Unknown reason for high ammonia level?

[redmonkey0019]

Hey everyone,
My tank has been going for about 7 months now and the ammonia level is up around .5ppm. I have 0 fish in the tank, 60lbs of live rock, about 20 snails, 50 hermit crabs, and 6 shrimp. Im not sure why the ammonia would be high, I do not feed the tank at all, everything seems quite happy living off the rock work. Im running a skimmer 24/7, my nitrite is 0 - .05ppm, it's very hard to tell with these test tubes and cards. And the Nitrate is 0 - 1ppm. PH is 8.2. Does anyone have any ideas of what to look for, or anything I could be doing wrong. I always use my RO/DI unit for water changes and average about 15% every week. Any ideas?


I just read something that said that inadequate biological filtration may be a cause of high ammonia levels, any chance of this??

 

[Im14abeer]

Did the ammonia spike, or has it always been high? If it spiked, I'd guess it was a dead snail. 7 mos is plenty of time to develop a solid biological filter. When did you add the livestock, if it was recently, that would explain it. The bacteria culture would have to catch up to the new bioload.

 

[Craig Lambert]

I don't think a dead snail would cause an ammonia spike with your water quality being so good. I would contunue to test Nitrites and Nitrates for 7 days. If they don't spike, your test kit is bad.