Free ammonia levels pre and post bioload

[Ludders]

Shall I do an API ammonia test

 

[flampton]

it has just gone up to 0.002 now

Do you have the ability to dose ammonium? That will give you a better idea if the sensor is providing somewhat correct results. Preferably dose it to 0.05-0.1 ppm.

 

[flampton]

Oh and is the seneye NH3 specific? If so this would require knowing your pH to calculate total ammonium/a

 

[brandon429]

luckily it is
****we don't have a second meter to benchmark seneye though at the claimed nh3 conversion rate, that's needed in the hobby.

not another seneye, a hach lab read perhaps/whatever the best meter is

what leads me to believe the tuned up seneyes are correct is the amazing consistency they show on all tanks, just after cycle is done or 6 years old, nano reefs to 500 gallon tanks

amazing nh3 control consistency, I assume its the scaling effect from high surface area in flow regardless of top gallonage.


yes on api comparison that really would be neat too L since 98% of data on this site is api for ammonia

that's so low range nh3 I wont be surprised if the api is legit zero but I secretly hope it says 2ppm so I can poke at the reading a lot

 

[Ludders]

Quick update as I am currently on my boat.

Today we have a 0.003 nh3 reading on the seneye.

 

[Ludders]

Day 7

Apologies for the lack of updates, been hectic with other stuff.

I am getting a seneye reading of 0.003 nh3 and it has been pretty consistent.

I have ordered an API test kit, as I have never used them before.

The red sea one I have appears to give a reading of 0.2 nh3.

Nitrate looks to be around 0.75ppm no3.

I am going to try and catch / transfer my clown fish to ramp up the bio load.

The two current i

nhabitants seem very healthy.

 

[Ludders]

So I managed to catch and transfer my clownfish on Sunday to increase the bio load and ammonia has risen now to 0.005 ppm.

 

[brandon429]

That is a very correspondent increase, looking very sharp here. +1 for seneye

 

[brandon429]

I would be conducting all kinds of cycling studies in home depot buckets using bricks, red house bricks.

you don't need reef materials to make reef proofs, use that $200 bad boy to re write rules for the hobby

-minimal human smell detection limits

-how fast a bucket of bricks comes into full self cycle, enough to move down say .5 ppm of ammonia into hundredths ppm

-does peroxide at 1:10 then change that cycle and retrograde it

all this is unknown. testing it with fish addition in that much water won't press bounds but it does benchmark it per age and sterility in that tank such that I'd believe it as a valid, tuned meter now.

you can know if various medications or events harm the biofiltration. It'd be dang neat to see some peroxide dosed into that setup, it wouldn't harm those fish at one mil per ten gallons.

nobody in reefing has documented whether that impacts nitrification whatsoever.

 

[Ludders]

Day 12

My ammonia levels have dropped back down to 0.002 now.

When I checked with an API kit, I don't seem to get anything detectable either.

My NO3 levels seem to have risen to 1.5ppm at a guess based on there being more colouration than 1ppm, but less than 2ppm.

 

[Ludders]

2 weeks in and I'm struggling to get any trace of ammonia. It's very efficiently being converted.

 

[Garf]

Day 12

My ammonia levels have dropped back down to 0.002 now.

When I checked with an API kit, I don't seem to get anything detectable either.

My NO3 levels seem to have risen to 1.5ppm at a guess based on there being more colouration than 1ppm, but less than 2ppm.

+1 for API, and you don’t get to say that very often being pedantic, that’s the freshwater card, but it’s still a zero in my book.

 

[taricha]

Can you tell us what kind and how much food?
Just so we can estimate scale of N input that's being processed?

@Ludders food input? What / how much?

 

[Ludders]

I feed frozen mysis about half a blister pack cube a day. Some dried pellets and flakes in the evening and either algae sheets (nori) on a clip, or the vitalis marine grazer plugs. Occasionally freeze dried mysis, but it really stinks, so this is like twice a week.

 

[taricha]

I feed frozen mysis about half a blister pack cube a day. Some dried pellets and flakes in the evening and either algae sheets (nori) on a clip, or the vitalis marine grazer plugs. Occasionally freeze dried mysis, but it really stinks, so this is like twice a week.

1/2 cube mysis = (~3.5g / 2) * 7% protein (I've seen 4-10% protein for mysis)...
=123mg Protein
(Now guessing about your pinch of pellet and flake - mine is about half a gram per pinch.)
1 pinch flakes = ~0.5g * 50% protein (usually 40-60%)
=250mg Protein
1 pinch pellet = ~0.5g * 50% protein
=250mg Protein
Marine grazer plugs = 4g * 30% protein
= 1250mg Protein
Total = 120+250+250+1250 = 1870mg

So total in a day might be around 1900 mg protein in 87 gal (330 L)
= 5.8 mg/L protein
At 16% Nitrogen in protein
= 0.92 mg/L N
Which if it were 100% converted to ammonia would be around 1.2ppm NH3+NH4 per day. (Fish might release 80% of eaten N as ammonia)
So this tells us about how much ammonia we expect the system is processing in a day to keep it zero: around 1ppm

 

[Ludders]

@taricha I have introduced my Coral Beauty now, so it's a full cube of mysis daily from today and thanks for the break down on nutrients going in, that's mega useful.

 

[taricha]

thanks for the break down on nutrients going in, that's mega useful.

If you use a scale and get mass of your pinches of flake and pellets, and use the label information on percent protein, you can make it more accurate.

It appears that the grazer plugs are the dominant nutrient input right now.
I was also curious because it is not difficult to feed sparingly and make the ammonia input only a couple of tenths ppm per day, which means the live rock doesn't have to do very much at all. But about 1 ppm N per day going in is respectable, so there is definitely real ammonia processing going on.

 

[Ludders]

Day 20
I added about 5lbs more of dry rock to my aquascape, for aesthetic and wellbeing reasons.

I have currently stocked and besides the CUC the following:
Pair of mature Clownfish
Yellow tail damsel
Royal Gramma
Purple Tang
Coral Beauty

Feeding:
1 blister cube mysis shrimp each morning
Either 1 grazer plug or seaweed strip daily
Vitalis small pellets and flakes or freeze dried mysis in the evening.

I am seeing zero ammonia now and my nitrate is just over 1ppm at the moment as I have been running the fuge lamp with chaeto for about 5 hours each night.

Without any doubts, pre-cycled rock is absolutely able to instantly sustain livestock and quickly cope with a ramp up in bio-load over a very short period of time.

Furthermore as of this moment I haven't been through any of the usual ugly phases, which in my previous experience usually start around week 2 of having a bio-load and usual photo period.
I am not suggesting I have skipped the ugly phases completely, but I believe they may be more limited in how they manifest in this reef, but will continue to monitor.