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Ammonia false positive readings?


Parfitt1234

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Hello

 

i have a 100L tank with two clowns and 4 chromis in. It’s been running nearly 3 months now and my tank pretty much always shows 0.2 ammonia with the Red Sea ammonia test. I do use prime a lot and do weekly water changes. Just wondering if anyone knows anything if prime gives a false reading of ammonia. The seachem badge I have shows <0.02 ammonia and I know that prime converts ammonia to ammonium.

nitrite is 0 and nitrate around 0.5ppm

 

it’s just getting annoying that even after water changes I still have this reading

 

any help would be appreciated!

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Prime and other ammonia detoxifiers will affect most reagent based ammonia test kits.  It's not a certain manufacturer's problem, it's just the way it is.  I'd trust the Seachem Ammonia Alert Badge.

 

1 hour ago, Parfitt1234 said:

i have a 100L tank with two clowns and 4 chromis in. It’s been running nearly 3 months

That's a fairly heavy bio-load for a 26 gallon tank.  I'm sure that also has something to do with it.

 

I assume that you have sufficient live rock in your tank; hope so anyways.  At 3 months old, chances are that while the ammonia level may not be extremely toxic, it could still be detectable.

 

If you haven't had a death, or have recently added more livestock, I would tell you not to worry so much.  Keep up on your water changes and hopefully things will be fine.

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28 minutes ago, seabass said:

Prime and other ammonia detoxifiers will affect most reagent based ammonia test kits.  It's not a certain manufacturer's problem, it's just the way it is.  I'd trust the Seachem Ammonia Alert Badge.

 

That's a fairly heavy bio-load for a 26 gallon tank.  I'm sure that also has something to do with it.

 

I assume that you have sufficient live rock in your tank; hope so anyways.  At 3 months old, chances are that while the ammonia level may not be extremely toxic, it could still be detectable.

 

If you haven't had a death, or have recently added more livestock, I would tell you not to worry so much.  Keep up on your water changes and hopefully things will be fine.

Thanks.

 

i haven’t had a death and I’m not adding more livestock. And yes I do have some live rock in the tank and running a cannister filter which filters 1000L an hour 

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As Seabass mentioned, when using Prime most liquid reagent tests will show inaccurate ammonia readings.

 

The 2 that don't are Seachems kit and the ammonia badge.

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On 8/19/2020 at 11:56 PM, Clown79 said:

As Seabass mentioned, when using Prime most liquid reagent tests will show inaccurate ammonia readings.

 

The 2 that don't are Seachems kit and the ammonia badge.

Do you think I should stop using prime for a bit? I use it probably daily. My nitrite and nitrates are fine it’s just the lingering ammonia reading on my Red Sea kit. My badge shows 0 and the free ammonia seachem test is showing 0 aswell?

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21 minutes ago, Parfitt1234 said:

Do you think I should stop using prime for a bit? I use it probably daily. My nitrite and nitrates are fine it’s just the lingering ammonia reading on my Red Sea kit. My badge shows 0 and the free ammonia seachem test is showing 0 aswell?

What do you use prime for? Just the ammonia spike or for another reason?

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Okay it’s just cause it still is showing on my Red Sea kit (the ammonia) but the badge and the free ammonia seachem kit is showing 0. So shall I just use it as a water conditioner now?

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1 minute ago, Parfitt1234 said:

Okay it’s just cause it still is showing on my Red Sea kit (the ammonia) but the badge and the free ammonia seachem kit is showing 0. So shall I just use it as a water conditioner now?

Thats because of the Prime.

 

It takes over 48hrs of no dosing before a typical liquid reagent test will read proper ammonia readings.

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