Ammonia Level Reading

[charles bentley]

Would that by any chance be the nutrafin masterkit you are using??

To be honest there may be some chemical in there that will make the ammonia convert to ammonium which is less toxic, so it may protect the fish.

Did you cycle the filter with pure ammonia??

EDIT Only add if you already have it. Don't go out and buy it it is not worth it.

i added the water and used nutrafin cycle, and yes its a nutrafin master kit

 

[TigerIssey]

So you have not added any ammonia to feed the cycle at all??

Was this advice from your LFS??

 

[charles bentley]

So you have not added any ammonia to feed the cycle at all??

Was this advice from your LFS??
[


it was from no one. i just added the nutrafin cycle i thought that was ok

 

[TigerIssey]

Without ammonia, your bacteria colony have nothing to feed on therfore will not grow.

Chuck the Cycle product in the bin, thats how useful it will be to cycle your tank.

You need to take the fish and corals back to the shop, either ask them to hold them for you or exchange for store credit.

Read the stickies and pinned articles, you really need to research more, you would not be able to cycle a freshwater tank that way let alone a marine tank.

Decide if you want FO, FOWLR or a reef. Use live rock to filter the tank, you can keep your external for chemical media.

The tank is not cycled at all, soon you will hit a full cycle and the fish and coral probably won't survive, until you can take them back you are going to need to do a large water change as soon as you get any reading for ammonia, it must not go above 0.5-1.0 before you do a w/c.

I am a bit at a loss here, you really are going to have to take them back very soon.

 

[charles bentley]

Without ammonia, your bacteria colony have nothing to feed on therfore will not grow.

Chuck the Cycle product in the bin, thats how useful it will be to cycle your tank.

You need to take the fish and corals back to the shop, either ask them to hold them for you or exchange for store credit.

Read the stickies and pinned articles, you really need to research more, you would not be able to cycle a freshwater tank that way let alone a marine tank.

Decide if you want FO, FOWLR or a reef. Use live rock to filter the tank, you can keep your external for chemical media.

The tank is not cycled at all, soon you will hit a full cycle and the fish and coral probably won't survive, until you can take them back you are going to need to do a large water change as soon as you get any reading for ammonia, it must not go above 0.5-1.0 before you do a w/c.

I am a bit at a loss here, you really are going to have to take them back very soon.

thank you for the advice i think i am gunna have to take them back. i will post on here what i do. thanx

 

[TigerIssey]

Good choice.

When you have done some reading, don't forget to come back and ask as many questions as you need to.

If you want the help, there are many people on here who are prepared to give it.

 

[n3ont3tra]

Good advice, TigerIssey.

 

[TigerIssey]

Thanks Neontetra.

 

[SkiFletch]

Have you ever kept fish before? Sounds like you need a basic understanding of how waste is processed in an aquarium ecosystem. Long story short, fish and uneaten food make waste. Waste decomposes to ammonia and phosphate. Ammonia is toxic to all aquatic organisms, so must be removed. In the wild, bacteria eat the ammonia producing nitrIte. Nitrite is also toxic (although less so than ammonia) and must be removed. So again in the wild, bacteria eat the nitrite to produce nitrAte. Nitrate is nowhere near as toxic as the other two and having some amount of this in a tank is not bad. The acceptable amount of nitrate varies depending on the organisms you keep. Nitrate is only removed via photosynthesis and/or water changes.

In a new tank, these bacteria do not exist in significant numberss. You can artificially feed the bacteria either by adding food to decompose, adding ammonia directly, or the un-prefferred method, use fish. Whichever of those 3 you choose, ammonia builds up over the course of days-week. As it builds up, the bacteria that eat it grow/reproduce until they eat all the ammonia. Next the nitrite eating ones grow as nitrite builds up. Eventually you have a tank which is "cycled" meaning healthy bacteria colonies will consume any ammonia as soon as it's produced and quickly turn it to nitrate.

You can jump start the cycle by using live rock which already has mostly mature bacteria colonies on it.

In your case, wit the tank significantly old at 6-weeks, the ammonia you're reading is probably just the last little bit of ammonia being eaten. 0.08ppm ammonia is not that much. Were I you, I'd just monitor it and see what happens. I assume you're running some kind of mechanical filter?

 

[TigerIssey]

Its a canister that was only seeded with cycle, no ammonia been added until 1 week ago. It looks like the tank has sat dormant for 5 weeks with no food at all and then 3 fish and a few corals all added a week ago.

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah, but with 3 fish, I'd assume the ammonia level would be significantly higher than 0.08ppm if he really had no bacteria... He's probably right on the edge of the cycle being complete. Likely the corals brought some bacteria with them that have seeded the filter by now

 

[TigerIssey]

Would that hold true in 240litres. I really hope you are right and I am wrong Ski. Would he not be better off starting again with the right amount of live rock for the tanks filtration if he is going for corals??

 

[charles bentley]

I am going to recheck my levels now so i will post them asap

 

[TigerIssey]

Let us know if you did a water change in the time between the two lots of tests when you post the new test results up please.

 

[charles bentley]

i havent done a water change. i have just checked the levels in my tap water there reding o for both nitrate and nitrite. would i be best doing a water change naw?