what the heck??? Instant ocean salt rose tap ammonia to 2.0PPM

[Makubex]

Does your water municipality use chloramines to purify the water?

I dont know ive been using their water since college for fw tanks and at times fish only tanks with sw

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

I'd prolly avoid the tap like the plague, but that's just me. Did you test the tap for ammonia content before mixing anything. IIRC if they treat with chlorine/chloramine it can give a false positive for ammonia. Thus why it's beyond recommended to use RODI. I used to just use the prime equivalent with tap back in the day, but I wouldn't do that now, too much crap in tap water treatment.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

if they treat with chlorine/chloramine it can give a false positive for ammonia

No. Chloramine = chlorine + ammonia. So if your water has chloramines and you use something to remove chlorine (aka "water conditioner") you end up with ammonia in the water.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

No, no this is a 25 gallon tank from scratch, is a qt tank, I just added tap water(with 0 ammonia), but after adding the salt in as well as the dechlorinator(api tap water conditioner) the ammonia spiked to 2.0ppm, I tested water before adding the salt(with the ph added/conditioner) and it was zero, after salt 2.0

So animals in it yet? That is odd. The ammonia in sea salt is from contamination of one of the salts - I was told the magnesium chloride - maybe your bag had some bad salt? They make huge batches though, so it plus have to have been a problem with the whole run.
Jay

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

So animals in it yet? That is odd. The ammonia in sea salt is from contamination of one of the salts - I was told the magnesium chloride - maybe your bag had some bad salt? They make huge batches though, so it plus have to have been a problem with the whole run.
Jay

Or, the dechlorinator removed chlorine but released ammonia if he has chloramines...

 

[brandon429]

I want to post something about ammonia testing in general using non digital kits, anyone can search out their own patterns here to confirm or disconfirm the statement, I would provide links of the examples if wanted.

non digital test kits have told scores of people that their fully running reef tank was within these reported ranges, and as high as 8 ppm and for 6+ pages those readings were entertained as fact/real solely because the levels were stated by the op, no verification required from the umpires.


those kits never benchmark well against seneye OR hanna digital ammonia trending when cycles are ran using both kits, we have examples. the non digital kits always grossly overread, so many different things affect them/make them over read

-there is no possible way to know this OP's levels for anything using non digital kits, they're that useless.

this is so upsetting to the masses to know non digital test kits are useless in cycling it's not a problem to ignore that warning, but once you read of a 2.5 year old system full of plants, a giant red starfish (delicate) and lots of rocks purpled in coralline, with a huge healthy sandbed all running perfectly in pictures and not one loss but only a seachem badge stating 8 ppm you'll think differently about these kits. those threads descend into madness, while all along the reef literally is running perfectly and any digital nh3 kit hooked to it would report just fine...


having to base what we think about these kits not on our personal ability to command them but in the complete cycling wreckage they cause for others really changes the perspective. for the most part, anyone who can use these kits effectively at home to get a decent approximation for ammonia in a reef tank expects all others to be able to do the same, so they accept any stated level as fact. its in the threads...

we can not know this OP's working ammonia level off the provided info.

it would help to see a picture of the tank in question, to assess surface area

once we factor that with the number of days running, and how it was cycled, we can determine ammonia status very accurately/better than non digital kits. if the surface area is very reduced in the system, some ammonia concern could be legit but it won't be those test kits fixing the matter: that only allows further guessing.

 

[MoshJosh]

Or, the dechlorinator removed chlorine but released ammonia if he has chloramines...

If this is the case, OP should test tap + de-chlorinator to see if he gets the same 2ppm???

 

[brandon429]

it doesn't matter how he benchmarks the reading, from inside the tank he's subject to the same variation we see in thousands of these posts. non digital test kits can't be used to discern cycle status unless we're talking Dan, Taricha or Randy in controlled settings. the prime use alone here stated/wildly above normal is an adulterant. when people move rocks around inside a normal system it can trigger wild spikes on api/red sea kit/we have the thread examples, and it's not ammonia causing the rise. reef tanks don't store up ammonia in a sandbed, its a metabolic byproduct produced live-time by decaying proteins and or animal metabolism yet the kits register just wild readings in fully running reefs in hundreds of threads online.

his tank could be perfectly normal, within the range we'd expect for his surface area, and he wouldn't be able to know due to testers used.

to redo this tank I would have changed out the water and never used Prime again (see Taricha's thread on it, it doesnt work to reduce ammonia so it was never needed here as a reflex addition) and I would redo the setup without copper used

get the cycle going first, then copy someone else's copper approach and it will be fine. don't customize and blend the methods, inputing 25x prime etc/these testers can't deal with that, they can't even deal with normal tanks in the majority of cases. 2.0 ppm to this OP may be another person's .5/the subjectivity never ends.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Or, the dechlorinator removed chlorine but released ammonia if he has chloramines...

Yes, but when I had chloramines city water in Ann Arbor, the released ammonia was less than 1 ppm. Perhaps this was from multiple combined sources?
Jay

 

[brandon429]

@Makubex can you post a clear full tank shot so we can see the layout and the surface area + placement in the system

I had one qt system where they put a few ceramic balls on the floor of the system, that's not using surface area correctly. we had them pick up the ceramics and move them into a hang on back filter for channeled direction: instantly balances just fine for a common bioload. pics are more important than guessed at readings for any cycle troubleshoots.

 

[Dan_P]

I immediately added prime, i am using the purple bag, i am very very desperate it isnt my tap that read zero ammonia, I am using salifert ammonia test kit, its in my qt tank with copper to treat ich, most good bacteria has been wiped out due to copper and you know prime doesnt work unless you add x10, I added x5 and now the ammonia reads 1.3, I still have 8 days left to finish my ich treatment on fish only, they will go to a different non ich display tank, I am in code red right now.

Just add BioSpira or Fritz Turbo Start. Prime does not reduce ammonia. The ammonia reduction you observed was likely interference of Prime with the ammonia test.

Alternatively, don’t allow the pH to approach 8. 2 ppm ammonia total ammonia is not lethal at a lower pH because free ammonia, the toxic form, is mostly protonated. If you can get pH down to 7.6-7.8, slowly of course.

 

[Makubex]

Just add BioSpira or Fritz Turbo Start. Prime does not reduce ammonia. The ammonia reduction you observed was likely interference of Prime with the ammonia test.

Alternatively, don’t allow the pH to approach 8. 2 ppm ammonia total ammonia is not lethal at a lower pH because free ammonia, the toxic form, is mostly protonated. If you can get pH down to 7.6-7.8, slowly of course.

But can you leave it at 7.8 permanently? In a fowlr of course, I know reefs wont handle 7.8 for sure, its just a small picasso triggerfish, 4" sailfin tang and a 9" volitan lionfish