Ammonia in QT Problem

[Fibinotchi]

Can someone tell my why when I am using three very large pieces of liverock, and two filter cartridges that have been in my regular tanks for at least a month in QT, I am having an ammonia problem? I have been doing 10 percent plus water changes per day trying to keep it down.

 

[Toddrtrex]

Would need to know what size QT, and what all do you have in there -- livestock wise.

 

[Fibinotchi]

55 gallon, 3 inch regal tang, blue spotted jawfish, scooter blenny, mccoskers flasher wrasse, flame hawk, coral beauty, maroon clown. only 4 cups of sand for the blue spotted jawfish.

 

[Fibinotchi]

Also it is hypo because the coral beauty had some ich and the regal tang was flashing with maybe 2 spots of ich. But the live rock has no inverts on it, no feather dusters, and it is large decorative bleached type coral skeletons with no coralline algae but had been in the cycled tank when I bought it and I removed from main display in order to use it in qt.

 

[Toddrtrex]

It is very possible with that high of a bio-load that the rocks aren't "ready" for the amount of ammonia those fish are producing. I would suggest doing daily water changes to keep the ammonia at 0, until the bacteria population has had a change to grow.

 

[Fibinotchi]

Well I just did a 15 gallon water change and it didn't lower it significantly. It lowered it from just below one to just below .5. I had some of the red algae from my refugium in there for the tang, but it has a real low light fixture and some of the algae started to turn almost clear so I though that was the problem, so I took it out and today the ammonia is higher. The fish still seem ok, except the scooter blenny and the wrasse were a little less active.

 

[jjk_reef00]

I would do 50% or more if you have ammonia.

 

[Chris27]

Because you have a lot of fish in there, and there will be some die-off from the rocks when going to hypo. Prime or Amquel can help if it gets too high, but it can also impede establishment of the filter.

Keep up with it, the filter will establish soon, while QT seems like a huge task right now, only good things can happen from this point forward.

 

[Fibinotchi]

Yes, I am a firm believer in qt because I have had to tear down a large tank just to catch one fish to treat. I am just used to using one of my smaller established reef tanks to qt smaller fish, I am not used to having a high stress active fish in qt like the tang and having to set up a larger tang to do it.

 

[mborkush]

When copper is added to a quarantine tank, does it kill the bacteria that is grown during the tank cycling? I was wondering if this will cause higher amounts of Ammonia than in a DT.

 

[Toddrtrex]

Not sure how it effects the bacteria, but it will most likely kill off any inverts that were on the rock -- which, depending how many there were, could effect the ammonia levels.

 

[WDLV]

I agree that this bioload was too high for the system. I would point you toward using Amquell as long as you don't plan to use cuppramine. That said, WCs are generally the cheapest remedy for replenishing trace elements or in this case removing toxins.

My preference is not to use liverock or other porous materials in a QT just because you might be tempted to use them in a main system later after having used them with copper in the QT. I think they also reduce the effect of the medications you might choose to use.

I am curious about your filter cartridges too. If you used them in a main display in a filter, they likely have detritus in them that is now rotting in your quarrantine tank. If you just floated them in the sump of the DT, you're probably OK.

I do understand that your intent is to culture bacteria with the LR and the filter media, but I'm not so sure it's the lesser of two evils. I would say your best remedy for now is to remove anything that might collect detritus and monitor the Ammonia levels through the end of your quarrantine. I think you would do just as well to add several maxijet powerheads to the system and use the sponge filters that come with them for trapping detritus just because it's easy to see when they need to be cleaned. You can use your power filter if you need to use carbon or other media. On that note you might try some of that ammoniasorb media too.

Best of luck.

 

[Fibinotchi]

I have a large seio in the tank and a koralia. the filter cartridge came from a hob that I have on my sump, it doesn't catch a lot of detritus but mainly runs the sump water through carbon and keeps the surface of the sump agitated. I have a hob skimmer on the display so the sump doesn't collect a ton of detritus plus I have another filter cartridge set up under the drain for several reasons one being to stop splashing. I don't want to use medication to treat because I have read not to use copper treatments with blue spotted jaw fish. The ick seems to be gone off the fish except one large spot on the tail of the coral beauty, but no other fish have gotten it in the qt tank.
As I mentioned before the previous owner had used large, like 12 by 12 inch giant bleached coral sps skeletons, which I thought were kind of tacky in the tank so I removed them and assumed they had good bacteria on them to keep the tank from cycling. I do not intend on putting them back in the display.

 

[Fibinotchi]

When copper is added to a quarantine tank, does it kill the bacteria that is grown during the tank cycling? I was wondering if this will cause higher amounts of Ammonia than in a DT.

I believe there are some forms of copper treatment that do not have an effect on biological filter. Cupramine might be one, and I have that, but don't want to use it.