High Ammonia Emergency. NEED HELP.

[chiromanta]

Hi All.
My Ammonia test 1ppm for the last two weeks.
I have 180G total volume system.I run 500G skimmer and Strong UV sterilizer 24/7. Tank is 6 month old, LPS dominant with some SPS and softies.
Fish: 5 tangs (2 of them Large), small angel, chromie, clown, 3 shrimps.
I do conservative feeding (2 small shears of norry per day, and mysys shrimps every other day).
Tank went through cycle fine after which I started to dose NoPox. I dose for few month but decided to stop due to strange bacteria development in the system and Phosphates were still present.
I stop dozing abruptly after which i checked my ammonia and it was 1PPM. My brain corals had total color loss with no tissue loss. I was attributing it to the lights, but all my other corals were doing fine. Obviously, not the SPS's (browning and STN on some).
two weeks ago I started doing heavy water changes to bring Ammonia down. 30G every other day. Did it 6 times and it did nothing to my Ammonia.
I think NoPox interfered with my natural cycle and throw it off. It is very hard to bring Ammonia up so much in 180G system. some thing did went wrong.

Now I am considering introducing AmQuel Plus Ammonia detoxifier to neutralize Ammonia but after doing it I will not be able to test for it.
WHAT CAN I DO DETOX AMONIA AND STILL TEST FOR IT.
I NEED REEF SAFE PRODUCT, AS WELL AS TEST KIT TO TEST AFTERWARDS>

Thank you for any Input.

 

[reefiness]

First off you need to figure out what happened? Why is you ammonia high? Did anything die? How old is the tank? Did you recently introduce a lot of new fish into the system?

You did supply a lot of that information which is great.

Some other information we may need to know being that its a relatively new tank is, how much rock is in the tank? how much sand is in the tank? Were these purchased as live rock/sand, or was it dry product? if it was dry product, how did you seed the bacteria? Was it with small amounts of cured live rock, or with bottled nitrifying bacteria?

Sounds to me like you added too much live stock, too fast. Even if you used live rock and theres a lot of it, 6 months isnt that long to allow the bacteria to bloom. Such delicate corals this early also seem like that may have been a mistake.

I dont know what others think of the ammonia detox agents, but i dont really like them. If i was in the situation, I would try to get my hands on some bottled nitrifying bacteria and add that to the tank ASAP. I would also try to maintain a heavy water change schedule during this spike. And finally I would try to see if you can thin out your livestock load for a little while, while the tank recovers.


Also, a thought after the fact, before you do anything crazy... how do your fish actually look? do they appear to be in distress with labored breathing? If not, there may be an easier solution.... get a new ammonia test kit and see what that tells you. Could be a bad ammonia test.

 

[bkstang]

Bottled nitrifying bacteria would be a good idea. I have a 3/4 of a bottle of Microbacter7 that I can give you. Text me if you want it.

 

[chiromanta]

First off you need to figure out what happened? Why is you ammonia high? Did anything die? How old is the tank? Did you recently introduce a lot of new fish into the system?

You did supply a lot of that information which is great.

Some other information we may need to know being that its a relatively new tank is, how much rock is in the tank? how much sand is in the tank? Were these purchased as live rock/sand, or was it dry product? if it was dry product, how did you seed the bacteria? Was it with small amounts of cured live rock, or with bottled nitrifying bacteria?

Sounds to me like you added too much live stock, too fast. Even if you used live rock and theres a lot of it, 6 months isnt that long to allow the bacteria to bloom. Such delicate corals this early also seem like that may have been a mistake.

I dont know what others think of the ammonia detox agents, but i dont really like them. If i was in the situation, I would try to get my hands on some bottled nitrifying bacteria and add that to the tank ASAP. I would also try to maintain a heavy water change schedule during this spike. And finally I would try to see if you can thin out your livestock load for a little while, while the tank recovers.


Also, a thought after the fact, before you do anything crazy... how do your fish actually look? do they appear to be in distress with labored breathing? If not, there may be an easier solution.... get a new ammonia test kit and see what that tells you. Could be a bad ammonia test.

Thank you for your response.
I don't have a lot of live rock, may be 80lb.
Tank has 2" send bed. tank was started with all new BRS base rock and plates that was cured for 2 month prior to introduction to the tank. Tank was seeded with life send from my other system and left to cycle dark for 2.5 month until the cycle was finished. then some of the life stock was transferred from my 65G. I slowly introduced softies and then LPS's and then SPS's. Everything was doing fine until i stared to doze NoPox. the system was set up to handle heavy stoking. that is why I run 500G skimmer on 180G system, and that is my reasoning to dose NoPox, because it provides heavy bacterial load to deal with excess of nutrients.
Two month a go I had a bed case of ick where I loss 50% of my stock. the list of life stock that you see is 60% of what I had.

 

[chiromanta]

Bottled nitrifying bacteria would be a good idea. I have a 3/4 of a bottle of Microbacter7 that I can give you. Text me if you want it.

Just Text you. Thanks a lot.

 

[chiromanta]

I checked my test kit on the other system that I have and its working fine. no Ammonia in other tank.

 

[chiromanta]

I also introduce a large cleaning crew, around 80 snails, but have very limited algae growth. Some of the crew snails were strictly algae eaters. So they died in the tank and were berried there. I also run UV sterilizer to kill ICK, but it block any new algae that was growing on the glass and they die from starving. I will shot down UV tonight and will add bottle nutrifying bacteria to help me deal with ammonia. what can I do with dead snails. I cant get them all out, and my 3 shrimps are doing poor job in cleaning the battle field.
what else can I do?

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

Dead snails can spike your ammonia very quickly... Any other large inverts that may have died?

 

[chiromanta]

Dead snails can spike your ammonia very quickly... Any other large inverts that may have died?

No, everybody else is still a live.

 

[chiromanta]

Should I still continue with aggressive water changes.

 

[reefiness]

Until youre tank starts being able to process it's ammonia production then yes.

Did you add any nitrifying bacteria yet? Did you notice any changes in ammonia levels.

Also check your nitrite and nitrate levels to make sure all the nitrogen is being pushed through the cycle.

 

[chiromanta]

Until youre tank starts being able to process it's ammonia production then yes.

Did you add any nitrifying bacteria yet? Did you notice any changes in ammonia levels.

Also check your nitrite and nitrate levels to make sure all the nitrogen is being pushed through the cycle.

Hi.
I started to add liquid bacteria same day i got the advice. Ammonia down to 0.25 ppm in just 2.5 days. those things do wonders much more then my 6 water changes 30G each.
I moved some of my most expansive corals in to 65G system for now, until the cycle goes through. I wish I knew about that liquid bacteria long a go. I used it ones to start the tank cycle, but never thought of adding it to an existing tank. thank you for an advice.

 

[bkstang]

Great to hear it works!

 

[chiromanta]

Great to hear it works!

You are The Best.
Thank you so much for giving me those iqyid bacteria.
An ammazing stuff, exceeded all my expectations.