What did I do? Amonnia spike, please help.

[BigRedReefer MT]

I moved my tank on Wednesday from my old house to my new one. Moved the fish to a tank I set up like a hospital just to hold them while I did the rest of the work. I scrubbed all my live rock to remove the hair algae Forest I was growing. I did that in buckets of tank water and rinsed them in buckets of ro/di. I put the rock in other buckets of tank water to move them. I set the tank back up and filled it with fresh saltwater and the water I used in the fish holding tank.
I didn't test water on Thursday but tested it Friday morning and was shocked to see an ammonia level of 0.5 ppm. I dosed the tank with Kent brand ammonia detoxifier at 5ml/20 gallons as directions stated. When I got home from work Friday night I tested again and received another 0.5 ppm reading. So I dosed again and tested 15 minutes later. That reading was 0.25 ppm. The dosing instructions say that the dose should lower ammonia by 1ppm.

Is it possible I killed my bio filter by rinsing LR in ro/di water? The buckets of tank water got pretty cool but were far above 32 F. The ammonia detoxifier says that kits using the Kessler reagent would show a false positive. All fish seem fine. No heavy breathing, not lethargic, ate fine this morning before testing. Corals seem fine. Good PE and no color change.
Any ideas what's going on?

 

[Saveafish]

Ammonia will go up with any tank move. Do a water change every other day and keep checking it.

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

How much would you suggest? A standard 10-20% or a larger 50%? Do you think I should also add some bottled bacteria to kickstart the cycle?

 

[Saveafish]

I'd do 20% that'll lower it if you keep doing the changes till it stops climbing.

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

I'd do 20% that'll lower it if you keep doing the changes till it stops climbing.

Thank you for the help .You think the LR is still cycled and this is an issue of stirring up the sand bed so much?

 

[Saveafish]

Thank you for the help .You think the LR is still cycled and this is an issue of stirring up the sand bed so much?

Staring it all up. No matter how good you are at moving tanks, it'll happen.

 

[EmdeReef]

If you are using API test kit after adding a detoxifier you will get a false positive. You could add some bacteria to speed up the mini-cycle.

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

If you are using API test kit after adding a detoxifier you will get a false positive. You could add some bacteria to speed up the mini-cycle.

That is what test I used. I did add bacteria as well at initial refill and another dose yesterday. I turned off my skimmer as well to allow the bacteria to find somewhere to grab on to without getting foamed out. I will be changing water every other day for a few to be sure that the ammonia is not reaching stressful levels. Thank you for the help guys, I was stressed out during the whole moving process and when it tested high my heart about broke.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Associated mainly with new systems. Cause is often by poor filtration or overfeeding.
Reduce feeding quantity, do water change(s) and what filtration are you using for what size tanks?

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

Associated mainly with new systems. Cause is often by poor filtration or overfeeding.
Reduce feeding quantity, do water change(s) and what filtration are you using for what size tanks?

The tank has been running for 9 months since end of cycle period in April 2018. Had no ammonia since two weeks prior to end of cycle period. I'm pretty sure that the spike is due to me breaking down my tank and moving it to new house. Everything was removed except for the sand and just enough water to keep the 4 inch sand bed covered. My filtration is HOB, I'm running two 400gph aqua clear power filters in a 75 gallon tank. The two filters are set to draw from 6 inches and 14 inches below the water. My skimmer is a reef octopus classic 2000 HOB skimmer. I feed a quarter cube of marine omni and a quarter cube emerald entree in the morning and about a half cube worth of diced raw clams in the evening. I also clip a quarter sheet if seaweed salad in the morning and remove any uneaten portion at night before feeding clam.

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

The current stock list is
1 fox face
1 yellow Tang
1 majestic angel
2 ocellaris clowns
3 blue green chromis
1 lawnmower blenny

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

And 2 sps, 3 lps, and 3 softies, and a large colony of polyps. Corals are target fed reef roids twice a week.

 

[MnFish1]

That is what test I used. I did add bacteria as well at initial refill and another dose yesterday. I turned off my skimmer as well to allow the bacteria to find somewhere to grab on to without getting foamed out. I will be changing water every other day for a few to be sure that the ammonia is not reaching stressful levels. Thank you for the help guys, I was stressed out during the whole moving process and when it tested high my heart about broke.

Most important to me - do your fish/coral/inverts look ok? Often if you add ammonia detoxifiers the ammonia level will continue to read 'higher' than normal

Additionally you said the water was well above 32. Well - when I do something like this I try to keep the rock at basically the same temp/etc as it is in the tank.. Bacteria/algae, etc etc are all going to be affected by temp shifts. Indeed you could have killed off a bunch of stuff on your rock - depending on the time it was in different conditions (low flow low temp low oxygen, etc)

if the inhabitants look good now - I wouldn't change water - I would add fritz turbo - or something like that each day - and watch.

 

[BigRedReefer MT]

Most important to me - do your fish/coral/inverts look ok? Often if you add ammonia detoxifiers the ammonia level will continue to read 'higher' than normal

Additionally you said the water was well above 32. Well - when I do something like this I try to keep the rock at basically the same temp/etc as it is in the tank.. Bacteria/algae, etc etc are all going to be affected by temp shifts. Indeed you could have killed off a bunch of stuff on your rock - depending on the time it was in different conditions (low flow low temp low oxygen, etc)

if the inhabitants look good now - I wouldn't change water - I would add fritz turbo - or something like that each day - and watch.

Yeah, when I say well above 32 it was at 67 F when igot it back into the tank. That is 10 degrees lower than I keep my tank so definitely a large drop. The fish seem happy and are swimming fine with no labored breathing. One sps is definitely not happy, but not sure if that's due to the ammonia spike or just the move in general. It had got beat up by my nem two weeks back and was just starting to show good PE and regain some color. Time will tell though.