ammonia help

[ARGYGANG]

im having the most random ammonia spike in my nano 10 gallon, its been setup since beginning of sept 2022, and i added a bubble tip anemone about a week and a half ago its been happy and all has been good until yesterday morning i woke up and it looked as if it had started to melt away and then perked right back up to full size and color by night time, then this morning the same thing has happened i ran tests yesterday at night time and all my levels were 0 ammonia 0 nitrite 20 nitrate ph 8.1 alk 8 its a softie tank so i dont test mag or calcium often so i didnt test that, but i water change once a week. This morning i woke up to do another water change because i tested the tank and its at .5 ammonia but nitrates have dropped down to 5 since doing two 20% water changes. im not over feeding and im doing 20% water changes weekly, the only thing ive added recently was some dry rock to aqua scape a bit better but everything else was here before the nem and all params were fine. is it possible the nem is causing the ammonia spikes? it seems like the ammonia gets high during night and drops to zero by lunch time when it fully reinflates. tank only has two two inch clownfish and a inch long coral beauty baby (doesnt nip or mess with and isnt permanent just is to small to live in my main system) any advice on what i can do or when to pull the nem out?

 

[brandon429]

simply post a full tank picture for an easy cycle analysis.

 

[brandon429]

your test kits are misleading you, the full tank picture will help.

 

[ARGYGANG]

one thing it could be is i scraped a rather heavy layer of algae off the front glass a few days ago right before all this happened.

 

[ARGYGANG]

your test kits are misleading you, the full tank picture will help.

 

[brandon429]

no that won't do it, your non digital ammonia kits are responding to simple changes in the tank as confounds in reading, indicating a false ammonia issue.

post a full tank pic please showing all the life in the tank.

 

[brandon429]

we posted at the same time.

that tank has too much surface area to have an ammonia control issue, so your cycle is not the problem.

all the corals are normal, anemones open and close a lot.

 

[ARGYGANG]

your test kits are misleading you, the full tank picture will help.

the light makes my camera get foggy, the nem has already started to inflate again for today in this picture

 

[nothing_fancy]

Have you tested your top off water? Could be something involved with your ATO.

 

[ARGYGANG]

we posted at the same time.

that tank has too much surface area to have an ammonia control issue, so your cycle is not the problem.

all the corals are normal, that's rather small tank to have an anemone but it's not dead and rotting either.

i know my parameters normally dont swing much at all in this tank and all my corals are happy as can be so i am totally stumped by this.

 

[brandon429]

next up: post the pic of the most recent ammonia test, after you wait the required # of minutes per the directions for the reading to manifest. we need to see the actual ammonia kit

 

[ARGYGANG]

Have you tested your top off water? Could be something involved with your ATO.

top off water is rodi with no ammonia or anything else in it reads 0 tts, im using a ro buddy on city water.

 

[brandon429]

in no way possible do you have an ammonia issue, we aren't needing the pic of the reading to confirm that, it's just to continue the collection of tank pics and the resulting ammonia reading from non digital kits. any changes you make that moves waste around in a tank can spike those kits bigtime, as a false ammonia stall.

 

[ARGYGANG]

in no way possible do you have an ammonia issue, we aren't needing the pic of the reading to confirm that, it's just to continue the collection of tank pics and the resulting ammonia reading from non digital kits. any changes you make that moves waste around in a tank can spike those kits bigtime, as a false ammonia stall.

 

[brandon429]

excellent, thank you so much for posting.

that's what api and red sea read on about 90% of fully stocked reef tanks. that's nh4, you have to estimate what the reading would be if it was ten times reduced, to get nh3, which is what reef tanks factor, we don't factor nh4.

consider the instructions for the kit: if you estimate yourself the nh3 conversion, how would you report that number

 

[ARGYGANG]

in no way possible do you have an ammonia issue, we aren't needing the pic of the reading to confirm that, it's just to continue the collection of tank pics and the resulting ammonia reading from non digital kits. any changes you make that moves waste around in a tank can spike those kits bigtime, as a false ammonia stall.

if you want me to i can run all the tests i have and get back to you with pictures in 20ish minutes. im running the sera master kit.

 

[Eienna]

Which test kit are you using for ammonia?
You can safely dose a bit of Seachem Prime if you're worried. It'll help neutralize any ammonia. I disagree with the statement that you have too much surface area for an ammonia issue; if the bacteria have not yet caught up with the new load, it can cause an ammonia spike - that, or something died or is rotting that you haven't found. Take a good poke around to make sure.

 

[brandon429]

ARGYGANG​

this thread is about to go off the rails if you add things. you are not in ammonia distress
running more non digital test kits cannot help you.

Updated cycling science trends in 2023

This thread is intended to discuss current trends in reef tank cycling and to predict + track changes in reef tank cycling science compared to prior years of observation *Post any cycle challenge from any reef board on the internet for a quick alignment. cycles do not stall, starve or take 3...

www.reef2reef.com

read that thread before making any guesses further on this tank. add nothing, do nothing, take no action.

if you simply let your anemone open and expand, as they do, and weren't testing ammonia and taking an nh4 reading light green which we expect as an ammonia problem, you wouldn't have an alert post/

 

[ARGYGANG]

Which test kit are you using for ammonia?
You can safely dose a bit of Seachem Prime if you're worried. It'll help neutralize any ammonia. I disagree with the statement that you have too much surface area for an ammonia issue; if the bacteria have not yet caught up with the new load, it can cause an ammonia spike - that, or something died or is rotting that you haven't found. Take a good poke around to make sure.

thats where i am so lost with finding the source. no live stock has died and ive even gone as far as to count each zoa head on my frag plugs and nothing at all has died and nothing has changed recently besides the addition of the bubble tip and the addition of additional dry rock (roughly 1/3 of the rock u see in the tank pic is only a week and a half old)

 

[Eienna]

Be aware that if you do dose Prime it'll give you a false positive .25 ammonia reading for 24 hours.