Help finding root cause of ammonia spike

Interestingly enough, it has. I asked my wife just to see if by chance she used Febreze in our living room recently and it turns out she sprayed our couches and carpet the morning of the day my ammonia tested high. This could be it!?

@Lasse @brandon429

I am not sure what this contains. But a general advise is not to use any chemical products around an aquarium, especially those with skimmers. Any chance she used it because your cat pee in the couch?

Sincerely Lasse
 
I am not sure what this contains. But a general advise is not to use any chemical products around an aquarium, especially those with skimmers. Any chance she used it because your cat pee in the couch?

Sincerely Lasse

Yeah I never thought to tell her because generally I’m the cleaner of the two of us, but something told me I should ask just in case because she used to use Febreze at our old house a lot!

No cats here, but I am super curious how cat pee might factor in?
 
I have to vote no on the febreeze but its easy to discontinue as a test. it cannot have lingering effects, there was a time in life my own reef got lavendered (via waft from too many sprays from auto dispensers in every room) until we all darn near puked but reef never faltered.

if we dig deep into searches we'll find some slimes/white molds that were seemingly tied to air freshener use, but they've never manifested as a disinfectant and the chems in them are not antimicrobial. I believe there is no precedent for anything being sprayed in a room overcoming a systems bacteria.

***Lasse mentioned cat urine and that is not ruled out here as a possibility — Nice catch on details

I remember threads in Randy's forum going all the way back to reefcentral days where people with cat litter boxes reported ghost ammonia readings (on api/grr ha) and the threads went 50 pages debating aerosol transfer of ammonia into a reef, some darn good science said it was possible.

I think you'd be kicked out of home for letting it smell as bad as it takes to make the reef misbehave/but that's a valid thing to consider/exactly why I like the extra hunters on board.


wanna put a quick end? do a massive water change and test two days later in the reef w no Prime added.
 
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