Ammonia spike after cleaning sump & gravel vacuum.

[PiscesPower]

I cleaned out the sump yesterday somewhat when I made the new fuge mod. Stirred up some stuff and then I did a water change about 15% and vacuumed the shallow sandbed. (Sand is only 5 weeks old in this tank). I was remiss in changing my Seneye slide by a day and when I did it tonight my free ammonia is 0.012 ppm. Everything looks fine for now, nothing dead in the tank. No other obvious cause of the spike.

I added some Prime for now and ordered a bottle of Dr Tim's One & Only figuring I have depleted some of my bacterial filtration with my aggressive cleanup. Nitrates 12 hrs after water change were at 0.25 PO4 0.02. Last weekend they were .25 and .06 respectively. They have not been running particularly high I'm not struggling with nutrients. I am running full Triton.

Am I doing the right things to rectify this issue?

My ammonia test kit is at work and I'll do an Red Sea test tomorrow to verify Seneye reading and monitor that online throughout the day.

Only other difference is the use of Tropic Marin Pro salt for the H2O change per Triton recommendation.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Total ammonia is what?

 

[PiscesPower]

Oddly I am no longer seeing NH4 on my Seneye.
Parameters this AM on the Seneye
NH3 0.010
pH - 8.2
Temp 78 degrees

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'm not sure if Prime messes with the ability of the Seneye to detect it.

 

[PiscesPower]

The widget is gone...

 

[PiscesPower]

I did a test with my Red Sea Pro kit and it came back as 0 ppm. sigh. I'm glad of it, but not sure if the Prime affected that. I'll just keep alert and add the Tim's.