Ammonia spike

Lyds · May 26, 2016

Yea it was zero ammonia and all perfect parameters until a week after I put the fish in. There's heaps of fan worms in the rock and they're all out

brandon429 · May 26, 2016

in my opinion you just lift out a rock and smell test it, if nothing obvious you move on and just reef and enjoy the high quality nature of the live rock, ID'ing things you hitchhiked in (saw your macros forum thread is all good fun to discover)

you are getting zero biological impact indication for the most dangerous naturally produced compound in your tank

it is ok to add bac dosers, or prime, but prime is one of the test adulterants too so that's why it was worth the time to start considering when to doubt a test kit and trust biology instead

you can tell by my line of questioning here, I was reinforcing this thread below. look how many key terms apply directly to your tank here, we even have pictures of two tanks 100% exactly like yours minus the dry sand start. we like detailing the true nature of ammonia in a reef tank.

http://reef2reef.com/threads/new-ta...d-cocktail-shrimp-live-rock-no-shrimp.214618/

the fish you added will not drive your system to 1 ppm, after a true ammonia zero verification post tank addition to me that started the mystery

if they did, your system would smell, the fanworms would close, the fish would pant sideways, and the water would go cloudy.

If something is pumping ammonia to the degree stated and the measure is accurate, it's a dying organism not the current live bioloading shown imo. Agreed that early spikes weeks ago could have been from light curing in the new tank but it wasn't very pronounced... everything survived and even true 1_ ppm sustained for a week would kill and cause the loss cascade.

Sabellafella · May 26, 2016

Lyds said:
Yea it was zero ammonia and all perfect parameters until a week after I put the fish in. There's heaps of fan worms in the rock and they're all out

You started the tank with liverock rite?

beaslbob · May 26, 2016

Only dose prime, amquell and other ammonia locks for the free ammonia. they do lock it up but most ammonia test kits measure the free and locked ammonia so you still test ammonia. Seachem multitest ammonia kit tests for both types and their ammo dot (in tank) also only reacts to the free ammonia. The danger is you test positive from ammonia, treat and still test positive for ammonia even though the ammonia is locked. Continued treatment is dangerous to fish as the ammo locks also lock up oxygen. So fish can suffocate with the same exact symptoms as ammonia poisoning.

I also recommend adding macro algae which consume ammonia directly, raised ph be consuming carbon dioxide as well as returning oxygen and fish food. You do have to protect the macro algae from fish and cleaner crews but that can be just a simple tank partition with some added side lighting.

my .02