Sustained Ammonia spikes are misreads

[brandon429]

This is another tank. Here is a pic:

Its got 80 lbs of live sand, 20 lbs of aragonite, "that much" rock, and since it still looks bare, I just ordered another 40 lbs of live rock
________________________________________________________________
Wanted a pic of your tank for context


when you say order, that implies you are buying rocks that need to cure out, is that correct
how are you curing them before making a decision they’re ready for use like pet store rocks

 

[ScubaSkeets]

This is another tank. Here is a pic:

Its got 80 lbs of live sand, 20 lbs of aragonite, "that much" rock, and since it still looks bare, I just ordered another 40 lbs of live rock


when you say order, that implies you are buying rocks that need to cure out, is that correct

That pic was of Tank#2. Again, my only question on that particular tank was a .50ppm reading during cycling. Settled

My other ammonia posts..that had pics of ammonia tests only were regarding Tank#1. The pics where I only show ammonia readings are from Tank#1.

Man, stop being so argumentative.

 

[brandon429]

hard to follow that’s all. Several posts seemed to be on the same tank, confusing, apologies.

No argument, your tank and threads and api reading are perfect for this thread. It’s the exact condition we want to track, when api alone says there’s a problem and none of the visual tank details. a valid recurring theme if we click any link here.

it’s amazing to me that inability of a reef tank always expresses as the same number, across all reefs in distress, that’s a valid clue.

Check this one out
Just closed it all set.

EMERGENCY - Help with ammonia spike

I am guilty of not checking my levels lately and I did finally and my ammonia was at 2.0!! All my other levels were fine but my ammonia is high. I ran out of prime so I can’t dose that until I buy more tomorrow. Anything I can do to lower it in the meantime??? Or will my fish be ok until then...

www.reef2reef.com

-live rock tank

-claimed free ammonia


-willing to consider updated rules for surface area, so that thread is going smooth and the fish and corals show it. We wouldn’t have full open corals, open fanworms, clear water, fish down low, were there a shred of free ammonia.


your tank is hard to work with because it’s fine now and all issues are past and can’t be tested, we need a current example to test and look for motion if you want to add something.

that link above is live time, we can now track claims about the free ammonia by watching updates and posts as the days go by. Her tank will run just like yours did.

 

[brandon429]

Scuba and team

whats your take on this post, it’s a non emergency ammonia thread, but shouldn’t it be?

Suddenly add 20 fish to Established tank

Hi Reefers I need some advice from experts here. So my 65 gallon tank is about 2 years old and was housing 4 fish and around 20+ anemone. Recently I converted into a clownfish harem by adding 20 clownfish all at one time. Suppose 20 is a good number for them not to fight. Right now...

www.reef2reef.com

*the point of this post is to show what active surface area does, how powerful it is. It’s not that trace .25 can’t be oxidized and only some of the bioload can, it’s the opposite: because live rocks are so strong as filters, controlling nh3 is terribly easy.

it never runs just shy of being able to finish off the last nh3 out of the tenths.

surface area works the same tank to tank. Test kits vary, we can search right now on rtr api vs salifert vs red sea vs seneye and the results on a given sample are all over the place, no two agree. Tests vary wildly, context doesn’t, that he owns a zeroing api is bewildering. I’d never expect any test to agree with what he posts, but look at the picture context clues.


clear water

fish distributed, not hovering with gill burns

no opercular rates tripled


corals open

massive surface area, see how context links ALL posts in this thread, but test kits range?


****don’t think I’m saying a dead fish or upwell of sand can’t cause a spike, but the sustain is minutes-long at most and what it takes to get a spike hasn’t really been shown with seneye owners yet, everything they do along the lines of losing a fish shows the filtration never straying, not a spike. The masses have yet to discover this trend, based on digital vs color tube measurements. I don’t even own an ammonia test kit, I work by aiming conflicting web posts at each other to discern truth. Only reef tank forums allow for such a massive, variable and uncontrollable nh3 level system. In any other science: medicine, veterinary, aquaculture, nh3 is the tightest controlled natural mechanism around, and any variance is instant lethargy and loss, and water clouding.


only in web circles do we claim consequence- free nh3 free ammonia. If a nine dollar test kit says it is there, but the aquarium clearly isn’t being burned by the most dangerous metabolic compound it could see, it’s not there.


in my opinion nobody can have a valid opinion about what nh3 does in a reef tank without being able to link seneye threads in proofs one way or another. Those matter. A new meter says the old rules are wrong about how cycles work, I’m relaying that info here.

 

[threebuoys]

@brandon429

I agree with your position on the inaccuracy of the API ammonia test kit and your position concerning cycled tanks abilty to process ammonia. I do have a question for you. I have also seen a number of negative reviews for the seneye ammonia sensor. Do any ammonia test kits exist that you believe are acceptable to monitor ammonia particularly in a new tank before the cycle starts until it completes?

 

[brandon429]

Threebouys I hope you find this post here so relevant to that question. If you can spot the gold, this is one of the most impactful cycling posts in 2021, bet. Happens to be your exact q

* look how Jon handles his slides and his tuning that’s everything. These machines have to be tuned but Jon shows here just how precise a seneye can be.
check a few posts back to get the context:

Is anyone with a mindstream or seneye ammonia reader willing to co-fund a cycling experiment with me

Jedi thank you for those contributions that’s so on point for our thread here for sure I didn’t know there were other seneye-seers out there lol that’s neat to see many confirmations of bottle bac efficacy

www.reef2reef.com

that is Jon using seneye for two years in a running reef to show all reefs trend in the thousandths on a tuned machine (and immediately after a cycle, and it doesn’t just undo for api owners)
in his full size reef, Jon routinely participates in ammonia dosing threads where on seneye, they dose nh3 to see how fast a real reef uptakes it.


Five mins, that’s how long an ammonia spike sustains in a reef. Api cannot show this rebound rate, it‘ll read off metabolites somehow and marr up the reading in most cases.

he then moves it to a qt tank and it bottoms out at .001

he adds fractional surface area, only a wetted filter pad from another tank, and with a fish it runs in the thousandths—precisely reflecting the surface area mechanics that control nh3 in these sw tanks in an accurate day to day measure.


he then resumes thousandths ppm in a brand new bottle bac skip cycle tank with it and never leaves thousandths*it means that fish-in cycling isn’t harming fish, among the more significant discoveries made from work threads I’ll certify that for sure.


when we read about fish-in cycles with bottle bac harming fish, thats not true, skipping fallow harms them. Nh3 control is inherent to every post cycle reef, the bottle bac sales machine wins if we think otherwise.

Jon’s post using seneye shows how forums perpetuate wrong materials on nh3 control (and failure to control) because they lacked accurate means to know nh3 status at a given interval


Jons findings are an antithesis to most current claims about cycling, so it’s one of the most important threads of 21. We should have ran api alongside that the whole time....hindsight

 

[threebuoys]

Threebouys I hope you find this post here so relevant to that question. If you can spot the gold, this is one of the most impactful cycling posts in 2021, bet. Happens to be your exact q

* look how Jon handles his slides and his tuning that’s everything. These machines have to be tuned but Jon shows here just how precise a seneye can be.
check a few posts back to get the context:

Is anyone with a mindstream or seneye ammonia reader willing to co-fund a cycling experiment with me

Jedi thank you for those contributions that’s so on point for our thread here for sure I didn’t know there were other seneye-seers out there lol that’s neat to see many confirmations of bottle bac efficacy

www.reef2reef.com

that is Jon using seneye for two years in a running reef to show all reefs trend in the thousandths on a tuned machine (and immediately after a cycle, and it doesn’t just undo for api owners)
in his full size reef, Jon routinely participates in ammonia dosing threads where on seneye, they dose nh3 to see how fast a real reef uptakes it.


Five mins, that’s how long an ammonia spike sustains in a reef. Api cannot show this rebound rate, it‘ll read off metabolites somehow and marr up the reading in most cases.

he then moves it to a qt tank and it bottoms out at .001

he adds fractional surface area, only a wetted filter pad from another tank, and with a fish it runs in the thousandths—precisely reflecting the surface area mechanics that control nh3 in these sw tanks in an accurate day to day measure.


he then resumes thousandths ppm in a brand new bottle bac skip cycle tank with it and never leaves thousandths*it means that fish-in cycling isn’t harming fish, among the more significant discoveries made from work threads I’ll certify that for sure.


when we read about fish-in cycles with bottle bac harming fish, thats not true, skipping fallow harms them. Nh3 control is inherent to every post cycle reef, the bottle bac sales machine wins if we think otherwise.

Jon’s post using seneye shows how forums perpetuate wrong materials on nh3 control (and failure to control) because they lacked accurate means to know nh3 status at a given interval


Jons findings are an antithesis to most current claims about cycling, so it’s one of the most important threads of 21. We should have ran api alongside that the whole time....hindsight

I pretty much agree with what you've stated here. For that reason, I generally think ammonia testing is not very important once the tank has cycled unless something dramatic has happened in the tank and your searching for answers and eliminating possibilities.

That said, I also don't see the value in investing in a seneye since I don't think real-time monitoring, other than maybe the seachem dot, is needed. I'd like to have one to do similar experiments to what Jon did if in fact its accuracy is just a calibration issue. But I can't justify the cost since, again, I don't see the value in that level of monitoring once the cycle has completed.

However, I do think being able to monitor ammonia during the cycling of a new tank brings a level of comfort to the hobbyist. I suppose he could be taught to rely on the presence of nitrates as opposed to the elimination of ammonia as a clear indication the cycle has completed, but if a test can remove someone's doubts, that would be good too,

 

[brandon429]

Agreed. All this ammonia business doesn’t mean I’d ever invest a dime in measuring it, but using accurate meters to discern how consistent nh3 control is tank to tank is very fun

Many conflicts to the old rules have arisen given the new testers, hobby is changing regarding what bacteria do, and can endure

And by that I mean the trend is towards misread and buy something in response

The rare free info knows nothing is wrong


without those core context clues regarding water clarity, current levels contacting rocks and sand, fish distribution and known completion of cycle we don't have a real ammonia event

A very few won't even buy the kits it's so reliable. Wastewater treatment plants depend on cycles that don't unstick, only our branch of aquatics feels otherwise.

All ammonia alert posts are by nature a doubting of bacteria. I've never seen them disappoint. The right seneye machines can prove it

 

[brandon429]

Ok team (all future readers too) I hope this arrangement below presents a concise view on what reefs have regarding ammonia control— after a cycle. All reefs...not just some, because we are all way overdone on attachment points/surface area therefore the slightest bit of activated biofilter is spread out for most efficient wastewater contact. And most of us have redundantly added bacteria out of fear one way wasn’t enough.

am building post #29 to be irrefutable proof nobody has stuck ammonia and everybody has misreading api kits and Red Sea kits if they’re posting here or being posted

By firm rule established, cycles do not retrograde, starve, or get weak after a cycle. We know that we can relocate live rock among tanks endlessly and it doesn’t have dieoff.

A thread tracking pure skip cycle instant reefs, no bottle bac

This is a testless cycling thread, we don't want ammonia testing here for any job if possible, because we are teaching reefers/readers that moving live rocks system to system does not restart the cycle: many in our community don't understand that rule and feel that any tank being setup simply...

www.reef2reef.com

These are open topped water squares in a home...consider what untended baseboards look like- How about the top of ceiling fan blades... These tanks get feed even if we give none.


look how Jons barely cycled tank moves ammonia up and down predictably. Imagine a matured reef being less able...not so. Even a barely-cycled tank handles nh3 quickly.

Is anyone with a mindstream or seneye ammonia reader willing to co-fund a cycling experiment with me

What is the % ammonia contained does it say Not sure on the %. Nothing on the bottle. Website directions 40 mg/ml

www.reef2reef.com

Look at our ammonia dosing thread. Here’s twenty reefs who dose nh3 into the reef, most are on seneye, and they always uptake the ammonia very fast, all tanks.

Does anyone dose ammonia and/or how would one try?

I found a bottle of ammonium hydroxide from the supermarket but it doesn't tell the strength. From a little research I'm finding that most household solutions are 3%. (I'm hoping this is a safe guess!). I'd like to ask for someone to confirm my math: 3% = 30mg/ml. Tank vol = 150 L I...

www.reef2reef.com

**none of the posts in this thread are inputting raw ammonia or any other source, so how can they overcome these demonstrated abilities? these guys above are dosing straight bathroom cleaner into their reefs and it’s eaten right up, in no way are cycled rocks stalled or failed. For anyone.


Lastly, look how well bacteria seat in place, when a cycle chart says they will, adding NO bottled bac at all! This means the bac that oxidize ammonia are so set, so able in water, we didn’t even have to buy any—here‘s a feed-only cycle done in thirty days, no bottle bac. See how all this lines up for proof that a tank after cycle doesn’t permit free ammonia

Build Thread - My SPS Waterbox Peninsula Mini 15

Beautiful build and scape!

www.reef2reef.com

even if we seed no bacteria from a bottle, dry rocks pick up capability in thirty days. Nobody here with a mature reef or matured rocks has any free ammonia to spare in the water, it’s all being used up quickly, your tests misread off one or more adulterants. some may be metabolites and some may be chemical interference such as Prime low level misreads, but either way reef tanks do not leave tenths ppm free ammonia unused. They don’t even leave hundredths ppm available and that’s the best api can read even after TAN conversion using the directions as recommended.

 

[brandon429]

Tropic marin pro salt 6ppm ammonia fresh mix??

So i got home today and my torches and frogspawn closed up so i do some tests everything is the same as it always is but I tested ammonia using an api test kit I know junk.... and it showed 6ppm ammonia so I panicked did multiple tests same thing tested straight distilled and tested 0 but then I...

www.reef2reef.com

another false flag. Reef salt won’t kill or harm your tank with trace ammonia

trace ammonia isn’t in the api vernacular, total emergency spike is the language of api. Trace ammonia is what seneye owners see. ***I have no doubt the tests are picking up ammonia in new salt

but its not six ppm, that smells like a dead cat. No salt mixes mix up to six ppm, that’s a test misread.

 

[brandon429]

Amguard? For Amonia?

Hi, a few days ago I had an anenome walk into my wavemaker. I removed the anenome ASAP or as much as I could find anyway. I did a bit of a water change. I have given the tank the recommended amout of Anguard my amonia is now abou 0.1 after two doses. it was about 0.25 3 days ago. How is the...

www.reef2reef.com

there are many instances of false ammonia reads/sustains, this one was another. I don't know if we're getting confirmation pics or not. sometimes when you're able to describe someone's reef status all the way down to what sand is doing without a pic, they don't even bother...but you can bet if one fish died, we'd hear about it immediately.
the good news ones, the ones where its just a test kit, those don't often update they just reef on.


hows the false ammonia reads going team, and trip-ups lately

 

[brandon429]

Right now as we speak a scientist from the chem forum is telling me this whole thread is false anecdote and that reef tanks can fail to control their ammonia after the cycle, per their profession in organic chemistry. They’ve seen it happen.

but I ask them for a link, a proof, a read, an article off scholar, anything, and I get crickets


can someone who is a scientist please post the formal proofs you live by that show us where a post cycle reef fails to inherently control ammonia?


after all- anecdotes brought the hobby pico reefs, sandbed rinsing and tank relocation threads, skip cycling, peroxide use, others...so nonscientific discovery can’t be all that bad, it makes up for the incredible slowness of the formal gatekeepers.

 

[Foothill Corals]

Hey Brandon

Can we some pics of your tanks? Your build thread badge link does not work for me.

 

[brandon429]

All currently running pico reefs are my tanks


does that count

 

[Foothill Corals]

You are aware of the number one rule when taking advice from another reefer rite?

 

[brandon429]

does that #1 rule work in the opposite direction, when I’m giving advice on free ammonia statistics for post-cycle reef tanks to folks who are posting in distress and about to add all kinds of chemistry-altering random chems based on a false reading? Checking for validity of the rule.


what we study here is simple: show me any reef tank after cycle that cant control it’s ammonia while literally everything looks great in video and pics. It feels in prediction the rule might try to sway away from that fundamental request for the thread.

 

[Foothill Corals]

Just saying, I see you post a ton of stuff but I never read any of it because I have never seen your tanks. You Should fix your build thread badge.

 

[brandon429]

Thats fair I’ll legit post my little reef.

my build thread was in the Adavnced aquarist online forum then it closed, truly it needs removed agreed am sending edit request to Daniel. Several have told me link is dead/ fixing


if the rule was practice what you preach then that’s a fine rule here it is:

 

[brandon429]

So it turns out that thousands of tiny reefs with no dilution, assertive current and mega-high surface area per gallon make for useful nh3 crystal balls that upscale to all reef tanks. biofiltration is scalable and follows common rules that don’t vary much at all, reef to reef, heart of this thread.

there are not outliers in this matter or cycling charts would vary in timing like our api threads.


we are all managing nh3 in thousandths ppm in a post- cycle display reef the same, be it one gallon and 15 yrs old no fish or 500 gallons, sixty fish, and eight years old. Same nh3 ranging. Fascinating, and excludes everyone linked here from having uncontrolled free ammonia in the tenths, as their threads initially report.

 

[Foothill Corals]

Well crap, I thought that you may have just been some nut. Now I’m going to have to find time to read all your posts