Huge ammonia spike!!

[Cerberusfish]

My 75 gallon soon to be reef tank is having a big ammonia spike (1.0ppm after %20 water change) nitrite 0 nitrate between 5-10. I don't think it's feeding because normally im a very stingy feeder (skip a day once a week and only give them what they can eat in under a minute) current stock list is: 3 peppermint shrimp (soon to be 2) 3 cleaner shrimp, 2 occelarris clowns, 2 firefish, 1 benggai cardinal, 1 Royal gramma, 1 pom pom crab, 4 astrea snails, 3 nessarius snails and some blue legs hermit crabs. I did recently upgrade from a Fluval 406 cannister to an eschopps rs-75 sump about a week ago. I run an aquamax 1.5 HOB skimmer and am using the sump skimmer area as a refugium with chaeto. I moved all of my biological media into the sump to help process some of the potential ammonia increase o assumed would happen from switching filtration methods and to not shock my system so much. Fish seem mostly fine with the exception of my gramma seems to have the begining of LLE.

 

[Cerberusfish]

I did just dose phyto tonight (probably over did it to) and shortly after posting this watched a video explaining it can cause temporary spikes in parameters and throw off test kits. Could that be it?

 

[Seadoc]

I am not familiar with phyto causing an ammonia spike. When I dosed it (Algae Barn OceanMagik) using the recommended amounts the parameters stay stable.
Is all your livestock alive and accounted for? When you moved the biological media, is it possible that some died off occurred? What test do you use for ammonia?

 

[Cerberusfish]

All livestock that I can see are alive (hermits and pom pom stay in the rock mostly) I suppose it's possible some of the bacteria could have died when I moved it but I find that unlikely. I use the API master kit ammonia test.

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

I don't trust API for saltwater... I would disregard the ammonia reading as it gives false readings that always detect ammonia. How old is the tank?

You can also dose some Prime or bacteria. Aim the powerheads upward toward the surface. But its likely a false positive.

 

[Seadoc]

All livestock that I can see are alive (hermits and pom pom stay in the rock mostly) I suppose it's possible some of the bacteria could have died when I moved it but I find that unlikely. I use the API master kit ammonia test.

Good to read everyone is alive. If you look around this and other forums, there are posts that state the API ammonia tends to be inaccurate. Do you have a different test kit you could use to confirm your initial results? Maybe a quick trip to the LFS? Also, how are the values (Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate) changing over time?
If you believe your rest results, the fact that you do not have any nitrites but are positive of ammonia and nitrates tell you that something happened recently in a likely cycled system, unless the ammonia test is wrong.

 

[Cerberusfish]

The tanks is about 4 months old. It hasn't given me false positives before. In the past (until now since my cycle finished) my ammonia has always read zero.

 

[Gernader]

API ammonia tests are notorious for detecting ammonia. I recommend you to take your water sample to LFS for them to test for you or get red sea/ salifert test kits.

 

[Cerberusfish]

Good to read everyone is alive. If you look around this and other forums, there are posts that state the API ammonia tends to be inaccurate. Do you have a different test kit you could use to confirm your initial results? Maybe a quick trip to the LFS? Also, how are the values (Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate) changing over time?
If you believe your rest results, the fact that you do not have any nitrites but are positive of ammonia and nitrates tell you that something happened recently in a likely cycled system, unless the ammonia test is wrong.

My nitrate has gone up very slowly over the past week, and the last time I tested ammonia was a few days before I had my LFS test my nitrate. So it would have to have happened recently.