Should I test for ammonia after bioload increase?

[TWYOUNG]

Would it be helpful to test for ammonia in my tank after adding fish to ensure I'm not stressing my bio-filter by adding too much at once? If so, how long after the addition would a potential spike occur?

 

[Spare time]

You can but I wouldn't worry unless you added a lot (or a big fish. Is this the first fish?

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

I use the Seachem Ammonia alerts. Great for QT's and tanks. It will help you keep an eye out in case you do get a rise.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I wouldn’t, and didn’t.

 

[Dan_P]

Would it be helpful to test for ammonia in my tank after adding fish to ensure I'm not stressing my bio-filter by adding too much at once? If so, how long after the addition would a potential spike occur?

I have a long and complete answer in my head but let me first ask how you cycled your system. I am also interested in how quickly ammonia is consumed in your system.

 

[TWYOUNG]

You can but I wouldn't worry unless you added a lot (or a big fish. Is this the first fish?

No. I transferred two perc clowns into my new, ( 3mo), 150 gal. tank which has about a dozen small fish. I'm planning to move my 7" PBT in though and I'm looking for a chance to use my new Hanna ammonia test kit lol. How long after the addition do you think ammonia would appear if it were going to?

 

[brandon429]

If you elect to test for ammonia after cycling a display tank, concerned that slight moves will undo your cycle, expect your enjoyment of reefing to go down due to false mistrust. What non digital test kits do when you make small changes in the tank will drive you to the biggest snipe hunt you'll ever see in the hobby. It'll remove your entire willingness to factor any sort of disease management; hyperfocus on ammonia control is a surefire way to unenjoyment of the hobby.

But if you agree that no testing of ammonia is required post cycle because display reefs run plenty of surface area, and bioload increases aren't a problem due to this abundance, and you apply all concerns to quarantine of the bioload you just added so you stay clear of the causatives found in Jay's disease forum, expect your enjoyment of reefing to go up.

All the loss pattern you can find in post searches for losses after adding a bioload change are due to disease imports. Nobody has a reef tank on the tipping point of bioload carry. There are youtube videos of tanks so ridiculously overstocked with fish that still run days on end without a crash, we shouldn't have such a concern in the dilution + surface area + stock ratios of tanks from the boards.

 

[brandon429]

I mention this next part only because 2:200 mentions get a confirming response: feel free to test for ammonia all day long on seneye digital once you set it up correctly, slide prep it, make the selections for saltwater vs fw, and calibrate it.

I never mind seeing seneye data prepped that way above, it reinforces trust in cycling science. Any other kit, prepare to lose mind thinking all your bacteria died months or years into your reef, we have the thread examples.

Testing for ammonia with non digital kits just causes chaos lol

it's amazing we keep signing up for this torture considering the sheer volume of a million + reefs now who don't test for it after a cycle, because the notion that cycles are weak and risky is dying out, though there are still places online one can get the necessary reinforcement for a broken cycle if they want it bad enough.


After six months of owning a seneye, the owner knows ammonia control is the last concern to ever have, even for those who don't own the meter

We are all copying the same general ratio of dilution, bioload and surface area + current and seneye owners comprise a valuable trove of data on what all reef tanks do with free ammonia, and how quickly they do it

 

[Spare time]

No. I transferred two perc clowns into my new, ( 3mo), 150 gal. tank which has about a dozen small fish. I'm planning to move my 7" PBT in though and I'm looking for a chance to use my new Hanna ammonia test kit lol. How long after the addition do you think ammonia would appear if it were going to?

Yeah no I wouldn't worry. That is a very small addition for that size tank.

 

[TWYOUNG]

I have a long and complete answer in my head but let me first ask how you cycled your system. I am also interested in how quickly ammonia is consumed in your system.

150 gal. 100 lbs CaribSea LifeRock, 80 lbs AragAlive sand. Turbo 900 x2, Nitrocycle until ammonia registered zero then re-dosed it once or twice until ammonia could be eliminated in 2-3 days after dosed up to 1.0 ppm. , and nitrites negative. Immediately added pods and a few small fish. Dosing phyto daily and pods doing well. Phosphates have always been 0.0 and nitrates have fallen from 11 to 0.0 over the past couple of weeks despite heavy feeding. Started adding Tropic Marin Plus-NP last week with no change yet. Sorry for the long post but you promised a long thoughtful response so I wanted to make sure you had plenty of details to work with. Thanks so much.

 

[TWYOUNG]

If you elect to test for ammonia after cycling a display tank, concerned that slight moves will undo your cycle, expect your enjoyment of reefing to go down due to false mistrust. What non digital test kits do when you make small changes in the tank will drive you to the biggest snipe hunt you'll ever see in the hobby. It'll remove your entire willingness to factor any sort of disease management; hyperfocus on ammonia control is a surefire way to unenjoyment of the hobby.

But if you agree that no testing of ammonia is required post cycle because display reefs run plenty of surface area, and bioload increases aren't a problem due to this abundance, and you apply all concerns to quarantine of the bioload you just added so you stay clear of the causatives found in Jay's disease forum, expect your enjoyment of reefing to go up.

All the loss pattern you can find in post searches for losses after adding a bioload change are due to disease imports. Nobody has a reef tank on the tipping point of bioload carry. There are youtube videos of tanks so ridiculously overstocked with fish that still run days on end without a crash, we shouldn't have such a concern in the dilution + surface area + stock ratios of tanks from the boards.

 

[brandon429]

100 lbs CaribSea LifeRock


Specifically due to that, no future testing of ammonia is needed.

If you reef within normal rules, such as don't dump meds into a display reef, you're never going to have an ammonia control issue.


Don't confuse dead fish + registering free ammonia on a cheap kit as an ammonia problem. It's a fish disease problem and the ammonia issue is due to rotting fish not a dead biofilter

If you manage disease vectors with care like they do in the disease forum, you'll be set in what matters. Ammonia doesn't have to be tested after a cycle, I don't even test it during the cycle and we are up to like a thousand cycled reefs on file by now. We aren't guessing about ammonia, a cycle chart tells any reader that a common arrangement is ready for ammonia control by day ten. Counting # of days from the start and comparing to an eighty year old chart also works.


Does the ammonia line on a cycle chart ever rise back up, after the drop? What were the authors meaning by that: barring fish kill + rot, ammonia will stay at safe baseline

 

[TWYOUNG]

WOW! First, my ammonia test kit is digital. Second, I'm only asking if it's advisable or useful to test. Obviously your answer to that is no. And thirdly I'm starting my retirement project and dream aquarium and I'm ENJOYING testing my parameters. Sorry if my pleasure struck some nerve of yours.

 

[brandon429]

No nerve struck its awesome you can provide digital data we like that

If it's the seachem one please do, we're building logs of how those read in tanks. The meter is new we don't have a lot of pattern reads from it

What does your ammonia run now curious to know

*don't take umbrage to the disease relay, it's merely a summary of info you can clearly see in Jay's forum and likely already applied


Any data charts you can provide for digital ammonia measures will be a joy to see, considering how you cycled and that degree of rock

Don't take offense to a clear answer to your post title, you aren't required to test after adding bioload. You got the detailed breakdown as to why that's the case

It sounds like you want to test, electively though, and I'd like to see it.

Mr. SW was getting .19 nh4 on his hanna meter in his reef, what does yours run/ after adding bioload let us know too

If you have seneye that's best case scenario

 

[TWYOUNG]

No nerve struck its awesome you can provide digital data we like that

If it's the seachem one please do, we're building logs of how those read in your tank

What does your ammonia run now curious to know

*don't take umbrage to the disease relay, it's merely a summary of info you can clearly see in Jay's forum and likely already applied

It's a Hanna test kit and I've used it once for a random test when nothing significant was going on with the tank. The result was a total ammonia of 0.07 which corresponds to an NH3 level of 0.003. An insignificant amount I would imagine.

 

[brandon429]

That is exactly what a seneye would run

Given your tank age, bioload, surface area (we haven't seen pics yet but a reef is a reef) that reading calibrates your hanna to be used on all kinds of cycling experiments, including biofilter stress tests. Anything you want to log and relate to changes made in the tank, sand cleaning events, big water changes, will really benefit the hobby.

With that meter you'll be able to see how quickly other systems cycle up, you'll be able to watch your own system ensure challenge events just shy of a big fish loss without any issues exactly like an ammonia shock absorber system


If it helps to know, Dr Tim discussed in posts a few times now that adding new bioload doesn't mean more bacteria form; current ones simply go into a faster metabolic production mode and its in instant response to + new bioload

There is of course a tipping point for any reef; in the ratios we all copy we don't have to worry about approaching that tipping point and you are among the rare folks with the meter to verify that ability.

 

[brandon429]

One thing is for sure- if you're at .07 nh4 and MrSW was .19 steady, you've got some room to go.

MR Sw's reef was no where near a tipping point himself. So, if his meter posted something like .23 nobody could freak on that minor variance either, .19 is a significant increase above .07 in the realm of nh3 control and both these tanks are fine and healthy within that variance


So far, we're seeing .07-.19 nh4 reported by that meter, in two fully cycled reefs. The pattern logs are now building. That's kind of a large range, not impressed/ but I'd rather know hanna data over api or red sea we have thirty years of that data: .2-.5 nh4 reported on the vast majority of running reefs (source for claim: any stalled cycle post online)

 

[TWYOUNG]

That is exactly what a seneye would run

Given your tank age, bioload, surface area (we haven't seen pics yet but a reef is a reef) that reading calibrates your hanna to be used on all kinds of cycling experiments, including biofilter stress tests. Anything you want to log and relate to changes made in the tank, sand cleaning events, big water changes, will really benefit the hobby.

With that meter you'll be able to see how quickly other systems cycle up, you'll be able to watch your own system ensure challenge events just shy of a big fish loss without any issues exactly like an ammonia shock absorber system


If it helps to know, Dr Tim discussed in posts a few times now that adding new bioload doesn't mean more bacteria form; current ones simply go into a faster metabolic production mode and its in instant response to + new bioload

There is of course a tipping point for any reef; in the ratios we all copy we don't have to worry about approaching that tipping point and you are among the rare folks with the meter to verify that ability.

 

[TWYOUNG]

One thing is for sure- if you're at .07 nh4 and MrSW was .19 steady, you've got some room to go.

MR Sw's reef was no where near a tipping point himself. So, if his meter posted something like .23 nobody could freak on that minor variance either, .19 is a significant increase above .07 in the realm of nh3 control and both these tanks are fine and healthy within that variance


So far, we're seeing .07-.19 nh4 reported by that meter, in two fully cycled reefs. The pattern logs are now building. That's kind of a large range, not impressed/ but I'd rather know hanna data over api or red sea

Where would I document these readings you're interested in?

 

[Rick's Reviews]

To be honest you did ask for a long and thoughtfull reply, this is very overwhelming lol