Hanna checker ammonia?

Notsolostfish · Nov 7, 2022

I bought the ammonia checker by hanna the newest one they have for curiosity. And i was surpsied that my almost 2 month old tank have 0.26 ammonia kinda concerned i was testing ammonia with api and it was showing 0. Kinda worried i added prime today. Its a 36 gallon with 18 gallon sump. I cycked it over a month ago with fritz bacteria and ammonia. And i have currently 5 fish and corals. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

homer1475 · Nov 8, 2022

There will always be a low level of ammonia in a reef tank, or any tank even FW for that matter.

Stuff has to break down, heck even your fish's urine, feces, and just breathing creates ammonia.

A low level, such as what you measure is completely normal. I've been reefing for 30+ years, and once the tank is cycled, I have never tested ammonia ever again. No need to.

taricha · Nov 8, 2022

taricha said:
The short answer is to simply interpret 0.1-0.2ppm readings as zero baseline the same way a slight blush of green on API should be read as zero.

taricha said:
Bottom line:
Hanna's test is consistent, fast, and very sensitive to changes in ammonia within the same water. It can not tell you if your reef water has zero or 1 to 2 tenths ppm ammonia, and any values reported in the range of ~0.2ppm or similar should be interpreted as clean zero.

Click through these quotes for longer discussion on the hanna checker.