sukeband Posted October 21, 2003 Share Posted October 21, 2003 Okay Specs: 12 gallon cube 11 lbs live rock 10 lbs sand ( 2X32watt cf 50/50 10000k 1 blue damsel 1 cleaner shrimp 8 hermits 3 astreas Tanks about 3 months old, cycled 1st month. Two weeks after ammonia was zero i added cleaning crew. about 15 days later added Blue damsel, tests still normal. 0 amm 0 trites 10 trates. 9 days later take out carbon that came with tank 17 days later have algae problem so i ad phos zorb and new carbon (cleared up yellow water) 19 days later bought small hammer coral and expoyed to the top of the rocks using marine expoy. Do about 20% water changes twice a week, from LFS bought NSW. but did 2 20% water changes in 2 days afer adding the phos zorb. I tested the water on the 21st day and the ammonia was 1.0ppm!! trites are .25! What most likely in the course of events could've caused the spike? I'm going to test ammonia daily now too see if my filter will retake a foothold. Is it too little rock? I'm kinda freakin out because things seemed to go ok from ehre on out. And month 3 is when i bought the coral. The 1st for this tank. Any insight would be much appreciated, thanks Link to comment
AbSoluTc Posted October 21, 2003 Share Posted October 21, 2003 Your tank is still relatively new and things won't really become stable for some time. Items will move up and down and eventually it will all level out. There is no need for any chemicals in any nano. You don't need to be dosing anything but top off and MAYBE some bionic if you have a heavy SPS load. Phos guard and most all other treatments meant to take items out, will also add items to your water. Regardless of what the packaging reads. Carbon is fine. Run it daily, weekly or even monthly if your heart desires. But make sure you replace it or remove it once it is exhausted otherwise it will leech items back into your water. Your ammonia spike is probably from some snail or crab that has passed. Usually bristtle worms will make quick work of any item that is dead. Check around and see what you can find. Nitrates also come from heavy feeding, water that is tainted with it, or a biological system that is not yet capable of breaking it down. Narrow down the sources. The best thing for you to do is kinda slow down on adding stuff too quickly. Continue your weekly, bi weekly water changes and keep testing every so often to see how things are. Good luck and have fun. Kris Link to comment
Small Reefer Posted October 21, 2003 Share Posted October 21, 2003 Kris you say no chems in nano does that include ammo lock and stress coat too? Stuff like bio-safe and bio-coat? What about ammonia trapping resins? Thanks Link to comment
AbSoluTc Posted October 21, 2003 Share Posted October 21, 2003 Only in emergency and extreme situations should you use chemicals. On a regular basis to remove items that should be taken care of by water changes is unnecessary and costly in the end. It just causes problems. Stress coat, bio coat, ammo lock are all a waste. If you taking care of your tank and doing water changes, there is no need for it. Find the underlying problem. If it can't be found, do a 3 day waterchange back to back - according to the volume of your tank and test. If it goes down, continue your normal routine. Test again. You should be on track. If not, you may need to dig a bit deeper into problems. But for all intensive purposes - those chemicals are a waste of money, and just obtrusive to a tank. Especially a reef. Link to comment
sukeband Posted October 30, 2003 Author Share Posted October 30, 2003 Ok guys, My tank still has about 1.0 ppm amm. in it and nitrites are still at 0. I test daily with the same results, The water changes killed the ammonia for about 1 day. Do i not have enough live rock? the filter doesnt seem to be working. I sure nothing significant has died in that tank. all inhabitants are accounted for that i can see. been about 1 week. Link to comment
Yves Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 I'd double check to see if anything has died...also when performing water changes is alot of the rock exposed to air sometimes there are sponges or sea squirts that live or rock that will die if exposed to air and will start decomposing and creating ammonia...Good Luck- Yves Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.