Constant Ammonia??? help....

[Brickyardpub]

I Started my tank up about 5 months ago at this point. According to the guys at my LFS , things seem like they are going according to schedule. I've been extrememly patient with adding anything as I seem to have a constant ammonia level, no trites, and no trates thus far. .according to my test kits.

I've been buying LR from my store on a fairly consistant basis as I've been going along... its been lovely dark purple crusted stuff , well seasoned. They run VHO there at a relatively low light level on the tanks. After putting the initial 40 lbs i bought it about 3 weeks later it started bleaching under my t-5's and dying off except for the underneath parts. So i waited....

after another month and my hair algae was out of control i got a CUC, one of those packages from Drs. F&S... comes with 15 snails, stars, crabs, etc. So i figured that would be a spike... so i waited about 2 months....

The levels never get or got above .2 to .25 but I've been adding a few lbs of LR every once in a while with the same small amt of die off from the light change and about 3 weeks ago I added 2 tank raised clowns as my first 2 little fish. And I've waited about 3 to 4 weeks now....

The fish are fine , extrememly active.... as is everything else in the tank. i figured I would run another ammonia test about 3 weeks after adding fish just to see where i stand... and its the same... about .2 ???

I have a 25 g Fuge with a 65w PC 10K over it on a reverse cycle from the Display and a small amount of Chaeto tumbling around and barely growing....

Roughly 5 months plus into this and I've got these readings as of this morning :

Ammonia - .2
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
Cal - 380
Mag - 1200
Hardness - 11

I change out 10 % water weekly and pretty much do everything by the book, I've read and researched tons while waiting the last few months. I'm interested in getting into some easy corals in the next couple months, but i want to get to the bottom of this first....

ANY IDEAS????

 

[Jeremy_holt]

How much are you feeding? Often too much food can cause problems. Also, Do you have any dead spots in your tank? Dead spots can cause issues as well.

 

[seapug]

If the rock you keep adding is not completely cured that could be the constant source of ammonia you see, but it should disappear quickly if the tank is healthy otherwise. Have you tried having the water tested by the LFS? Your test kit might just be giving you a false reading. Fish usually don't last long if you have ammonia.

 

[rustybucket145]

ummm.... what are you testing the ammonia with? You have a faulty test kit. Either get another one or verify the readings with another brand test kit.

If you had ammonia in your tank, your fish would be dead.

 

[bertoni]

I agree. I suspect the test kit has gone bad. Constant low ammonia levels are usually bad test kits.

 

[Brickyardpub]

I admit to lightly over feeding the clowns the first week to get them acclimated and used to me approaching the tank and where i feed them, etc... but it was small small amounts 3 times a day for 4-5 days. Since then I've cut back to a few crushed granules once a day and twice every other day.. i can basically hand feed them at this point and they've been eating these microscopic amoeba looking things on the glass too... but i pretty much watch them eat everything i give them in seconds.

My test kit I bought for the cycling is the Red Sea 5 in one deal from the DRS.

The rock I initially purchased was seasoned in another tank the LFS employee had and broke down after 3 years... I've been going in there for years and their stuff is all top notch ( one of the best places I've ever seen ) its all fully cured and loaded with the cement like purple good stuff.....most of the rock in there right now I've seen in there since I started my tank and it seems like I am the only one purchasing it! So I don't think that's the case.....

As for Dead spots... I have my return from the 700 ( approx 550 gph with head loss ) two Hydor 3's for powerheads which seems to work wonders. I've got one small area behind a rock with some accumulation ( about 2 inches sq. ) and that's really it....

I haven't taken water in to the LFS yet, as I wanted to wait about a month after adding fish to see where i stood again... its that time and I'm making a trip up there this thursday... water in hand... just for verification...

It would seem that I've lost some hermits along the way and one Turbo , die off from the bleaching cor. algae, maybe too.... but I haven't touched it in roughly a month figuring it would balance out in 4 weeks...

I'm thinking test kit right now....

 

[bertoni]

My Red Sea ammonia kit measured about 0.25 ppm in every liquid imaginable. I returned the whole set of kits. Apparently, their liquid reagents don't have a good shelf life.

 

[usmc121581]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11661893#post11661893 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Jeremy_holt
How much are you feeding? Often too much food can cause problems. Also, Do you have any dead spots in your tank? Dead spots can cause issues as well.

I agree I bought new bottles and ever since then my ammonia would test over 5 no matter what liquid I tested.

 

[nicko1]

I had the same problem, finally figured out my source water had ammonia in it. Our water co. uses cloramine and my ro/di unit was letting the ammonia get through I installed the correct carbon filters and problem was solved.

 

[jkomaha]

So, i've been running into a very similar problem... a supposid amonia level that won't go away... Which test kits are the best to use for the basic Amonia/Nitrate/Nitrite levels?

 

[Brickyardpub]

that's good news to hear. Not that I have a bunk test kit, but my suspicions were correct or likely correct.

JKomaha - I've had some time here to do some searches over the last few weeks waiting for any supposed "spikes" to go down and I 've heard the ELOS brand out of Italy has nice kits... Salifert is another popular name, but a few of the online sites seem to have a back order on them.

 

[Zoophile]

Even "cured" live rock can easily have die off. It's possible that you're causing mini-cycles in your tank by adding this stuff gradually, so I agree with Seapug here. There was a thread last week about a guy who didn't top off his tank in time, so the LR was exposed to air and he ended up with ammonia. This was cured rock that had been in his system for some time.

If you're adding the live rock gradually, cure it in a remote vessel (which probably won't take long if the rock is good quality as you describe) and test it for ammonia before you put it in your tank, then add it to the main system.

 

[Brickyardpub]

definitely will do that next time...... I've got my eye on two more 15 lb or so chunks to finish up my aquascaping.