Ammonia spike!

[Snarbleglarf]

Hey guys! So I have a bit of a head scratcher here, I set up my first 40 breeder saltwater tank intending for it to be a reef tank about 2 months ago, I thought the tank was cycled so I went ahead and bought 2 ocellaris clownfish, 1 yellow watchman goby and a blue sapphire damsel along with 2 zoanthid frags 1 green star polyp frag and a purple hammer with 3 heads all over the span of a month.

I have since had to remake my sump to increase the size from a 10 gallon to a 20 gallon long diy set up so I can fit my protein skimmer and I now have a pretty high ammonia content I tested with 2 different test kits API read 2-4ppm and seachem tested 1.0 free ammonia 4.0 total ammonia

My hammer is mostly closed up where the first day or two that I had it, it was fully extended, 1 of my zoanthids is fully closed only ever having 3-4 polyps open at a time and the other Is mostly open but still has a few closed polyps, and my green star polyp is fully opened

All of my fish are behaving normally eating very well, and they are all very active

My main question is since I changed my sump I have noticed there isn’t a lot of flow going over my live rock (which is my bio media) could that be the reason my ammonia is skyrocketing? My first thought is there isn’t enough flow pushing the water with ammonia in it over the bacteria for them to eat is that accurate or does that not really matter?
Any input helps!

 

[Caseyoidae]

What did you make the sump out of? Fully cured?

 

[DeepSouth]

I have minimum experience, but one thought comes to mind is just because the tank cycled doesn't mean there is enough nitrifying bacteria to carry the full load immediately

 

[Snarbleglarf]

What did you make the sump out of? Fully cured?

I made it out of 100% silicone I picked up from the store and I let it sit for 12-24 hours

 

[ScottR]

How long did you cycle it for?
What are your parameters?
Did you add nitrifying bacteria?

Some thoughts ~ Live rock doesn’t necessarily mean it’s live. Live rock also can have die off which creates ammonia. Low flow can kill a tank fast. But low flow could mean a lot of things. You should see good rippling on the top of your display for oxygen exchange.

 

[Snarbleglarf]

How long did you cycle it for?
What are your parameters?
Did you add nitrifying bacteria?

Some thoughts ~ Live rock doesn’t necessarily mean it’s live. Live rock also can have die off which creates ammonia. Low flow can kill a tank fast. But low flow could mean a lot of things. You should see good rippling on the top of your display for oxygen exchange.

It has been set up for about 2 months now and I let it cycle for a month before adding my fish, I’m not sure of my parameters rn because I’m not at home but from what I remember
free ammonia is at 1
total ammonia is 2-4,
nitrite is .05 - .5
nitrate is 10-20
PH is 7.9
Alkalinity is 7
Phosphate is over 1 (I added phosgaurd to try and battle that and am doing a waterchange today)
Calcium is 500
this is using the seachem test kits

I did add bacteria to both the display and in the chamber of my sump that holds the rock

I added 2 wavemakers to my set up about a week ago to create flow in my display but I’m curious if adding a cheap one in the chamber of my sump where the rock is would help with filtration or if that’s just a waste of money and wouldn’t do anything beneficial