High Ammonia question

[calypsocowboy]

Tank 6 years old
I took some water to my LFS and he put it in a spinner checker. He says my Ammonia is on the high side. I go home and use my Hanna Marine Master 9 in 1 and it says .12. Then I use my Red Sea test, and it says basically zero. They also say my nitrite was high too, but get home and it's OK. Very confused about all the inconsistency among the tests. I rarely check Ammonia and nitrite, because it's always 0 or very low. The Spinner check is supposed to be the greatest thing at 1500 dollars and only available to dealers. Any thoughts? Thanks!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Why did you go and have your water tested, to begin with? Personally I would trust your Hanna Marine Master over the API spin test (assuming that's what they are using"

 

[WvAquatics]

I havent check ammonia since my rock cycled. Moved to a new tank and moved rock in and never checked ammonia clowns been in the 2nd tank 2 years still kicking. I'd say it's an api .5 is 0 case. This is why most moved away from api for saltwater.

 

[brandon429]

Your tank can’t have a sustained ammonia control issue at year six, this is a misread. Those testers are bad, we’ve seen them misread before. Lots of times.

Post a full tank picture, it’ll show zero ammonia distress.

The misread happens because those machines report nh4 vs nh3, and old cycling science rules said nh4 had to be zero, always, or the cycle was broken. That’s false. You can’t have a six year old reef tank that loses ability to control ammonia without cause. If the cause is a dead fish rotting in the rocks, remove it, the system will rebound in ten minutes. If there isn’t a missing fish, your LFS is selling a LOT of ripoff extra bottles of bacteria to unsuspecting consumers based on old cycling science rules we don’t use anymore.

 

[Tamberav]

The $1500 is convenience imo and not accuracy.

 

[calypsocowboy]

Why did you go and have your water tested, to begin with? Personally I would trust your Hanna Marine Master over the API spin test (assuming that's what they are using"

An Acan I have has been slowly dieing and I have never been able to keep Anemones alive. Everything else is great! They ended up basically fragging all the dead off the acan, and found a worm inside eating it. I have tried 5 times to keep anemones, and they just slowly wither away. But still the Hanna and red sea being that far apart? I used the red sea for 4 years before Hanna and all was thriving except anemones.

 

[brandon429]

Ammonia presence would help those organisms, as feed, vs harm them. It’ll be something other than ammonia.

Aqua spin always rips people off

My Hanna test are off from LFS tester

I took my water into the LFS today to double check water parameters. I use all Hanna testers except for magnesium which I use salifert. I was surprised at a few differences and I don’t know what to make of it. My at home test: Alk 150 Calcium: 440 Mag: 1400 LFS test: Alk: 130 Cal: 330...

www.reef2reef.com

Your lfs is using a test system that tricks people into thinking their cycle is broken.

 

[brandon429]

Can you please make sure your LFS sees this thread? Post it on their Facebook, or email it to them.

It’s probably the only input they’re ever going to see regarding cycle troubleshooting accuracy without trying to sell you things



I guarantee they’re capitalizing bigtime on these misreads and not even by intent; that’s the inherent ripoff of using old cycling science. Permanent bacterial doubt…and they have a remedy for sale.

Curious if anyone tried to sell you a remedy for the reading. They don’t think it’s a ripoff to offer bacteria in a bottle for a clearly bad readout, they just don’t understand the rules they’re applying to the machine have been remade and their old rules are now totally invalid.
Post a full tank pic if you can, that’s what we use for ammonia proofing because it will show copious aged surface area in place, lots of photosynthetic command for ammonia, and generally no symptoms whatsoever in fish. It’s that predictable.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

An Acan I have has been slowly dieing and I have never been able to keep Anemones alive. Everything else is great! They ended up basically fragging all the dead off the acan, and found a worm inside eating it. I have tried 5 times to keep anemones, and they just slowly wither away. But still the Hanna and red sea being that far apart? I used the red sea for 4 years before Hanna and all was thriving except anemones.

Have you done an ICP on your tank before?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

perhaps the issue is not the test result, but the interpretation. Did the lfs give values?

Many folks think any detectable ammonia or nitrite is too much, but that’s not true.