High ammonia in 24 year old tank

H

highergroove

Member
So, I had a 25 year old yellow tang die yesterday adn thought it was old age - everyone else seems fine. However, today I ntoiced my Foxface hiding in the rocks and thought he was dying - he's not because he came back out swimming around later. However, it prompted me to test all my paramters which I hadn't done in awhile. My ammonia is 0.5ppm!!! I have no idea what the cause is. I mostly was testing nitrates because I have been tryint to bring that down - it was pretty high for a logn time and I wanted to start introducing new fish and coral - I hired an aquarium service to help. Nitrates are 20ppm now, phosphate is >1 but way less than 3. Nitrite is 0. But that ammonia....I pulled the yellpw tang out last night shortly after he died (I was watching him bc it was relatively quick and I couldn't get to him but after he died, he floated up). The only other big fish I have is a foxface and maybe a pajama cardinal who disappears fro weeks on end and comes back. My tank is 300 gallons plus 120 in the sump. Deep sandbed. Last water change was 2 weeks ago - they did large water chnages but everyone has been fine until now. Tank is way understocked.

I did add in some agae/phtoplankton frozen food which is new the last few days but I don't think I have fed that for a few days. I feed Rod's Fish Only and pellts and occasional seaweed.

Thoguhts?
 
Some dechorinators will give false readings with some ammonia tests...
Stirred something up out of the sandbed...

No thoughts except keep testing and see if it's going up, down or staying the same. I havent tested for ammonia since I set up my tank. I would never know.
 
I'd have to agree with Ned, could be a false reading, an expired test kit, bad test reagents, or (not pointing fingers) user error with the kit. You might want to get a second kit and/or take a water sample to the LFS to get it tested.

With such a long established tank, low bio-load, and a high water volume, I'm perplexed how you could suddenly have such high ammonia.

Unfortunately, zeolite (used in freshwater aquariums to remove ammonia) isn't effective in saltwater. So, again agreeing with Ned, keep an eye on it, maybe do more water changes.

Are you using RO or RODI for your topoff and water changes or are you using tap water? Some water companies use chloramines to treat water. I'm not a chemist but, I think I remember the Chloramines break down into ammonia and nitrogen among other things.
 
griss said:
I'd have to agree with Ned, could be a false reading, an expired test kit, bad test reagents, or (not pointing fingers) user error with the kit. You might want to get a second kit and/or take a water sample to the LFS to get it tested.

With such a long established tank, low bio-load, and a high water volume, I'm perplexed how you could suddenly have such high ammonia.

Unfortunately, zeolite (used in freshwater aquariums to remove ammonia) isn't effective in saltwater. So, again agreeing with Ned, keep an eye on it, maybe do more water changes.

Are you using RO or RODI for your topoff and water changes or are you using tap water? Some water companies use chloramines to treat water. I'm not a chemist but, I think I remember the Chloramines break down into ammonia and nitrogen among other things.
Click to expand...
I guess it could be a faulty reading although I tested twice. It was 0 a couple months ago when I tested. I use water from the LFS that they ring when they do water chnages and I have an RO/DI system for top off
 
wvned said:
Some dechorinators will give false readings with some ammonia tests...
Stirred something up out of the sandbed...

No thoughts except keep testing and see if it's going up, down or staying the same. I havent tested for ammonia since I set up my tank. I would never know.
Click to expand...
I thought about the sandbed getting stirred - that is a possibility - I have 2 jawfish. Also the tang was in the back in a spot that looked like it might have been stirred a bit (he was having issues before this and was elsewhere).
 
Hmmm, if you tested twice and still got the same reading, it could be an expired kit and/or bad reagents in the kit. Or, it could have something to do with the sand getting stirred up. Please keep us updated and best of luck getting this resolved.

I assume the LFS that does water changes uses RO or RODI?
 
Do you run a skimmer? More for aeration than anything in this case.
No bristleworm or flatworm treatments, anything like that.
New live rock just added?
 
griss said:
Hmmm, if you tested twice and still got the same reading, it could be an expired kit and/or bad reagents in the kit. Or, it could have something to do with the sand getting stirred up. Please keep us updated and best of luck getting this resolved.

I assume the LFS that does water changes uses RO or RODI?
Click to expand...
Yes, they do.
 
wvned said:
Do you run a skimmer? More for aeration than anything in this case.
No bristleworm or flatworm treatments, anything like that.
New live rock just added?
Click to expand...
I do run a skimmer. Have not run any treatments, other than adding beneficial bacteria which I have been doing about 1/2 cup a day for a few weeks - to help process anything and reduce nitrates/phosphates
 
Griss is correct. this system absolutely, for sure, did not reach .5 at any time. I have multiple instances of that reading appearing in red sea/api threads with zero fish losses. a 300 g system can absorb fish and on a seneye, you wouldn't even see a spike/examples exist there too. this is solely an nh4/non digital test kit error, they all are. reef cycles do not ever undo once set, in a home setting.

additionally, we have threads where seneye owners are adding copious degrees of liquid ammonia to test reefs and the meter may show a spike, that's resolved in 15 mins max and at no time did the overall nh3 raise more than thousandths ppm.

the tester being used did this, not the biology of the reef. cycles are solid as long as water remains. all reefs can instantly process more ammonia loading above steady state, without having to wait for more bacteria to grow. the available colonies simply work harder (source for claim, Dr. Tim, in a thread we can link if wanted)

why does cycle control/confidence/surety matter

because it allows you to not chase red herrings when detailing fish loss. it'll never be primary ammonia doing it in a running normal reef tank, never. the surface area and currents will not allow it, unless it's a full on tank wiping crash. not the case here, so the rule holds. ammonia is zero factor here.
 
agreed. and, if we leave the reasons for the dark color reading/assuming he's tested before and it was less green/it looks like we're making up scenarios to fit the doubt in the test kit

not so: searchable. just a few mos ago at reef2reef we were detailing a rather dark api spike from someone who merely moved some rocks across the tank. that does not release ammonia

*I personally run a ten page thread collecting only new, live examples of red sea ammonia kits reading pre-crash levels in perfectly normal reefs, not one loss. it's a misread study

those who called misreads here are on the cutting edge of assessment imo

ammonia gas isn't dissolved in high current, hanging out under rocks, getting unused by a million hungry organisms all the way up the trophic chain leaving it to waste

sandbeds don't store reserves of ammonia like oil pockets. our hobby had to invent a lot of new mechanics to explain why the basis of all reef cycling, api ammonia readings, must now be completely reworked to match what seneye shows. there are metabolites in reefing that trip up api, after the ammonia-nitrite stage, where harm is not happening and it doesn't show on precision digital kits.

the impact of that to the hobby, to assessments in general for reefs, was unmeasurable. pure doubt rules still, in something we actually know to be the most predictable compound in all reefing.

the utility of all that is to instantly, with confidence, know when and where an ammonia event is real. when you know it's not, you are instantly on a more efficient path to finding the real loss causative. false ammonia reads are the second greatest red herring in all of reefing, they've mislead disease hunts millions of times over.


biosecurity (a concept from Jay)

how's the biosecurity on this tank/you don't add things from a pet store without quarantine, right?
 
for the benefit of crash / non crash pattern science

can you post a tank pic please highergroove

predicting factors: clear water, even fish distro (no chemotaxis behavior) normal high surface area, absolutely clean water means (always) no crash is pending, regardless of what a kit says. even seneyes can misread (have rare examples avail)

crash risk tanks by rule have cloudy water (but not all clouds equal pending crash)

they either have stilled, or greatly reduced currents (exposing wastewater to active services)

they have a very large reserve of fish unaccounted for. not one, two. that's usually disease or in this case/max lifespan/best i've ever seen/wow/respect to you as a fish man.

I know that loss of a fish you can't remove = ammonia

but it's in the well-studied realm of being ok, especially in your dilution. it's amazing your kit moved that much, in that dilution. I can't wait to see how many days the rebound tanks, so please update us with ammonia readings too. I will link this thread, to rtr, for them to study as well.

great post, great feedback all sites can share.
B
 
cycle analysis claims should always, always be tested and verified by discerning seneye owners where possible

anything stated here can be verified easily, using those digital meters and what they do for precision nitrification measure (when calibrated)

the way to fact check claims in cycling is to look up seneye readings for tanks in general, tanks being cycled, and tanks undergoing fish loss. they upload data logs showing nh3 trends before, during + after event and that is free cycling gold info you cannot find off google scholar.

it's implication to reef tank cycling is +++++++
 
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