Still having Ammonia Issues

Oceanwave45 · Oct 12, 2017

Oceanwave45 said:
Okay for the sake of this “study” there is a tank shot from today right this moment! I will take another tonight and tomorrow and I will continue to post Ammonia reading using API until I can get another test kit which I will let you know once I change test kits

Btw look at the different now now to this morning - weird????

This morning it was at 0.50 and now it’s reading almost zero - no prime today

Larry L · Oct 12, 2017

@Oceanwave45 : I'm curious what made you worry that you were having ammonia problems in the first place? We're you seeing certain symptoms, or did you just do an ammonia test and notice the results were not zero?

Oceanwave45 · Oct 12, 2017

Larry L said:
@Oceanwave45 : I'm curious what made you worry that you were having ammonia problems in the first place? We're you seeing certain symptoms, or did you just do an ammonia test and notice the results were not zero?

I saw the fish towards the bottom of the tank and I was concerned that something was wrong and I started testing and ammonia was showing up on the test but everything else was within normal ranges so I was concerned

brandon429 · Oct 12, 2017

All the data that makes up people searching for .25 on goog are just the same

For whatever reason, when the tests show some ammonia most know it's dangerous so they'll take action understandably. Each hour corals stay open unassisted in your tank is leaving the testing side just a little, and coming over to the biology/larger scope assessment side just for this one measure

It works really well for this particular param, and most importantly what bacteria truly do sets our care parameters in tanks. we took apart, cleaned, and put back together several large systems in that thread I sent, and that ability and tank control starts #1 with trusting ammonia can be predicted always, without a test.

We know getting into those yuck sandbeds is a huge ammonia risk, we isolate sensitives accordingly before work. We never did need to test the clean rebuild part, it was ammonia free because we made it detritus free

Barring obvious source water or medication events, to have free ammonia in a cycled reef tank can be traced literally to something we can see in the tank physically and easily. It will be something significant, and stinky. Not something tiny and obscure

Sandbed or fish carc or snail rot et al

spiraling · Oct 12, 2017

Oceanwave45 said:
Okay great!!! So the test kits are bad? So I will go out today abs but a new testing kit and go from there

Oceanwave45 said:
This morning it was at 0.50 and now it’s reading almost zero - no prime today

I've been following this thread and from what I am gathering: Your kit may or may not be bad, but Prime is messing up your testing results.

I use the API kit for ammonia. In my freshwater tank it looks like the yellow zero reading. In the saltwater tank it ALWAYS looks like the light green lowest reading like yours. I think its the kit. Have you tried measuring your salt water before you put it in the tank?

More reefers seem to trust the seachem ammonia badge. Quite honestly after my tank is a few months old i never test ammonia. If I was doing a tank re-arrange or some other action that was really stirring up something I would probably check things, but even with dead things in the tank I never get a boosted reading.

Your tank looks really nice!

Chris Wells · Oct 12, 2017

Speaking from a new reefers point of view, and with a tank cycling for the first time as I type, I really appreciate threads like this.
@Oceanwave45 ... great tank, and from my perspective, looks like a happy tank. I am so new, that if my tank ends up looking like that with .5 ammonia, I will take it all day long...lol (jk on the ammonia. I will over-analyze the %#*& out of it.)

@brandon429 .. As an engineer, I really enjoy your macro-approach to pulling us back from being so focused on the numbers per se, and taking a look at what is reasonable. I do this in my day job. Sometimes you get all of the data in front of you and you have to ask yourself, Is this reasonable? Sometimes not. ie( Happy, cycled tank, full of life)
Please stay engaged in the threads, I enjoy reading your posts.

Chris

brandon429 · Oct 12, 2017

People who are good at commanding the kits expect fair rep and Google also shows when the tests work great, they're there agreed. Those posters have a good set of kits and control the delivery well. It seemed over time a huge portion of wielders needed to have something reliable/alternate though, due to variable change X

Thank you very much for stopping in Chris

post anything unusual you might see for us to log as your tank cycles too, so far this thread has my attention that vial was rather green at one point it always feels weird to doubt the reading

Oceanwave45 · Oct 13, 2017

Test results day three I think!

brandon429 · Oct 13, 2017

that's a straight up .25 reading thanks tons, perfect documentation. tank looks great!

Chris Wells · Oct 13, 2017

brandon429 said:
People who are good at commanding the kits expect fair rep and Google also shows when the tests work great, they're there agreed. Those posters have a good set of kits and control the delivery well. It seemed over time a huge portion of wielders needed to have something reliable/alternate though, due to variable change X

Thank you very much for stopping in Chris

post anything unusual you might see for us to log as your tank cycles too, so far this thread has my attention that vial was rather green at one point it always feels weird to doubt the reading

Will do.

I am on day 11. I started with dry pukani rock (bleached and acid washed), and dry aragonite special grade (rinsed thoroughly), mainly to minimize variables thrown at me while I learn my tank and equipment.
I did throw in a couple bottles of Dr. Tims and have been dosing with his ammonia product to keep ammonia above 1ppm. I am not really concerned about how long it really takes tho, but it is fun to be a part of the process. I have nitrates already, so stuff is happening.lol

Following along,

Chris

jeff williams · Oct 13, 2017

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
I do not believe that your assertions are correct, either in how and why Prime works, or the potential for interference. It does not primarily detoxify ammonia simply by converting NH3 to NH4+. Any acid will do that, including perhaps Prime itself, but it would take a huge pH drop to be effective that way. A drop of 0.3 pH units will only drop NH3 by a factor of 2.

Measuring ammonia after Prime is problematic.

Nessler types of ammonia kits (yellow to orange colors) used with Prime can lead to brown colors that are off scale and are not necessarily an indication of free ammonia.

Salicylate ammonia test kits (yellow to green) can break apart the ammonia/Prime complex and make it look like ammonia is present when it is not (according to Seachem).

This is what Seachem says (among other, possible technically incorrect things :

http://www.seachem.com/support/foru...512-prime-and-false-positive-ammonia-readings

""Under the conditions of a salicylate kit the ammonia-Prime complex will be broken down eventually giving a false reading of ammonia (same as with other products like Prime®), so the key with a salicylate kit is to take the reading right away. However, the best solution ;-) is to use our MultiTest: Ammonia™ kit."

I agree with your statement but let me explain two points
1st prime complexes ammonia making it non toxic how this is done is beyond the scope of this post so to easily explain it is it converts nh3to nh4. I guess the proper explanation would be it binds nh3 making it non toxic.
Seachem states;The false positive is referring to the fact that the salicylate test can't distinguish between NH3 and NH4. The reagent used in the test breaks the bond with the Prime and converts all NH3 and NH4 to the same form so the total ammonia is tested. The total ammonia includes any NH3, NH4, and ammonia which had been complexed with Prime. It will not show more total ammonia than is actually in the water.
2nd "my comment on prime does not cause false + show your sources" is because I suspected the individuals sources were an Internet Google search and I was correct. There is to many variables to say all false + ammonia reading with Api are caused by prime, was the vial rinsed before and after , did the reagents get mixed good or at all, ect. We can't assume the hundreds of false + readings the poster claims to have are accurate especially from a good search.
And this statement also boggles my mind

""Under the conditions of a salicylate kit the ammonia-Prime complex will be broken down eventually giving a false reading of ammonia (same as with other products like Prime®), so the key with a salicylate kit is to take the reading right away. However, the best solution ;-) is to use our MultiTest: Ammonia™ kit.
There has to be ammonia present in order for the salicylate kit to break an ammonia prime complex otherwise it's not an ammonia prime complex it's either prime or ammonia

brandon429 · Oct 13, 2017

I think I see what you mean.

in this case it seems they had a false .25 existing with no real etiology for it, then the prime started, which continued the misreadings. Im not sure how that's supposed to compound and spike the reading further/not sure

we're dealing with wrong indications nonetheless and its tricky to tease out whats really going on from all the variables.

once it was stated 8 mos in, my interest spiked that's the power clue for doubt imo. that, and opened corals

The real confound is from those who wield the test correctly... seabass on nano-reef.com is a staunch proponent of API and has detailed threads showing them working well. and they're w kits bought off shelf just before the test

I never have been able to rectify that against the masses and the other trends that have become predictable given a few variables known

in my opinion the order of ops was important to arrive at some of the assumptions:
submersion time known
sourcewater was stated early on to be ruled out. A simple run with distilled water from wal mart for 36 hours accomplishes that
no meds at play
accounted for all animals
no sandbed rot via pic cross section./

most of the .25 on google are that type of setup in the patterns I see day to day.

jeff williams · Oct 13, 2017

Sorry oceanwave45 for the hijacking of your post. The best kit to buy would be the seachem multi ammonia test kit prime has no affect on it.

Oceanwave45 · Oct 13, 2017

jeff williams said:
Sorry oceanwave45 for the hijacking of your post. The best kit to buy would be the seachem multi ammonia test kit prime has no affect on it.

It’s okay!!! I am just learning here, because I didn’t know what else to do. Thank you for all the help! You guys have been great!

I’m still testing, everyday just to check to see what’s going on.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 13, 2017

jeff williams said:
I guess the proper explanation would be it binds nh3 making it non toxic.

Correct.

jeff williams said:
Seachem states;The false positive is referring to the fact that the salicylate test can't distinguish between NH3 and NH4. The reagent used in the test breaks the bond with the Prime and converts all NH3 and NH4 to the same form so the total ammonia is tested. The total ammonia includes any NH3, NH4, and ammonia which had been complexed with Prime. It will not show more total ammonia than is actually in the water.

That is true.

The first step of a salicylate ammonia test involves raising the pH to allow all ammonia forms to react with chlorine to form chloramine:

http://archive.iorodeo.com/content/ammonia-0

They are concerned that if the test is not done fast enough, the ammonia present in the complex with Prime will break off the complex with the Prime under these conditions, and makes it appear that there is ammonia present when ion reality it was present as a Prime/ammonia complex.

jeff williams said:
There has to be ammonia present in order for the salicylate kit to break an ammonia prime complex otherwise it's not an ammonia prime complex it's either prime or ammonia

Yes and no. If Prime is intercepting the tiny amount of ammonia that is normally present in a reef tank between when it is excreted by one organism and taken up by another, then the amount of Prime-ammonia complex can rise to levels well in excess of the amount of ammonia present at any given time. Then this accumulated ammonia-Prime complex can all break apart in the test and show more ammonia than was ever present at any one time.

zuri · Oct 14, 2017

WOW long read I was getting nervous someone may have caught it before I could say!xD I run the same skimmer and leaving it off for the night can cause ammonia issues try leaving it on all night if you have not tried already. Skimmer holds good amount of water and collects quite abit of gunk I could give you a shot of mine.....you first tho while I quickly clean mine out hehe

Oceanwave45 · Oct 14, 2017

zuri said:
WOW long read I was getting nervous someone may have caught it before I could say!xD I run the same skimmer and leaving it off for the night can cause ammonia issues try leaving it on all night if you have not tried already. Skimmer holds good amount of water and collects quite abit of gunk I could give you a shot of mine.....you first tho while I quickly clean mine out hehe[/Q

See I wondered if it was the protein skimmer too! I can’t leave it on at night it’s too loud - maybe I should remove it