Ammonia question

d_reeder1 · Aug 13, 2020

My tank is about 7 months old add 2 to it a little to fast and have a decently high ammonia spike just due to the new fish what can I do to bring it down
Just did a 20% water change
Ammonia .7
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5
Phosphates.03
75 gallon tank

Old Fritz · Aug 13, 2020

you can keep doing water changes, in theory as long as your sand, rocks, and filter media stays wet you can do pretty close to a 100 percent water change without much impact to your beneficial bacteria. You can also add prime as it changes the chemistry of ammonia to a safer form of ammonia for 48 hours

d_reeder1 · Aug 13, 2020

Old Fritz said:
you can keep doing water changes, in theory as long as your sand, rocks, and filter media stays wet you can do pretty close to a 100 percent water change without much impact to your beneficial bacteria. You can also add prime as it changes the chemistry of ammonia to a safer form of ammonia for 48 hours

Thanks for the reply at this moment all I have is the api ammo lock. Would that be ok. Also I have quite a bit of coral i there so knowing if that stuff is reed safe is my next question

Kryptonian · Aug 13, 2020

Ammo Lock is reef safe but I'd suggest Prime if you can get it. A big water change might be better. It just detoxifies ammonia. I've heard it can mess with ammonia tests and make it look like ammonia is super high for a while so don't freak out.

It won't remove the ammonia so the biological filter or water changes still needs to work to remove it.

Old Fritz · Aug 13, 2020

Kryptonian said:
Ammo Lock is reef safe. It just detoxifies ammonia. I've heard it can mess with ammonia tests and make it look like ammonia is super high for a while so don't freak out.

It won't remove the ammonia so the biological filter or water changes still needs to work to remove it.

the reason it does that is the test kit turns the ammonia back into its toxic chemical state