Ammonia

Jaxius · Sep 10, 2020

So I have been cycling my tank for 6 weeks. By week 2-3 the ammonia levels were 0. I added 2 clowns 48 hours ago and all of a sudden my ammonia is reading 0.2 and one of my clowns has died. The other one seems fine and is eating and swimming around happy. I don’t know where the spike came from could the addition of two clowns cause a spike I have fed very minimal. Also it’s a 175 gallon tank.
before I added the fish I did 2 x 60 gallon water changes.
many help would be great. I’m doing another 30 gallon water change right now to try and help dilute the ammonia.

brandon429 · Sep 10, 2020

that dilution made nothing go wrong with ammonia we get those readings above in matured tanks always. uncountable numbers of threads.

the living one is proof, nh3 noncontrol affects your whole tank. loss of one clown, other acts normal, rules out ammonia issues

you have ammonia now for the same reason those tests show the same levels on years-old reefs, not due to adding clowns.

brandon429 · Sep 10, 2020

take no action, literally the test kits you are using have caused thousands and thousands of dollars in reactions/bottle bac sales/water changes.

175 gallons can handle two clowns even with no surface area.

your system has surface area plus time beyond what a cycling chart shows plus living bioload-post a full tank shot.

you met the required times for cycling per charts, thats how we know your system is ok even before pics.

number of threads where one clown dies and the rest do fine, thousands.

your tank presents common patterns, not uncommon ones. post pics

we dont need to see the test kits, we expect them to always read free ammonia when nitrification is occurring

only need to see the full tank pictures/degree of rock and sand predicted

Jaxius · Sep 10, 2020

It was weird the clown ate the first night we drip acclimated for a hour and a half. Second day he was fine swimming hiding a little in caves then within 2 hours he lost his color and was floating upside down on the bottom badly alive. I automatically assumed water chemistry as both clowns were together in the LFS tank and were bonded so I ruled out attacks or fighting. Could it just of been because of stress of a new environment. I really really don’t want to loose my second clown as she has gorgeous colors.

Lasse · Sep 10, 2020

For once - I totally with @brandon429 !!!!!!!

. Not a chance that this 0.2 in total ammonia could kill your fishes even if it is a true reading - which even I doubt.

Just feed sparsely and do not rise your feeding regime fast and you should be fine

Stress could be a factor - yes.

Sincerely Lasse

Jaxius · Sep 10, 2020

Also I have had clean up crew for 2 weeks with no deaths hermits snails and couple emeralds.

brandon429 · Sep 10, 2020

I truly dont know what kills some fish so quickly, before diseases can set it even with careful prep.

aneurysm ? but with no patterned loss at least we saved many reaction steps. he did not naturally select in a fit manner

Jaxius · Sep 10, 2020

the clown that died is the top clown in this pic. The bottom one is still alive she has eaten today and is swimming around.

brandon429 · Sep 10, 2020

those are high quality clowns, water looks just a tad hazy if those were mine Id do a nice water change matching salinity and temp with new water and try and restore perfect clarity to the water. run some carbon too, see if you can get it back to totally clear water, thats an important tracking mechanism for safe cycles so we want to always cause the clear condition and allow no clouding.

Jaxius · Sep 10, 2020

I think the cloudy water is a bacteria bloom. It has been going on for about a week. It’s twice as clear as it was before the weekend so it’s getting better.
I use RODI water got a bag of matrix carbon in there and threw my filter socks back on to clear it up. I’m mixing 30 gallons right now so when it hits temp and salinity I’ll do a water change.
I had a massive copepod bloom I mean millions of them right before the cloudy water I’m not sure if there related.

Hincapiej4 · Sep 10, 2020

Jaxius said:
I think the cloudy water is a bacteria bloom. It has been going on for about a week. It’s twice as clear as it was before the weekend so it’s getting better.
I use RODI water got a bag of matrix carbon in there and threw my filter socks back on to clear it up. I’m mixing 30 gallons right now so when it hits temp and salinity I’ll do a water change.
I had a massive copepod bloom I mean millions of them right before the cloudy water I’m not sure if there related.

dang, I want a copepod bloom. I WANTS! (I did have so many on a previous tank that you could see them on the glass and in the water column, even in the middle of the day..was nuts)

brandon429 · Sep 10, 2020

neat cycle clue tracing: copepods rarely come from bagged additions this early on/purchases they're usually associated with the rocks we buy.

if you added rocks that have coralline + pods then those rocks came in wet from the fish store vs dry, you likely skipped the entire cycle on the day you brought in the rocks, its why the pods never died.

now the ammonia readings make total sense, you have matured rocks and api usually shows residuals on 90% of live rock setups. all of that tracing from pods.

its hard to tell painted live rock from real live rock, and associated bugs are a nice way to verify. is also possible painted live rock was brought up with bugs lol/that's still skip cycle rocks.

Jaxius · Sep 10, 2020

I seeded copepods and phytoplankton from algae barn. The copepod explosion was crazy there was millions of them when I turned my pumps off there was millions of white dots swimming around you couldn’t see through the water there was so many. In the last two or three days they have died off and are obviously stabilizing and adjusting there numbers to fit the tank. Could this mass die off cause ammonia spike? It sounds stupid but I thought I would ask.