Ammonia Spike!!

[betiuminside]

I have no idea what died but I have an ammonia spike!! It is at 20!

I put ammo lock and I did a 20 gal water change...

I haven't touched the tank for 5 days... no changes... last readings were perfect!

I removed a Pulsing Xenia that look bad... little frag I had...

Any suggestions??

Keep with the water changes..?? And ammo lock?

[technomex]

I have never used ammo lock, so I don't know how well it works. I would just continue with water changes till it comes down.

[falcondob]

Yep, water changes until it goes away..

[matt]

How big is your tank and what do you mean by 20? 2.0PPM, .20PPM or .02PPM?
twenty PPM would mean certain death to everything in the tank, I think. It's 10X the seachem scale. 2.0 would be pretty devastating as well.

When you say you changed 20 gallons, what percentage of your tank is that? If you have a serious ammonia spike, I'd try to do 50% water changes, a couple of them at least. I'd also dump in a bottle of bacteria, although to be honest I'm not sure how much that would help. I bet Richard would know. Most important, you've got to find whatever died and get the carcass out. Also, try to keep the ph a little low, as the ratio of free ammonia to ionized ammonia changes with ph. Higher ph means more free ammonia which is more toxic.

[loans_n_fishes]

I had this happen on a freshwater tank of mine. Like Matt said, I did a water change and dumped in some bacteria. It was back to normal almost immediately. Not sure what caused mine either.

[Enigma13]

This could be related to the anemone that you think may be dying as mentioned in your other post.. It may in fact be dying and going necrotic as it dies. The rotting flesh certainly could cause an ammonia spike.

[betiuminside]

Well the amonia went up to 1.0 ppm.:cry

today the anemone... opened!!! I am confused!! :blink

Anyways....

i just did 50% water change and bought some live bacteria (LFS suggestion)

I know it is VERY high... but since I removed the Xenia yesterday... the anemone re opened again.... so I think that the xenia was dying... it took a hole week... and that was the reason the anemone closed since then

by the way it is a 100 gal tank with a 25 gal sump, and I noticed that the skimmer is skimming wet!!! first time .... because it always skim kinda dry... which I believe is good...

Anyways... I hope everything goes well... and I will do another 25 water change tomorrow.... I will post the ammonia reading in 1 hr.

Thanks to all who replied.

[loans_n_fishes]

Totally unrelated, but did you get my pm about meeting?

[betiuminside]

Yes I did... PM sent.
Ammonia... still the same... but I put ammo lock... which I heard will lock the ammonia... and It will make it not toxic... but I have to keep doind the water changes... because it will release it back to the tank...
Anyways...
Thanks...

[Instar]

Ammonia toxicity is affected directly by pH. If your pH is low, most of that ammonia will be non-toxic. If you don't get rid of the ammonia with the bacteria culture and effectively increase the pH with the water changes, the ammonia will become toxic and lethal. How's that little bit of information to add to the confusion?

[betiuminside]

Ammonia toxicity is affected directly by pH. If your pH is low, most of that ammonia will be non-toxic. If you don't get rid of the ammonia with the bacteria culture and effectively increase the pH with the water changes, the ammonia will become toxic and lethal. How's that little bit of information to add to the confusion?

so what should I do now??

The same? just water changes?

[matt]

Larry may have overstated the ph case a little. First, there's nothing that says you will automatically raise the ph of your tank by doing a water change, in fact, my freshly mixed salt water usually has a pretty low ph. Just don't aerate it too much. Also, at a low ph, like 7.8 or so, if you're reading 1.0 PPM you still have plenty of toxicity to worry about. But, yeah, if the same water then jumped to 8.4, it would be quite a bit worse. Keep your lights off to prevent photosynthesis. If you really want to get the ph down, you could try to find a source of C02 (how about an old seltzer bottle!) or even dose a little vinegar. I'd only do that if your ph is pretty high, say 8.3 or higher.

The first thing I would do is get another ammonia test kit to verify your test results. I think the seachem ammonia kit is pretty good. I'd definitely keep dumping in the bacteria and keep changing the water like crazy if I had that much ammonia. To give you a comparison,. when my tank was cycling (mostly cured rock, but about 20 lbs semi-cured) my ammonia only went to 0.1, 10 times less than you have. If you find out that you really do have that much, you better find the source quick and keep changing water; personally I'd do 50% everyday, but maybe I'm a little paranoid about it.

[Instar]

With ammonia toxicity, if I have a tank full of babies and the pH drops to 7.5 and there is a lot of ammonia, I don't do any water changes at that time. There is an extremely tiny percent of ammonia that is free and toxic in salt water at that pH and it's safe for the babies to keep it at that pH. In that case, I wait until the ammonia is broken down by the cultures before changing water. If the pH is 7.9 in the morning, then the ammonia toxicity will be related the % of free ammonia and a very large percent will be free toxic ammonia. Later in the afternoon when the pH moves to 8.2, pretty much count on 100% of the ammonia as free and toxic, then change water. In between 8.0 and 7.5 pH is a sliding scale between pH and ammonia toxicity. I'm with Matt, get a new ammonia test kit and also find out what the pH is so you are not guessing at it. If your tank has been operating for a while and it's set up properly, there should not be an ammonia problem that arises unless there was a medicine used to combat ick and it killed the bacteria or put it into stasis. If that happened, you must get the drug out of there to be successful. A very toxic animal that dies might affect the bacteria some or a very toxic fish that slimes up due to stress. Xenia is not a general threat to the bacteria culture or the rest of the tank inhabitants.

Thin skim mate is due to the surface tension being increased and that can happen simply with a water change. Turn the skimmer down for a while after a water change to prevent this and after the new water is well mixed in, turn the skimmer back up.

If your anemone opened after the ammo lock, that means you have reduced the free toxic ammonia if that was the cause of its closing up. (Without a full battery of tests and observations, this is still a guess.) In that case, its pretty likely your pH is fairly normal for salt water so do the water changes. You will not know how much is free ammonia however unless you know exactly what the pH is with a test method that has a very low error rate. Many home tests are up to 40% off when it comes to accuracy. Home test kits can not determine non-toxic vs toxic free ammonia. They simply detect total ammonia. I'm with matt on the water changes at this point but you must determine what additive caused this relative bacterial crash or the water changes are not going to be a lasting solution.

[Richard]

The ammonia which is bound by the ammo-lock will still be detected by the test kit even though it is in a non toxic form. The "locked up" ammonia is supposed to be available to nitrifying bacteria to consume once your bacteria levels catch up, according to Aquarium Pharm. I do not know how long ammo-lock binds ammonia before releasing it back as toxic free ammonia but I'm sure there is a time limit.

I don't remember if ammo-lock contains a slime coat enhancer like most water conditioners but that may be what is causing your skimmer to skimmer very wet.

[betiuminside]

After 3 days of 50% water changes the ammonia still at 1.0 ppm :angry

I guess everything is dying... i have to big peaces of rock coverd with GSP and they haven't open at all today. I guess I will have to take all the things out right? (live stock)
I already bought another ammonia test kit.. and reads the same.
Should I set up a new tank?? like 45 gal? and put everything in there????

Please help.

[loans_n_fishes]

Have you added the bacteria? They have helped me immensely in the past with my fresh water tank.

[betiuminside]

well.... I added stress zyme that has bacteria, but haven't put live bacteria because everybody said that if the ammonia is that high, all the bacteria will die... what do you think?

Should I put live bacteria anyways?

[loans_n_fishes]

Yes, put in the live bacteria. I don't know why they would die...they eat ammonia...

I put them in a tank of mine a few years ago that had a HUGE ammonia spike come on VERY quickly. My fish were breathing at the top and passing out! I took them out into aquarium water from my other tank. Only lost 1 fish, and that was because I couldn't find him fast enough.

I did a huge water change and added the bacteria. I was able to add them back to the tank almost immediately. It's been 3 years and I still have the surviving fish!

Hey, it's definitely worth a shot!

[betiuminside]

Thanks Angela... I am on my way.

[wtrujillo]

What about adding bio-spira?

http://www.marineland.com/products/mllabs/ML_biospira.asp

[loans_n_fishes]

Yeah, that's what I was referring to. Biospira is what I used.

[GaryP]

If you can pull any live critters out and put them somewhere else until you get things under control, that would be a good idea. Its sounds like you have a chain reaction happening. The initial spike started to kill stuff and it just dies and in turn produces more ammonia. Its like a run away train.

Keep doing large water changes, running carbon and ammo-lock, and add the bacteria. Hopefully that will brak the chain and the system will get back into equilibrium. Also make sure your skimmer is skimming real wet.

Xenia are a mixed blessing. When they are alive and growing they remove a lot of toxic stuff from the water. Guess what happens when it dies? You got it, it releases it back to the water. I lost a lot of coral in tank moves because of dead and dying Xenia. Lessons learned.

[betiuminside]

Question.....

The bio-Spira says that I need to shut down the skimmer for 24-48 hrs... should I do it? after pour the spira? or not?

And I bougth 2 packages for up to 55 gal... should I put both of them??

My tank is 100 gal+ sump of 30

[wtrujillo]

i would say to turn it off.

[betiuminside]

should I put both packages in?? or just one?

[GaryP]

Turn off the skimmer for 24 hrs., and add one package.

[betiuminside]

Perfect.... thanks... I have to go to work... hopefully everything goes well...

Thanks again to everyone...

[loans_n_fishes]

Yeah, hold on to the second package. (Stick it in the fridge) Check parameters in a couple of hours. Turn off skimmer so the bacteria can settle in.

[GaryP]

Adding a bacteria culture is not like adding a chemical. More is not necessarily better. The bacteria are going to reproduce to whatever level of nutrients are available to support them. This rapid growth phase is actually when they do the most good because they are using up nutrients faster then when they are in a non fast growth stage.

I think the 1 packet per 55 gal. recommendation has more to do with selling more product then it does with any technical reason for doing so. Some bacteria divide every 20 min. when they are rapidly growing. By adding 2 packets you just cut off 20-30 min. Take it back for a store credit.

[betiuminside]

I don't know what to do or think... I went to my house so I can test the ammonia again... I had 2 set of test kits

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=AP3313

And both read 2.0!!!!!! This is crazy!!! If I would have the ammonia that high all my fish would be gone by now... right???

Tomorrow morning I will go to the LFS and buy another ammonia test kit.

This is ridiculous……….. I am getting frustrated.

I put the bio-spira at 2pm.

I am going to take all the corals out and leave just the fish and the LR in there... ( I only have some mushrooms and 2 rocks covered with GSP and some one pink zoos colony.... all of them are closed.

[loans_n_fishes]

Maybe just have the LFS test the water?? It may be a waste, but I would do yet another water change and add the rest of that biospira.

I can't imagine why it would continue to climb.... :huh

Hope everything works out ok!

[loans_n_fishes]

I suggest searching for something rotting away....maybe under the rocks??

[matt]

So, you don't know the source of the ammonia? You could try taking live rock that you know is okay and your fish and inverts out and setting up a new tank, but that probably means everything left in your tank will die. Can you describe your tank more, specifically, do you have a sand bed? And, what animals are in your tank, like fish, corals, etc....

If it were my tank and I had alot of expensive animals, I'd want to get them out, but it means setting up a new tank or at least a few tubs of clean, new water that you can put live rock and a few animals in. Hopefully, when you're removing the live rock you'll find something dead that's causing the ammonia. If you're not missing any big animals, take a good look and sniff at every piece of liverock as you remove it, maybe you'll find the culprit; something that died in one of the rocks. Assuming all the rock checks out, then you need to check the sand, if you have a sand bed. By check I mean really smell it and look for any signs of dead animals or decay in the sand. You'll have to scoop out some, smell, etc. If you had a well functioning mature tank (how long has it been set up?) and suddenly you spiked to 2.0 PPM, something big must have died, or another possibility, I guess, is that something toxic like copper got into your system and started killing off the bio filter and small inverts. If that's the case, and I hope it's not, you're probably looking at a complete teardown and rebuild. Good luck!

[loans_n_fishes]

Here's a link to potential reasons for an ammonia spike:

http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/beginnerscorner/l/bl_ntstable.htm

You probably knew most (if not all) of these, but just thought I would throw it out there. ^_^

Let us know how it's going.

[Bill S]

I think at this point, if this were mine, I'd do what matt suggested. Looks like your tank is crashing. I'd get a tub and basically set up new. Take live rock that you KNOW is ok, and put it in there along with your live inhabitants. Then you can work on the tank.

[betiuminside]

Last readings... the same... but now that I am thinking... when ever I put the ammo-lcok in the tank the first day... in the bottle stated that the reading will be off for some time... so... actually the treatment of ammo-lock is up to 6-7 days...

I took my water to the LFS and they tested the same readings as me. So... I guess I can't know for sure after more days... where the ammonia is at....
the anemone ate today and all the fish (hippo,false,coral beauty, mandarin and dragon goby still fine.. and eating like crazy... I fed a half of a frozen cube.. and it was gone in 1 min.

So I am going to do another 20% water change today... and inform.

[loans_n_fishes]

Well, as long as nobody is acting weird, sounds like the ammolock is throwing off your results. I'd leave it as is now.

[betiuminside]

YUP... Fish looks healthy and anemone is half open.... so... I think I am going to survive this... thanks angela.... again. :wub

[loans_n_fishes]

Well, maybe I can re-imburse you for the bacteria this weekend. ^_^ I'll give you a call later to arrange it.