Emergency ammonia spike help

[Kzang]

Prime doesn't do that. Get yourself a good dissolved oxygen meter and test it yourself. A lot of the widely held "facts" in the hobby don't hold up when subject to actual testing.

seachem on their site for prime says it can reduce oxygen if extremely overdosed.

OP, I hope ya doing better today.

 

[MnFish1]

seachem on their site for prime says it can reduce oxygen if extremely overdosed.

OP, I hope ya doing better today.

Interesting - I was not aware of this. "Prime® is very safe and quite difficult to overdose to the point of harming tank inhabitants, but a large enough overdose can start to deplete the system of oxygen. This effect is temporary, typically lasting an hour at most, but in case of extreme overdose can be significant enough to harm fish"

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

For folks thinking Prime worked for them, they may find this thread on ammonia toxicity interesting:

How toxic is ammonia, really?

In the context of trying to understand why so many people believe Seachem Prime was useful for them in an elevated ammonia situation, against the data in the link below about Prime potentially doing nothing to free ammonia in seawater, the question arises, why...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[prestonrabe]

Update: all fish that I saved are still alive & doing good in the bucket, I am monitoring it and testing every so many hours. I did a 100% water change today including the sump. I’d say roughly 80% of coral is dead. All that was saved was my zoa garden, which is tightly closed, my firework cloves, Duncan’s, anthelia & 1 acan that looks totally unharmed. ( my other 10 acan colonies died). I’m waiting for my water temps to get good before adding everything back in. I tested the water before doing the water changed and ammonia was at 0. I did test the water to get the prime out and any toxins from the mass coral die off. Todays looking a bit better. As long as my gem is alive I can have something to look forward to. Going forward I plan to only stock the current fish I have and a fox face.

 

[Kzang]

Update: all fish that I saved are still alive & doing good in the bucket, I am monitoring it and testing every so many hours. I did a 100% water change today including the sump. I’d say roughly 80% of coral is dead. All that was saved was my zoa garden, which is tightly closed, my firework cloves, Duncan’s, anthelia & 1 acan that looks totally unharmed. ( my other 10 acan colonies died). I’m waiting for my water temps to get good before adding everything back in. I tested the water before doing the water changed and ammonia was at 0. I did test the water to get the prime out and any toxins from the mass coral die off. Todays looking a bit better. As long as my gem is alive I can have something to look forward to. Going forward I plan to only stock the current fish I have and a fox face.

Weird, ammonia shouldn't kill coral, as I don't think it has the ability to affect them, and they can actually uptake it. Some sources say they prefer ammonia as a nutrient to grow. I can't remember where i read that though.

If 80% of your coral died, then it wasn't the ammonia that killed them? You may want to look elsewhere for the cause? I don't know how depleted oxygen levels affect corals though.

 

[prestonrabe]

Weird, ammonia shouldn't kill coral, as I don't think it has the ability to affect them, and they can actually uptake it. Some sources say they prefer ammonia as a nutrient to grow. I can't remember where i read that though.

If 80% of your coral died, then it wasn't the ammonia that killed them? You may want to look elsewhere for the cause? I don't know how depleted oxygen levels affect corals though.

I think my rapid water changed killed them. I did a huge water change and I think they got stressed and flipped out

 

[MnFish1]

Ammonia can kill coral - and coral can use very small amounts of ammonia

 

[prestonrabe]

All fish are back in the tank and doing good. Gonna keep a close watch

 

[prestonrabe]

The rest of the corals other than my zoa garden finally melted away. GSP & zoas the only thing looking good

 

[Malcontent]

seachem on their site for prime says it can reduce oxygen if extremely overdosed.

OP, I hope ya doing better today.

Seachem says a lot of things.

They can't even explain their product instructions:

Is 40X an extreme over-dose? This is what 40 mL of Prime does to dissolved oxygen levels in 10 gal of heated tap water:

 

[MnFish1]

Seachem says a lot of things.

They can't even explain their product instructions:

Is 40X an extreme over-dose? This is what 40 mL of Prime does to dissolved oxygen levels in 10 gal of heated tap water:

I would say that there are 'extreme overdoses' - which are extreme. Obviously - since seachem has apparently defined it - call them and ask?

 

[Kzang]

The rest of the corals other than my zoa garden finally melted away. GSP & zoas the only thing looking good

Looks like ammonia does harm corals according to ATI

All You Need to Know About: Ammonia - ATI North America

Ammonia is the by-product of uneaten food, dead fish, coral, invertebrates, or other organic matter as it decays in an aquarium.

atinorthamerica.com

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Looks like ammonia does harm corals according to ATI

All You Need to Know About: Ammonia - ATI North America

Ammonia is the by-product of uneaten food, dead fish, coral, invertebrates, or other organic matter as it decays in an aquarium.

atinorthamerica.com

I do not know the answer, except for sure it is toxic to corals if ammonia is high enough, but I'd be wary of taking info from companies like ATI. They say a number of things that have no evidence that I have ever seen.

 

[Kzang]

I do not know the answer, except for sure it is toxic to corals if ammonia is high enough, but I'd be wary of taking info from companies like ATI. They say a number of things that have no evidence that I have ever seen.

Yeah that’s why I quoted per ATI. Too much of a good thing can always be bad such in life.

 

[Dmmz]

Just wondering how the tank is doing hopefully everything is ok now

 

[brandon429]

This whole thread was a false ammonia alert. Post tank pics for analysis.

 

[prestonrabe]

Just wondering how the tank is doing hopefully everything is ok now

The 7 fish that originally survived made it, lost all coral except some zoa colonies that took weeks to open but made it. Completely restarted with stocking, coral and inverts. Tank now has :
Gem Tang
Hippo Tang
Bicolor foxface
Snowflake eel
2 hybrid storm clowns
2 flameback angels
4 green chromis
Over 20 hermits
Conch
Bumblebee snails
And about 70 types of coral
All thriving!