Help! Ammonia attack!

banjowalker · Dec 3, 2014

due to an accident, my tank was introduced to a massive amount of ammonia and it is cycling at the moment. I have done a 10 gallon water change and a 20 gallon water change and it doesn't seem to be helping the level of ammonia during testing. What are your opinions on what I should do? Continue to do water changes? just let it naturally go down and turn eventually into nitrates then a water change? I know there will be plenty of die off due to it, I just really need to know what to do since it is cycling and I do not want to have to redo everything. Thanks guys

Tank.Bro! · Dec 3, 2014

If you have no fish or coral let it cycle out but if you have any living fish cuc or coral get an ammonia remover like zeolite stones. Good luck and water changes won't help much unless you empty the tank...

banjowalker · Dec 3, 2014

Tank.Bro! said:
If you have no fish or coral let it cycle out but if you have any living fish cuc or coral get an ammonia remover like zeolite stones. Good luck and water changes won't help much unless you empty the tank...

I have no fish corals or inverts in the tank. Should I get something to put in my reactor to lower it or would it be better again to just let it cycle out.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 3, 2014

How high is the ammonia?

Treating with Amquel or Prime is a good option to protect creatures.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 3, 2014

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
How high is the ammonia?

Treating with Amquel or Prime is a good option to protect creatures.

This has more:
Ammonia and the Reef Aquarium by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

banjowalker · Dec 3, 2014

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
How high is the ammonia?

Treating with Amquel or Prime is a good option to protect creatures.

I have prime, but I have nothin live in my tank

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 3, 2014

Oh, then I wouldn't bother.

banjowalker · Dec 3, 2014

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Oh, then I wouldn't bother.

Is it ok to add live rock at this point? And won't this speed up the cycle a little bit?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 3, 2014

Well, the ammonia being high won't be good for anything live on it. How high is it?

banjowalker · Dec 3, 2014

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Well, the ammonia being high won't be good for anything live on it. How high is it?

Very high. My water test goes to 8 ppm and it was at least that

reefndude · Dec 3, 2014

You say tank has already cycled? What was the accident?

banjowalker · Dec 3, 2014

reefndude said:
You say tank has already cycled? What was the accident?

No the tank is cycling currently. I was adding ammonia with a dropper bottle and the cap of the bottle came off dumping half the bottle in. It was a small bottle, but it was pure ammonia

reefndude · Dec 3, 2014

Just let it continue to cycle. I wouldn't do anymore water changes until it's done cycling.
It will just get converted to nitrite, then nitrate.

banjowalker · Dec 3, 2014

reefndude said:
Just let it continue to cycle. I wouldn't do anymore water changes until it's done cycling.
It will just get converted to nitrite, then nitrate.

Would live rock be ok to add right now?

reefndude · Dec 3, 2014

Like mentioned earlier, it will kill off anything live in it. How long has been cycling?
Are you getting nitrite reading?

Tank.Bro! · Dec 3, 2014

No if you do I would add small piece smart idea right now is dry rock because you don need lr to speed up cycle. In the future you want more live rock look seed your tank

banjowalker · Dec 3, 2014

reefndude said:
Like mentioned earlier, it will kill off anything live in it. How long has been cycling?
Are you getting nitrite reading?

It's been 5 days now, I am getting small nitrite readings, but now I don't really know what to do about the ammonia problem. It's maxing out my test kit and I've done some water changes, but I just don't know if it being that high will take like 6 months to go down.

Tank.Bro! · Dec 3, 2014

Honestly it might go faster because the bacteria that feed on the ammonia will grow so fast due to the high levels that they will go slower and then speed the cycle after that way up so I'm gonna guess maybe a month or 3 weeks

banjowalker · Dec 3, 2014

Tank.Bro! said:
No if you do I would add small piece smart idea right now is dry rock because you don need lr to speed up cycle. In the future you want more live rock look seed your tank

I have 50 lbs of dead rock in the tank now.