AMONIA SPIKE!

[swedishreefer]

So basicly its the 2nd day in the new tank for the fish and coral and the amonia alredy seems to be at 1.1ppm. I ised al of my old rocks in the new tank they only left water for 1 second when i puted them over. I never had any amonia in my old smaller tank and im using the same rocks how is this possible????

 

[TinyChocobo]

There are a lot of causes - but that looks more like 1.8ppm than 1.1ppm to me.

Personally I'd do two 50% water changes or 4 25% water changes as quickly as possible if you don't have Prime or something on-hand to de-toxify that water in a hurry and making sure that when you do the changes that the parameters of the new water match the old exactly [absent ammonia obviously].

Realistically anything over 0.5PPM is toxic to fish in a pretty big hurry as near as I understand it.

That said - run the test again before you do anything to verify you didn't mis-measure, miss a step, or otherwise botch it.

What is the difference between the old tank and the new [I mean volume, bio-load, filtration, etc].

 

[swedishreefer]

There are a lot of causes - but that looks more like 1.8ppm than 1.1ppm to me.

Personally I'd do two 50% water changes or 4 25% water changes as quickly as possible if you don't have Prime or something on-hand to de-toxify that water in a hurry and making sure that when you do the changes that the parameters of the new water match the old exactly [absent ammonia obviously].

Realistically anything over 0.5PPM is toxic to fish in a pretty big hurry as near as I understand it.

That said - run the test again before you do anything to verify you didn't mis-measure, miss a step, or otherwise botch it.

What is the difference between the old tank and the new [I mean volume, bio-load, filtration, etc].

Old tank was only 180l and new is 360l (not counting the sumps) the small tank had a verry thick sandbed and had verry high no3. The new tank has new live sand thin layer (itwas tho a small hole in sand the bag). All the water is new. Made it 2 days ago nothing seems to have died either. And no i dont have prime i could get it but it would take 2.5 hours to get there and back

 

[swedishreefer]

There are a lot of causes - but that looks more like 1.8ppm than 1.1ppm to me.

Personally I'd do two 50% water changes or 4 25% water changes as quickly as possible if you don't have Prime or something on-hand to de-toxify that water in a hurry and making sure that when you do the changes that the parameters of the new water match the old exactly [absent ammonia obviously].

Realistically anything over 0.5PPM is toxic to fish in a pretty big hurry as near as I understand it.

That said - run the test again before you do anything to verify you didn't mis-measure, miss a step, or otherwise botch it.

What is the difference between the old tank and the new [I mean volume, bio-load, filtration, etc].

I just tealized i cant find my cleaner shrimp could it caus that high spike and what if i dont find it??

 

[swedishreefer]

I just tealized i cant find my cleaner shrimp could it caus that high spike and what if i dont find it??

Never mind i found it it was alive

 

[TinyChocobo]

Old tank was only 180l and new is 360l (not counting the sumps) the small tank had a verry thick sandbed and had verry high no3. The new tank has new live sand thin layer (itwas tho a small hole in sand the bag). All the water is new. Made it 2 days ago nothing seems to have died either. And no i dont have prime i could get it but it would take 2.5 hours to get there and back

If your test is accurate and you haven't made a mistake - at that concentration I don't think anything would survive more than a few hours. If you have fish - look at them - are they breathing hard / is their breathing labored?

Have you re-done the test?

I just tealized i cant find my cleaner shrimp could it caus that high spike and what if i dont find it??

Never mind i found it it was alive[/QUOTE]

Not in a 95 gallon tank - no - not unless you lost a small army of them.

 

[swedishreefer]

If your test is accurate and you haven't made a mistake - at that concentration I don't think anything would survive more than a few hours. If you have fish - look at them - are they breathing hard / is their breathing labored?

Have you re-done the test?


Never mind i found it it was alive

Not in a 95 gallon tank - no - not unless you lost a small army of them.[/QUOTE]Hard to tell if they are breathing okay they seem kinda okay my sailfin shows a little darker color than usually

 

[swedishreefer]

Not in a 95 gallon tank - no - not unless you lost a small army of them.

Hard to tell if they are breathing okay they seem kinda okay my sailfin shows a little darker color than usually

[/QUOTE]I started vacuming the sand i dont know if its dust or contamination but its verry cloudy the sand was put in 2 days ago but as said the bag had a small hole in it could it be contaminated?

 

[swedishreefer]

Hard to tell if they are breathing okay they seem kinda okay my sailfin shows a little darker color than usually

I started vacuming the sand i dont know if its dust or contamination but its verry cloudy the sand was put in 2 days ago but as said the bag had a small hole in it could it be contaminated?[/QUOTE]Looks like this

 

[TinyChocobo]

Just look at their gills as they breathe - if they're breathing faster or harder than normal you will want to do something.

I still haven't seen you say whether or not you've re-tested to confirm it wasn't an erroneous result. If something is wrong with the test you took - no sense in making changes if you don't have to.

 

[TinyChocobo]

I started vacuming the sand i dont know if its dust or contamination but its verry cloudy the sand was put in 2 days ago but as said the bag had a small hole in it could it be contaminated?

It's normal, if you don't clean the sand before putting it in the tank, for it to be very cloudy. I've never used live sand myself but I don't think you're supposed to clean it beforehand. I've always just used dead sand and cleaned it thoroughly before putting it in the tank.

That said - I don't think that stirring up your sand would release ammonia especially in such a new setup.

 

[swedishreefer]

Just look at their gills as they breathe - if they're breathing faster or harder than normal you will want to do something.

I still haven't seen you say whether or not you've re-tested to confirm it wasn't an erroneous result. If something is wrong with the test you took - no sense in making changes if you don't have to.

Did it 3 times its redseas test kit

 

[TinyChocobo]

Did it 3 times its redseas test kit

I would definitely look at the fish closely to see if they're breathing hard. How old is the test kit - when was the last time you used it - what is the expiration date on it?

 

[swedishreefer]

I would definitely look at the fish closely to see if they're breathing hard. How old is the test kit - when was the last time you used it - what is the expiration date on it?

The fish breths normal i think the exp date is 12-18 i bought it like 8 months ago and i tested whit it in my old tank just some weeks ago and it read 0.

 

[TinyChocobo]

Very odd - I would probably mix up new salt water and get to work on doing water changes. It is 1.8 PPM - a 50% water change should bring you down to ~0.9 PPM. I'd shoot for 0.2 or lower so I'd probably do a 100% change over the course of an hour or two.

 

[sponge]

How long have you allowed this tank to cycle ? I've added live rock from one of my established tank to another established tank ,that by doing so has sent the tank into a cycle .

I started with several Blue/Green chromis in a 90 to get my ammonia to spike . I did my water changes when it dropped .

 

[swedishreefer]

How long have you allowed this tank to cycle ? I've added live rock from one of my established tank to another established tank ,that by doing so has sent the tank into a cycle .

I started with several Blue/Green chromis in a 90 to get my ammonia to spike . I did my water changes when it dropped .

I just put all the rocks an fish over at the same time i was told no cyckle time was neded sicens my old rocks could handle the bioload in my oldtank

 

[TinyChocobo]

I just put all the rocks an fish over at the same time i was told no cyckle time was neded sicens my old rocks could handle the bioload in my oldtank

You added new sand though - which could be experiencing die-off. Even a minute out of the water will also result in some die-off even if only a little.

 

[swedishreefer]

You added new sand though - which could be experiencing die-off. Even a minute out of the water will also result in some die-off even if only a little.

So it could be that it was a mistake to trust the rocks to take care of it? Well what could i expect seeing further on after the waterchange? Im changing about 35% to start whit

 

[TinyChocobo]

So it could be that it was a mistake to trust the rocks to take care of it? Well what could i expect seeing further on after the waterchange? Im changing about 35% to start whit

The math is fairly simple - if you have 1.8 PPM and you do a 50% change you'll reduce your ammonia by about 50% [it's not exact, but approximate] so you would go down to 0.9 PPM. 35% would reduce it down to ~1.17 PPM.