread...too many vials to contend with. Half are using the freshwater indicator card, just too many factors that affect final read. I think horseshoeing as a game is more accurate than reef titration testing. we might as well just be making up our numbers, really I see it that varied and unusable info in all cycling threads. seneye emergence should help over time...

we wanted a way to show that tanks cycle in a predicted timeframe even if we do not test for anything, that's where the thread came from. its a no test kit tank cycling thread (though everyone keeps posting readings anyway lol, we align them to make them make sense)



I don't have the upper limits charted for free ammonia to actually stall a cycle, I just know we've never encountered a stalled cycle in that thread where we align variables specifically. Too many confounds, nobody testing with seneye here/not sure of any readings but in our cycling thread I clipped one google scholar works showing 300 ppm ammonia not stopping nitrification in sludge digestion tests. That doesn't mean anything directly to aquariums/extrapolating upper limits/but neither does any of the other sources we use to estimate ld50 levels of free ammonia during tank cycles-its unknown. I suspect nothing he does to this tank will be antimicrobial, but rather booster feed for it all, thereby speeding up the cycle which is already done but not being measured ideally. The bioindicators show us that much...the greenwater algae. they'd be dead too in a killer environment.

If this poster wanted to demonstrate his cycle done, he could:
1. change all water for whatever quality reef water @ 1.023 you want.
2. take a new ammonia reading on that kit, note the final color. Whatever that final color reads is zero. now the test is calibrated.
3. add dr tims liquid ammonia one drop at a time, wait a few mins mixing, until your ammonia tester taken from the water reads a new change in ammonia, the slightest increment up you can detect with your eyes. Stop dosing.
4 test the tank in 24 hours, if its back to zero calibration color you are cycled. If not, we want your new example for our thread

Why is your writing so convoluted? Are you attempting to get a PhD in the humanities? It isn't a good look.