Ammonia spike & Hair algae!?!

[Crocpete]

My tank is a little over a month old and was cycled in a few weeks using Dr Tims nitrifying bacteria & ammonia. I have had the usual nuisance algae, diatoms and some cyano but after shutting off lights for 3 days and siphoning & nanual removal the algae was kept in check. I currently only have one hermit, 3 nerites, 5 dwarf ceriths and a cleaner shrimp (no fish yet). Over the past few days the hair algae has really ramped up, covering more rock and getting long strands. The weird thing is my nitrates are 0, phosphates are 0 but I got a reading today of .5 ammonia! I have posted about ammonia in tank before and was told it was probably the API test but the tests seemed to be accurate the first month and then all the sudden it’s not? Doesn’t really make sense, at least to me. My question is; can you have ammonia but no nitrites, nitrates or phosphates? I know I need to get a better tester but aside from that what can I do to keep this algae in check and what is causing these ammonia spikes!?!

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Are you on rodi water ? Copper and clorine will kill bacteria.

Are your no3 and Po4 tests api?

You can have Po4 with ammonia yes. It’s not related
You should have no3 if the cycle is going , but may not be able to detect it with an api.

You need to get some hard core alge grazers in there for sure ,tests aside , astria , Turbos turbans etc.