Ammonia

[TotesMaGoat]

Hey guys, have a question considering my ammonia in my 28g nano cube. As for background of the tank. The tank is about 4 months old. Im running filter floss as far as filtering, besides my 30lbs of LR. Ive got an average bio load, 4 fish total that i feed every other day along with some frogspawn, zoas and a green tree. I also do about 20% water change weekly. My problem is, my ammonia is reading .2 but my nitrates are at 0 (using the instant ocean test kit). How much ammonia is bad? I know the desired level is 0 but im not sure how to lower it. I dont overfeed so im not sure how its being produced. there is however some settlement in the back stages that occured about 2 months ago from my neglect, could that possibly be it? Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

[OClownsandNanos]

Do a water change ASAP, as big as you can. That's the only way to lower it right now. Maybe something died in the tank? Or did you do anything different from your normal routine in the last few days? Also, did you test it more than once to make sure the reading was accurate?

[TotesMaGoat]

Dont have any water to do a change atm, will have to wait until tomorrow evening. I didnt do anything different besides changing the filter floss (it was coming apart and getting into the water) Maybe the bacteria needs to set up on the new filter floss?

[OClownsandNanos]

It could be the trigger - it depends on how much the tank was depending on the bacterial colonies (how developed it was) in the floss. How long have you had that piece of floss in there? And was it a lot of floss?

[TotesMaGoat]

Its been in there for a week or two, hadn't checked the levels between then and now. theres about a handful of floss in it. How much ammonia is considered dangerous for fish/softies?

[OClownsandNanos]

Hmm only a week or two doesn't seem very long; it may not have helped the situation, but I'm not sure that was the trigger. You really don't want any detectable ammonia in there if you can help it. Also he higher your pH, the greater the toxicity of the ammonia, so it's really hard to say. Those who soft cycle try to keep their ammonia levels below .25 to preserve maximum life on their rock, but that doesn't mean that damage can't happen. Do you have any macro that's in another tank that you could add to this one? Do you have anything like Prime or Amquel on hand? If there's no way you can do a water change now those are the only things that come to mind that might help between now and the next water change.

[TotesMaGoat]

Just saw that i did in fact have enough water left for about a 20% change Changing it now and will test first thing in the morning. If its back to 0 by then i know the problem is gone, if it creeps back up ill look into it deeper, I havent seen my sand sifting star for about a week. Hopefully hes not the cause...

[AZDesertRat]

Check to see if your water utility uses chloramines as a residual disinfectant. Its possible you are adding ammonia with your changes. If they do a good RO/DI with a 1 micron or less carbon block and a full size vertical DI cartridge will make short work of the chloramines.