Mysterious Ammonia Levels

Martyt1 · Mar 15, 2015

I have had my tank running for several months, and so far have had a gorgeous tank with no loss of life. Mind you this is my second attempt but I think I finally have gotten it right. I have a 55 gal tank with all the usual,, skimmer, GFO, refugium,, etc.. What puzzles me is that my Xoanthids started to not fully open.. I checked all levels and found my ammonia level was at 1.0!!! I believe this would stress the corals enough to not open fully.. Immediately I did a 20% water change and the level of ammonia dropped to .5. The corals at this point still not fully opening.. I have done a 10% AND another 20% yet the ammonia level never falls below .5..... I only feed about 8 pellets 4 times per week yet something seems to be generating ammonia.. I have looked for something dead yet nothing is missing?? The tank looks great an the fish seems fine.. I only have 2 clowns , a starry blenny, and a blue damsel, a couple crabs and a shrimp and all seems well with them... All other levels are perfect but this ammonia is very concerning to me.. I have never heard of any ACCEPTABLE amount of ammonia...... Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated..

Mike J. · Mar 15, 2015

Shrimp are very susceptible to ammonia - thus I would check the accuracy of your test kit.

Martyt1 · Mar 15, 2015

I agree,, I think I may replace the kit... The only thing is that the corals do seem stressed since they aren't opening fully.. Im just starting to dabble with corals and these guys are very cool when fully opened but they aren't ALL doing so just a few of the bigger polyps fully open at this time.

brandon429 · Mar 15, 2015

we see amazing search results by googling and contrasting:

Salifert ammonia gives false reading
(not fifty pages of search returns, seemingly never ending cycles, constant statements of reading free ammonia while other animals that would die in .5 are doing fine such as live rock fanworms who cannot tolerate even .25 etc)

then search:
API ammonia gives false reading (try and count the number of examples ranging 10 or more yrs, fw and sw, tens of thousands mysterious readings always in multiples of .25)

Just for generalities we know a healthy cycled tank can reduce 4ppm raw ammonia down to zero in 24 hrs, imagine how much has to be leaking to outcompete all that active surface area and still get a persistent reading of any amnt

my guess is test kit issue do you have full tank shot