Ammonia emergency

[Keith Russell]

45 gallon reef. Deluxe canister filter. Does my tank 20 times an hour. HOB skimmer, 50 lbs of live rock, 165w black box, 2 clowns, Hovan’s wrasse, flasher fairy wrasse, 40 hermits, 20, assorted snails.

Pars Ammonia 1.0, pH 8.4, nitrates 0, Phosphate .25, can’t find my nitrites test but I’m sure there is some with that kind of ammonia.

Woke up yesterday morning to my fish on the edge of death. Check pars and found ammonia at .50 added prime until the lfs opened and did a 15 gallon water change. I feel like I was over feeding the tank. I bought a flame angel from the store. It was fat and healthy. The guy said 1 square of mysises shrimp would be good half in the morning and half at night. I think it may have been too much. Anyway woke this morning with ammonia a solid 1.0. Where is it coming from. After that kind of water change I would have thought that would take care of it. Instead it’s worst.

 

[Aqua Man]

All critters accounted for?
keep dosing Prime, hopefully bacteria will catch up

 

[Keith Russell]

I lost the flame angel yesterday but so far today the others are ok. Do I change the water again? Another 15 gallons

 

[fjpod]

Check your sponges and floss media for uneaten food, etc. Squeeze them out in a small bucket of salt water.

I would probably do the water change with a light sand vacuum. Get the detritus, not the bacteria. Then add more prime.

 

[Aqua Man]

Agree with fjpod, if the fish missed eating all that Mysis it’s trapped in your filters.
If your tank is not accustomed to that much food in a day it’s probably what happened.
Water change couldn’t hurt, can you do more than 15%?

 

[Keith Russell]

I guess I should keep checking all day and add prime when needed? Can I put prime in all day without adding to much

 

[Keith Russell]

I can do 20 gallons or 27 gallons. Would that be too much

 

[motortrendz]

How old is the tank? How often do you clean the filters?

 

[Aqua Man]

Not sure, I think a dose of prime works for 24hrs?
20 gallons would be 50%, as long as temp and salinity are good. Yes
I would look at the canister filter also, might be full of rotting Mysis.

 

[Keith Russell]

The tank is about 14 months old. The filter is about 6 months old. It’s been a while maybe 6 weeks since I did a canister cleaning.

 

[motortrendz]

I'd be checking the filters, checking for a dead fish somewhere. If your tank had a good established biological foundation the mysis shouldn't have caused the problem unless its built up over time in the canister and just overloaded your tank.. what does your tank look like? FTS?

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

If I had to guess, the ammonia had been slowly building up from over feeding, and it finally reached a point where the fish were showing stress yesterday. Then, when you added the flame angel and it died, it released more ammonia and raised it to 1. Look in the canister filter and blow off your rocks. Try to collect any uneaten food or detritus and remove it.

 

[Keith Russell]

The tank looks great. Sand is clean. No bad algae any where. The softies I have are open and look great

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

The tank looks great. Sand is clean. No bad algae any where. The softies I have are open and look great

That’s odd. What test kit are you using. Did you have your lfs check your water when you went yesterday to confirm that there was actually ammonia?

 

[Keith Russell]

No but I will take it a water sample today and have them check it

 

[brandon429]

Live rock will never allow free ammonia to sustain, all your fish would be dead instead of one
A spike from a dead fish, briefly could happen.



What is your fallow and quarantine procedure, how did you introduce fish to this tank


If you will post tank pictures we can show you how the ammonia event is safe now, specifically from a tank pic.

 

[Keith Russell]

Did a water change yesterday. Cleaned my canister filter real good. Saturday did 15 gallons Sunday did 15 gallons. Went to bed all was good. Woke up this morning 2 fish dead, serpent Star is dying, banded coral shrimp dying. I have no idea what is happening.

 

[brandon429]

I found a clue

see the living snail / clear water and open corals - not free ammonia as everything would be dead over nite


it’s fish disease I bet and when a fish dies the legit brief spike can stress animals

how did you prepare the tank for fish, did you fallow and qt them

if not, redoing that is needed. There’s no way for ammonia to spike before a fish death and cause the fish death, it has to work the opposite way. A dead snail is annoying but doesn’t cause fish loss we can find plenty tanks with dead snail, but your snails are alive


Ammonia is always under control in a reef with sand and rocks if nothing is dead, the death of something has to come first it can’t travel the other direction. The only ammonia kit you can trust is a Seneye, that’s why we arent factoring the test readings, web searches show how the kits misread especially after certain tank dosers etc. this tank doesn’t need bottle bac or Prime, it needs re fallowing

see the fish disease forum on tank preps

 

[brandon429]

I’m also reading on other threads reminders to check that you don’t have stray voltage in the tank from a bad pump or heater etc, that’s a quick side verification to make as well

 

[Keith Russell]

Did a water change yesterday. Cleaned my canister filter real good. Saturday did 15 gallons Sunday did 15 gallons. Went to bed all was good. Woke up this morning 2 fish dead, serpent Star is dying, banded coral shrimp dying. I have no idea what is happening.

The whole tank is dead. All fish shrimps star fish dead. Corals are dying