Removing Ammonia in my Tank

[poseidonreefs_]

Hello, recently i noticed my frag tank being off. Stuff didn't look open, didn't look happy. Everything looks depressed as i could say. I do water changes weekly. 10% 40 gallon frag tank + about a 10-15 gallon sump. I went to the fish store to get my water tested and could not happen to get to the bottom of it as to why it is the way it is. Only thing that came alarming was the ammonia. Ammonia was 1 on a revo spin 360 tester. Fish are doing fine, only thing i cant understand why my tank does not look happy would see if you guys could help me get down to the bottom of it. My tank is mostly softies, all my zoas are like closed, one out of the colony might be open. My Calk is fine, Alk was fine. PH 7.9. I run no skimmer, carbon reactor. Filter socks and dose nothing but RO/DI with kalk. 2 part calk and alk. and thats about it. Dont dose mag, since its already high and I find that water changes replenish it enough till where it never bottoms out. Would love for someone to please help me. This is stressful. Im thinking a root of my issues could be due to the fact i have no skimmer.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Water changes most effective

 

[AydenLincoln]

Water changes the most tried and true method.

 

[MiniGbr]

Curious what would be causing the issue to begin with. Could be over feeding possibly for the fish? Or oferfeeding coral. Ammonia would be caused be nutrient input, or something dying.

Adding a refugium in the sump with macro algae or an algae scrubber would remove some ammonia since plants uptake ammonia, but finding the cause would be the best thing to figure out.

 

[poseidonreefs_]

Curious what would be causing the issue to begin with. Could be over feeding possibly for the fish? Or oferfeeding coral. Ammonia would be caused be nutrient input, or something dying.

Adding a refugium in the sump with macro algae or an algae scrubber would remove some ammonia since plants uptake ammonia, but finding the cause would be the best thing to figure out.

Sailfin died, but I dont think its that. I got him out not even 12 hours in.

 

[Spare time]

Add a whole bottle of cycling bacteria

 

[poseidonreefs_]

Add a whole bottle of cycling bacteria

turbostart?

 

[poseidonreefs_]

Add a whole bottle of cycling bacteria

microbacter7?

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

If your fish are fine but your coral is not, then the problem isn't ammonia. Ammonia is toxic to fish and inverts but corals use it as food.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

What is your salinity (and how do you calibrate whatever you use to measure it)?

 

[poseidonreefs_]

salinity gravity meter, one which you point at the light. Calibrated before every use. 1.025 is my salinity reading.
There is something definitely passing them off, and affecting them. But I cant put my finger on it. You think high mag causes this? my mag would have spiked up about 3 weeks ago cause I dosed a bit like a dummy.

 

[brandon429]

I want to offer you something for your benefit and mine lol poseidonreefs

can I remotely run your tank live time and fix it, that means only do what I say and not anything else

full remote pilot of your reef. live time, if we lose they'll drum me out of town digitally. if we win it goes on page 50 of some giant proof thread.

I know exactly how to fix your tank because of these variables in your descrip:

its an already running reef tank. there are preset rules for what ammonia does in those, your spin tester is like taking an api test kit/and spinning it

still api still nh4

there is a way to stabilize your reef, having nothing to do with ammonia. let's do a live run fix

start by posting a full tank shot showing a normal reef with a bunch of corals and surface area already carrying fish.

list what disease protocol you applied here/from the disease forum such as fallow and quarantine.

 

[brandon429]

lets see how much surface area to bioload there is here/ pics

 

[poseidonreefs_]

this thread is getting entered in about six false cycle stall study threads because of an emerging pattern in forums again, I figured we can actually fix this one live time to make it a great study.


if help is accepted here/we will have a fix on the books for this most recent study.

first rule of updated cycling science that applies here even before pics: only fish kills cause ammonia spikes and once a carcass is removed, ammonia self resolves in ten minutes in any reef tank. your tester can't see that resolution rate. there is about a 98% chance the ammonia reading coming off the tester in question is nh4, and must be estimated *down* 10x in level before relaying as nh3, which is the only form of ammonia a reef tank cares about.

there's a reason your whole tank looks fine and only a fish was challenged, and we can rule out ammonia instantly. pics will show what I mean~

so what could it be then?

 

[brandon429]

lets see pics

reason why: if you lack enough surface area to keep the bioload in question, your tank can't live past 48 hours.


its been alive for days and days on end, that rules out ammonia and rules you into common reefing challenges.

if I set my salinity so much as a tad too low, my corals meet your description until I raise it up

so many variables make a tank look perky or drab, it helps to know what to rule out

 

[brandon429]

need a full tank shot pic from today/recent

one of the best means to change up a situation like yours is once we see the lighting/adjust that (down usually) the tendency is to chase blast PAR we read is ideal, and we'd + up the feeding and type of feed you provide to corals and sustain an increased water change frequency and % each week for eight weeks. then at the end, your tank is perky.


we can make use of you not having a sandbed I assume/a throughput high-feed high work on your part of exchanging water sustained for eight weeks will perk that reef up. post pics. that series of work sustained a mere two mos is flushing through your system clean protein we would select here/it's totally beefing to corals. we would change the things you haven't yet, opposite of ammonia concern.


second rule that applies here: on any cycling chart ever made, after the day ten drop for ammonia, does it ever rise up


only in web forums does it rise up/but no chart shows it/for a reason. that will help you along the way as we proof out ammonia. there is a massive history of documentation other than web forum ideas that says your cycle is fine, because you've already been keeping coral and fish for weeks I'd assume, months in this setup>

 

[poseidonreefs_]

 

[brandon429]

Thats literally massive surface area, massive.

thats every frag tank from the chicest fish stores I've ever seen.

it's not like you're dealing in untested waters, about two thousand of those above have seneyes hooked to them showing what ammonia does in that exact setting, and it's fine

it's not ammonia. that's simply too much surface area, coral frags are surface area (then becomes live rock in another millennia with it's surface area prowess still in tact)

your bioload is so low I can't even see any fish. I know some are in there but its not like ten regal angels fouling up the place. It is biologically impossible for that reef tank to fail to control ammonia. if you know anyone with a seneye, having them bring it over and hook it up could be soooo helpful

and if nobody near has a seneye, we'd stop factoring ammonia and increase work+protein+clean water throughput sustained like reef exercise

its currently sedentary

for eight weeks/reef will pop shine/ammonia never mattered. no doser, param, nothing is as important as dropping light levels a bit, go down a small % in power and lighter whites/a little deeper blues sustain for eight weeks while doing something markedly different in stepped-up feed + water change habits, for two mos

it works exactly like a lifting program for a human. reef exercise rebuilding. applying updated cycling science which never flinches on ammonia without a calibrated seneye telling us to makes you free to apply the real changes your tank needs. if you worked to suppress ammonia here, you'd bleach out those corals eventually.

if in fact you wanted to add ammonia into this tank, I would agree, based on these threads:

Does anyone dose ammonia/ammonium for corals or macroalgae?

Hello all, Do any of you dose ammonia or ammonium instead of dosing nitrate? How do you dose it? What form do you use? I dose sodium nitrate and sodium phosphate in my tanks because dosing ammonia scares the crap out of me, and Im afraid the ammonia would just be broken down by bacteria in the...

humble.fish

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

So, after an interesting discussion on nitrate dosing and looking at my Walt Disney coral and seeing it slightly less colorful than I have seen it in others tanks, I have decided I want to learn about and then try dosing ammonia instead of buying 20 damsels. Nitrate additives I see abound and...

www.reef2reef.com

your tank can be benefitted by ammonia, there's no backup, it's right there on file above via seneye.

*our stepped up coral feeding plan increases nitrate too. the reason those folks were adding ammonia above, to running reefs, knowing that all reefs handle extra ammonia quickly, is because that too boosts nitrogen.

same ends. your tank is handling ammonia fine. the spin tester is a glorified API reader.

don't run any form of nitrate or phosphate removal on this system during the exercise routine. food in, bulk water changes only.

 

[Garf]

salinity gravity meter, one which you point at the light. Calibrated before every use. 1.025 is my salinity reading.
There is something definitely passing them off, and affecting them. But I cant put my finger on it. You think high mag causes this? my mag would have spiked up about 3 weeks ago cause I dosed a bit like a dummy.

Are you using a 35ppt calibration solution for refractometers or RODI (which is the wrong option).

 

[poseidonreefs_]

Are you using a 35ppt calibration solution for refractometers or RODI (which is the wrong option).

Ro/DI?