1 week long ammonia spike!

T

titancrusher1

New member
New to the forum here :)

Ok,

so last saturday my tank started crashing...i have a 2month old 135g reef setup. Looks like i was not supposed to feed twice a day along with feed the coral every other day..... I neglected to do water changes since the beginning and didn't syphon the gravel, lesson learned!

To make a very long story short, i've done 4 30g water changes since last saturday and removed all of my coral and an anemone to try and prevent the ammonia from being so high. I'm worried if i do anymore changes the tank will re-cycle the water. I currently have a sailfin, clown, coral beauty, 2 scooters, and 4 chromis and a Cleaner Shrimp who are all looking great and I dont want them to die. HOWEVEr, for some reason, after all of the water changes my ammonia is still between 4-8ppm according to liquid API Master test kit.

Should I continue doing water changes or at this point am I going to have to ride it out? My water was hazy but has started to clear probably due to the last water change i did yesterday.

I was told the hazy water was actually a sign of the tank fighting the ammonia?

Should I Stop the water changes?

Take note i've dosed Seachem prime in my tank SEVERAL times (probably 16oz in a week) and stopped this saturday because i was told it could be contributing to the ammonia spike.

Tahnks for the help!
 
First of all SLOW DOWN!!!!! corals aren't ready for a tank for at least 6 months.....
Water changes are the fastest way to bring down ammonia.... Corals don't really contribute to the ammonia... the fish do!!!

But more info is needed.... are you sure it actually cycled in the first place? what are all the other parameters.... how much LR and what type of filtration are you using.... what are you topping off/mixing new water with. RODI or tap water???
 
It was definitely cyled. The rock and half of the water were in a 75g for 3 months i was also doing water tests twice a week before the crash. I was topping off with RO water but the water was initially made from Tap. I'm now buying store water from now on!

I have about 85lbs of Live rock right now. My filtration consists of a 30g Sump with a Protien skimmer as well as a 100 Micron Filter sock and an added canister filter (xp3 Filstar).
 
You have a fair amount of fish for a tank that is only 2 months old. That is contributing to your ammonia as you probably haven't built up a large enough bacteria population to process all the waste. Did you put all the fish in at once, or did you stagger them somewhat? When you say gravel, what do you mean? Generally speaking, gravel can cause issues with trapping detritus and causing spikes in nitrates.

You say your water was hazy, that was most likely due to a bacterial bloom from your high ammonia. Give us a "from day one" account of how you setup your aquarium, including a list of equipment and we can probably talk you through this without too much trouble.

oh yeah,
<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>To Reef Central</b></i></big></big>
 
I would ditch the canister filter for now.

Making your own RO water is a good thing, don't waste your money on the store bought stuff.

85lbs of rock is not very much for that size system. You should be almost double that.

What kind of skimmer are you using?
 
Im getting my water from a store owner who is using an RO system to make it specifically for me, hes not selling me his water from his big 400G batch.

I put in the fish approximately at a rate of 1 per week. The 4 chromis all went in at the same time in the beginning though. My gravel is Aragonite/crushed coral mix small enough for the scooter blennies to bury themselves in but not as fine as sand.

The skimmer is a Coralife Super Skimmer i think its rated for 150 or 200g not 100% on that sicne it was used when i bought it.

In terms of equipment that's pretty much it. The Skimmer, the two filter socks one for the main dropoff into the sump and one for the skimmer and canister exhaust. I also have a 1/5th Aqualife chiller hooked up inline to the Canister Filter. I do ahve a UV Sterilizer taht I am not using right now. If it matters i've also got two powerheads in the tank stirring the water flow and a 300W heater.


Working on getting more live rock but its a bit expensive to get 80 more lbs :P. Should I even buy any until the levels are fine?
 
I would buy 80lbs of dry rock and minimize the fish load until the rock is matured in the tank. Give it a month or 2. Instead of just spacing the fish additions a week apart, measure the levels and make sure they have leveled out. FWIW the coral life prob isnt a big enough skimmer for what you are running. I would hold off on livestock until I got more rock and a better skimmer.

You have a chiller, are you having issues with heat? What kind of lights are you running? And as I said before, ditch the cannister filter, and make sure you wash your socks thoroughly at least once a week.
 
Socks are washed 2 or 3 times a week. No problems with heat, just had it on during the summer. My lights are Power COmpacts. 3 65W bulbs. Under those lights my Xenia Coral and Colt were growing pretty quickly up until the crash so i'm going to go on record and say it was enough light :P
 
You put way too many fish in there way too fast. You should have done one a month. As another member said coral especially anemone's shouldn't go into a tank until at least the 6 month mark. Your also going to need a better skimmer than a Coralife to process waste before it turns into ammonia and nitrate. Be prepared to see a big nitrate spike after the ammonia drops. Even though your tank was 'cycled' it did not have near enough bacterial population to support 2 fish let alone over 10 and corals. I'd keep doing large water changes and do not add anymore fish for at least 2 months so the tank stabilizes.

Edit: Also get rid of the canister filter, it will trap so much waste and it will sit there and turn into nitrate unless it is cleaned out every single week even then they are not efficent enough in a saltwater tank.
 
titancrusher1 said:
Socks are washed 2 or 3 times a week. No problems with heat, just had it on during the summer. My lights are Power COmpacts. 3 65W bulbs. Under those lights my Xenia Coral and Colt were growing pretty quickly up until the crash so i'm going to go on record and say it was enough light :P
Click to expand...


Lights that are enough for Xenia aren't enough for an anenome... what type of anenome do you/did you have?
 
You dont need to ditch the canister filter just remove the media thats in it. You can leave it like it is and use it for added flow. Like everyone said slow down and let youre tank catch up to youre bioload. Fish are tough and will probably make it through the current cycle. I would continue with large water changes as youre bacteria are in the sand and rock so you'll not disturb the cycle by doing them. Might speed things up to add a little sand from an established tank.

Dave
 
It wont help since the bacteria are living in the sand,gravel, and LR. Just continue with the waterchanges and keep an eye on the corals. I have read that some people have had success with adding products that have live bacteria in them. I havent used them so I dont know for sure.

Dave
 
On a quick side note, you'll probably find your ammonia level isn't quite as high as your API test kit is telling you.

Seachem's Prime neutralizes ammonia in the water, but it doesn't remove it. Certain ammonia test kits can't tell the difference between this neutral, non-toxic ammonia and the toxic stuff that we need to be certain we DON'T have. I know for a fact that API's ammonia test kits will give you the total ammonia level in your tank, not just the toxic stuff that Prime hasn't bound to. Basically, your ammonia problem isn't as bad as your kits are telling you, given that you've poured a ton of Prime into your tank. From memory, two drops of Prime are meant to treat 1g of water for 0.5ppm ammonia.

The FAQ's on Seachem's website should explain this better than I can. Long story short, keep up with the water changes for a while, and you may want to find a test kit that distinguishes total and free ammonia for you if you're going to use Prime (and it certainly won't hurt you to keep up dosing Prime until the tank's bacteria levels can begin to cope with the bioload),

Hope this helps.
 
you sure you dont have anything dead in the tank?? I agree that you're probably not getting an accurate ammonia reading due to all the Prime use.

How big is the sailfin tang?

Any nitrite and nitrate levels?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

oceangopher
Tankpocalypse Now
Replies
2
Views
175
Reefing102
Reefing102
Reignfire
Stray current
2
Replies
31
Views
1K
griss
griss
T
Tank Crashing
Replies
19
Views
628
brandon429
brandon429
M
Back to this wonderfull hobbie after 10 years
Replies
4
Views
278
griss
griss
S
Nutrient Export
Replies
0
Views
2K
SantaMonica
S
Back
Top