Ammonia in already cycled tank

[WillowDemetriou]

Do my levels look okay? I use purigen, a phosphate sponge, and biomedia. I currently have a cleaner shrimp, 2 clownfish, and a torch coral.

My tank is around 6 months old.

I tested using both an API and Red Sea test kits.

Ammonia is around 0.5-0.8ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 2-5ppm

Phosphate is 0ppm (tested using salifert)

I have quite a bit of algae on the rocks and glass. Mainly green algae, as well as some brown. I have recently just added some trochus snails as well as a conch and nassarius snails.

I have also, within the last few days, gotten bubbles formed over the rocks on the tank.

Any tips to help get rid of the algae?

 

[brandon429]

yes that's fine and safe, its the acceptable variance for cycled tanks and stocked reef tanks don't run zero ammonia.

if it wasn't fine, those animals would be dead 48 hours after you added them. we can even infer to some degree some proofs about the surface area in your tank: if you had insufficient surface area for that bioload and the feed it commands daily/ waste it produces/ the system would crash in two days but every two days it's still running

there is no type of reef tank cycle that hovers at a concerning level, they trend towards safe at all times if they're running and not crashed.

 

[brandon429]

post a tank pic so we can see the layout

 

[WillowDemetriou]

post a tank pic so we can see the layout

 

[w8lifts]

Fuzzy chiton, green emerald crabs, turbo snails keep my tank spotless and also got
Me passed my ugly stage

 

[brandon429]

yep for sure that's the known safe degree of surface area for reefing, for that volume, and well-past the timeframe ammonia control requires. truly you can discontinue ever testing for ammonia or nitrite ever again on that reef, it can't drift out of spec and surprise you. what ammonia does is the most predictable action in reefing.

if the tank is running normally the ammonia won't be an issue, if your fish are all alive.

the only way ammonia can ever become an issue is from something abnormal: reverse the abnormal condition and the ammonia will be cleaned up by all the bacteria on that surface area plus other life forms that command ammonia/collectively working. if someone dumped all the fish food at once into the tank, you wouldn't need a test to know that and it could cause an ammonia problem, you'd remove that waste.

if your circulation shut off and no pumps were running, that can create an ammonia problem but no testing is needed to identify or fix that condition. fish might die before ammonia rises, from disease for example but if they don't rot in the tank the ammonia doesn't rise to kill fish.

you don't have to test for it any longer. any variance is acceptable in a normal day's running.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I would suggest another powerhead on the opposite side, seems like the tank could use some more flow. Notice the left side where the flow is directed has less algae?

 

[WillowDemetriou]

yep for sure that's the known safe degree of surface area for reefing, for that volume, and well-past the timeframe ammonia control requires. truly you can discontinue ever testing for ammonia or nitrite ever again on that reef, it can't drift out of spec and surprise you. what ammonia does is the most predictable action in reefing.

if the tank is running normally the ammonia won't be an issue, if your fish are all alive.

the only way ammonia can ever become an issue is from something abnormal: reverse the abnormal condition and the ammonia will be cleaned up by all the bacteria on that surface area plus other life forms that command ammonia/collectively working. if someone dumped all the fish food at once into the tank, you wouldn't need a test to know that and it could cause an ammonia problem, you'd remove that waste.

if your circulation shut off and no pumps were running, that can create an ammonia problem but no testing is needed to identify or fix that condition. fish might die before ammonia rises, from disease for example but if they don't rot in the tank the ammonia doesn't rise to kill fish.

you don't have to test for it any longer. any variance is acceptable in a normal day's running.

Any idea about the bubbles on the rock and what that could be?

 

[brandon429]

An algae or cyano or both, but identification doesn't impact removal methods. That's from too bright lights and new tank syndrome as you're balancing things out. The way to fix it is to sit one rock out a time in your sink, use a knife not a brush to scrape off the invasion and rinse it away with poured over salt water to make it gone. It's a physical act you do today vs have it self correct in the tank, that's luck + a long wait for it.

When the rock is cleaned off via steel scraping and saltwater, you can spritz some peroxide on its surfaces and let sit a minute. Then rinse that off, put rock back totally clean/ each rock

Then in the clean condition you make the system changes, way less bright light for starters. Verify your topoff water is pristine

But you don't do this from the invaded condition, hoping in retro the actions save you the cleaning work, they never will.

You cause the totally clean condition first, by precision force, then you use the system changes to hopefully slow the growback. Add pods etc, whatever you try needs to come after the clean condition was caused. Having a new tank means you'll be hand cleaning a while, never leave it in the system each day. You keep hand cleaning it until system maturity or luck combo stops you needing to clean it