Ammonia Spike, but fish are fine

[Caleb Gilbert]

Hi all,


I'm hoping someone can help with this mystery. I've had my tanks setup for a little over a month now. -BioCube 32
-Protein Skimmer
-Phosguard
-Purigen
-Bioballs
-1 clown
-1 cardinal
-6 snails
-4 hermits
-1 emerald crab
-1 Aussie crown leather
-3 candy cane frags
-3 zooanthid frags
-1 stunner chalice
-2 peppermint shrimp

A couple weeks ago I did a 15% WC and as per BioCube instruction replaced my filter with a new one (first mistake). Then I went on vacation (1/27) thinking I had a healthy tank. When I returned the person who was feeding severely overfed and my filter was full of flakes so I tossed it (mistake 2...now I know). I didn't immediately test parameters, but the next day I did and ammonia was reading 8.0.

I freaked and did a 50% WC, ammonia went down to 2ppm. I added Doctor Tim's one and only, dropped to .5ppm that night, next day it was back at 2ppm. My LFS tested my water to confirm, told me the best thing to do is just wait out the cycle because I screwed up the biofilter so bad. So I'm waiting and hoping for the best. This morning I'm at 1ppm.

I'm mostly concerned that the tank is doing beautifully and my fish seem very hungry and happy. The corals are doing great, the aussie crown is growing and fully polyped (it never fully polpyed after I added it). Shouldn't everything be almost dead at this point?

Most recent specs are below.
Temp: 78
PH: 8.4
Ammonia: 1ppm
Nitrite: .25
Nitrate: 20
Phos: .05
Salinity: 1.026
Alk: 12.3
Calc: 425
Mag: 1440

Dosing:
Kalkwasser
Calc
Strontium/Molybdenum
Magnessium

 

[EmdeReef]

Welcome to R2R!

Have you dosed prime or another ammonia detoxifier?

I’m 99% certain that 8ppm ammonia was a testing error as very few organisms can survive at that high level and certainly not fish.

If you dosed prime, amquel etc most tests would give you a false positive.

 

[Caleb Gilbert]

I have not dosed anything beyond the Doctor Tim's One and Only, just bacteria to jump start the cycle again. I did test my tap water (I use RO/DI) just to see if my test kit was bad, but I got 0 ppm on water straight from the tap. So my RO/DI is certainly ammonia free.

 

[Caleb Gilbert]

Update:

I purchased a Salifert test kit (was using API), Salifert returns ammonia at 0 ppm. I tossed my API kit, with everything doing really well and the Salifert coming back at 0 I guess I'm in the clear.....