so 2 days ago everything was going swimmingly, tank fully cycled for 3 months just been slowly bringing the nitrates down with nopox and biopellets, corals that I tranferred responding well looking as well as they ever have. then today, everything retracted and noticed snail upside down so righted it back up, knew something was wrong and tested ammonia 0.4 and nitrite pretty high. only have 2 clowns at the minute 2 snails and a conch, all is accounted for. I'm putting the ammonia down to an external source? has anybody ever noticed perfume air freshener to cause a spike in their tank? it's literally the only thing I can put it down too in a short space of time
ammonia spike
- Thread starter nealio992000
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it only counts as an accurate measure if you are using seneye.
a dead snail can cause a brief spike, but if all your animals are accounted for the test kit is assumed to be at fault, not free ammonia. Your fish and animals will die overnite when the tank has an inability to handle ammonia, it cannot ever just hold at a certain level without something clearly dead causing it, ammonia control is all or nothing. In no way can air fresheners cause your filter bacteria to die.
when .4 happens and you can find something dead, remove it.
if .4 happens when all animals look great and nothing is dead, ignore the test. an aquarium unable to handle minor deaths or transient ammonia spikes will be all dead within 24 hours. at no time in reefing can ammonia hold day after day at .4 or any other reading, its all testing or interpretation drifts.
a dead snail can cause a brief spike, but if all your animals are accounted for the test kit is assumed to be at fault, not free ammonia. Your fish and animals will die overnite when the tank has an inability to handle ammonia, it cannot ever just hold at a certain level without something clearly dead causing it, ammonia control is all or nothing. In no way can air fresheners cause your filter bacteria to die.
when .4 happens and you can find something dead, remove it.
if .4 happens when all animals look great and nothing is dead, ignore the test. an aquarium unable to handle minor deaths or transient ammonia spikes will be all dead within 24 hours. at no time in reefing can ammonia hold day after day at .4 or any other reading, its all testing or interpretation drifts.
W1ngz
Failed Padawan
I'd stop the nopox. I can't directly attribute it to an ammonia spike, but in such a young tank the best way to drop the initial nitrates after a cycle is with water changes. Any additives will just destabilize an already busy and evolving microbiology as the tank matures.
If he also tests nitrite this doesn't sound like a test kit false alarm.
nealio992000
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the behaviour of the snails seems to indicate ammonia or nitrite I've noticed they start falling off the glass and struggle to "stick" from a previous spike years ago on a different tank which then killed hundreds of stomatella I had in the sump, my corals also have retracted fully in a short amount of time. the fish seem fine at present. I've got a seachem product on it's way to bind the ammonia and nitrite. nothing changed regarding in what I add to the tank only the nopox and abit of food for fish. so something drastic has happened in 2 days
nealio992000
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I'll stop the nopox dose, I'm obviously more worried about ammonia and nitrite more than the nitrate. it almost seems like a mini cycle is taking place. the nopox could be working too aggressively and killing some bacteria? does algae produce ammonia when it dies? I did have some hair algae which has turned grey probably from nopox but i wasnt under the impression algae released ammonia
nealio992000
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an update on the post, I dosed the emergency dose of seachem prime, I have to say I'm impressed. coral opened up again within 2 hours, seems to have 'detoxified' the ammonia and nitrite, apparently it does this for only around 24hrs so I added some seachem stability to introduce bacteria to hopefully increase my bacteria population to process it. testing gives false readings while using prime apparently so I'm still left with a lot of questions rather than answers which I'm going to base solely on the behaviour of the coral and fish. I'm hoping the stability will increase bacteria and am going to add small amount of prime until it seems I no longer need it. I'm going to do another water change and see if theres any decaying matter on the rock which I will gently syphon off. I was also thinking of adding a small piece of established live rock to help increase bacteria population further
Birddog61
Active Member
Clean the dying & turning gray hair algae from your tank if you havent allready. Your impression that algae dosent release ammonia is incorrect any thing that was once alive breaks down through the amonia ,nitrite, nitrate cycle. We see amonia nitrite spikes when aerobic bacteria cant process the waste fast enough
nealio992000
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their wasnt alot of algae but I believe that is what happened, the algae died from nopox dosing and possibly bacteria population exploded but then died also due to lack of nutrients from the nopox. I've got the grey stringy stuff on the rocks from the nopox dosing. I dosed the nopox to the instructions but have recently read it's far too aggressive when used like that
JustinMN18
Active Member
Did you ever figure out what the problem was? I just noticed ammonia is on the rise in my reef tank (mix reef, 8 months old) and I have no idea what's happening. Dosed 1 dose of prime (2 capfulls for 100 gallons). Any thoughts?
