Established tank and ammonia

[fronty]

12gal nano

livestock
hermit crabs
snails
watchman goby
clown
hammer coral
established for 2 1/2 years


I noticed that my watchman goby seems stressed. He is also losing color and has dark stripes.


I do have an algae problem. It is a red algae that covers the sand.

Nitrates 0
Nitrites 0
Amonia 2.0
PH 8
Salinity 1.025


What would cause an ammonia spike in an established tank? I don't think anything died other than possibly a snail. Is there anything else I should check?

 

[mcgyvr]

death...

Its probably cyano not an algae.. Cyano is a bacteria mistaken to be an algae..

cyano/bacterial outbreaks can easily cause deaths in the tank as its lowering the oxygen in the water..

 

[AlSimmons]

In an established tank like yours I would think you would see a spike in Nitrates as opposed to Ammonia. How does everything else look? If all is well you might want to test again just to be sure.

 

[thegrun]

Are your test kits old? Are you sure you performed the test correctly?

 

[heathlindner25]

When watchmen turn white with dark stripes, they're stressed. I would confirm your test kits, but I would also start doing water changes.

 

[fronty]

Thanks

My API kit is pretty old. I will pick up another kit. I'll do a 40 percent water change today.

 

[Lsufan]

A tank that small a snail death could give u some issues. A water change & some prime wouldn't hurt but I would get a second opinion on your test before I would do anything to drastic.

I'm not saying it's what happened to u but I had a 1.5 year old tank that all of my corals started to look real bad in. I couldn't figure it out then after about 2 weeks I decided I checked everything but ammonia so I checked it. It was off the charts which really surprised me because it was a established tank. I never figured out what it was exactly but someone eighther sprayed something or put something in the tank that killed all of my beneficial bacteria. It took 3 months for the tank to cycle again that time so it wiped out every bit of bacteria I had.