Ammonia in QT

[brandon4291]

Water changes can help control ammonia levels through raw export, but just like adding prime to the problem it won't address the source. If I was dead set on bioloading my tank heavy before cycling was complete I'd for sure change large volumes to accomodate this rush!

Your cycle should have been done by now based on the time frames of this thread. By that I mean the basic cycle when the addition of reasonable bioload won't cause any more ammonia or nitrite spikes. I should have asked for nitrite levels earlier, if we are pinpointing a biological (cycling) issue in this tank that is taking entirely too long, I need to see a nitrite reading as well because at the most I'd accept a minor reading on nitrite but for sure a zero on ammonia. With a few plants, sand, live rock and some aged water (not sludge) from your existing tank, your QT should now be able to have unregistered ammonia readings because it won't take this long to cycle, remember the only thing that needed cycling was the glass walls of the tank! Everything else was nitrified-up and ready to go for the transplant...I hope I'm not jumping in late again but I thought we already pinpointed the source of the spike (or maybe that was another thread?), I thought it was rotten BS water from feed additions. If Im correct, and you still have ammonia on a 2 week system registered from a verified test kit, you only have these options to pick from for your ammonia source:
-Dead or decaying proteinic matter. Foam sludge can be a source, but it's the least likely considering the age of the filter foams, they are dense with nitrifiers by now. Substrate sludge is also possible but unlikely, it'd rather be detected as nitrate tolerances in a working system. Dead fish or uneaten food is the #1 likely source of whole-protein degredation if indeed this is the origination point.
-Something killing nitrifiers...used erythromycin lately for a cyano bloom, either in QT or your other reef?
-Bad test kit. Please don't hesitate to verify it by having someone else test your water not using your current tester. I realize your other reef registers zero, just use another for once so we can see if the amounts of NH4 indicated in that test are correct, maybe it's reporting too high but is accurate when zero is in suspension...validate your tests, no scientific inquiry is valid without a control for your tests and reagents.
-Additions from another ammonia-laden source.

There is not one other way for you to have ammonia other than from something in the above list. I have never ever cycled any one of my 15+ reef aquariums (because I don't use fish or high bioloads in the nano reef) and I have never once seen ammonia registering in any brand new system, crammed with corals, even after one day being setup. I don't even own an ammonia test kit, it's that reliable of a concept to bank on! I'm not advocating that line of approach, I'm just saying ammonia is 100% predictable in it's trends in the reef tank, without tests, if you can account for all living organisms and their feeding/waste requirements. As as safety net because I wasn't testing, I stepped up water change intervals for about a week to just be safe, but that's becuase I knew 100% after a week I absolutely couldn't have an ammonia spike because I wasn't adding bioloading any greater than coral slime...feeding was low, and I even waited to add shrimp or crabs until after the first week just to be safe. The system could have handled them same-day as well, I was just being protective.

 

[Rlumenator]

Why? Have you read the 3 whole threads about impossible to rid of ammonia with daily large water changes, and his skin now showing discoloration- day 14 in QT??

 

[brandon4291]

I did read them, that's wrong. Unless you have a huge supply of ammonia leakage/input, it takes some time to rebound after a water change. It depends on your testing intervals relative to the change, and the amount of the change. Let's say you have an early cycled tank and you have a dead fish leaking ammonia. A goby

With a huge water change, you might not detect any ammonia for a few hours up to a day or so after the large export, but in time your registers will climb as the leakage increases in situ. If it was a calloplesiops melting behind your rockwork, you'd detect it in 5 minutes

There are large variables at play that we haven't pinpointed yet, but your ammonia issue is as simple as 1 2 3.

To say that a huge water change won't export factor X is incorrect, but that doesn't say anything about rebound rates, testing intervals, or source of NH4.

 

[brandon4291]

and as I said earlier, you can account for all your large proteinic aggregations except for the sludge you are adding the any rotten brine shrimp water. This is no rotting fish, or rotting food, to give you these ammonia readings. If you haven't used systemic medications, we have a missing variable because ammonia is the simplest thing to control in the reef aquarium. Even though I know you might be hesitant, did you verify your reading elswhere to see if it still says .25 like your earlier kit (or whatever reading you were getting)?

The only way to have ammonia, if in fact the test is valid, is to have a rotten animal, rotten food built-up, or adding it directly. You say you have no rotten animals or food, that only leaves one option! There is no other way to have it. Adding prime or doing huge water changes only solves a temporary problem, as long as the ammonia source is reasonable for the water volume at hand.

 

[brandon4291]

and, if someone wants to get really technical on ichthyological histology, ammonia poisoning will manifest first in the gills, not the skin. You'll have to perform a sub- opercular autopsy among the 'branchs to check for excessive reddening (against a specimen or slide from a non-aggressed counterpart) and actual cellular lysis (breakage) among the supportive strands and structures of the actual gills. The skin lesion is a secondary manifestation of either ammonia stress or it could be virulent tuberculosis...not possible to guess without an autopsy!

 

[brandon4291]

I'm not being a smarty either, you can easily perform this autopsy if ever needed and the poor guy doesn't make it. All it takes is a sample of gill tissue and a stereo or standard compound microscope. As long as you take the analysis immediately after death, to rule out bacterial degredation and protein denaturation, and you have a comparative slide or even a color book on fish autopsies you'll be able to see if it was ammonia poisoning. I bought my book on fish autopsies from Petsmart for $6 dollars on sale. I think taking and preparing the slide sample is grody work, but the analysis was fun and I didn't know .02$ about it until I picked up that book.

B

 

[Rlumenator]

Try looking at my thread "Ammonia in QT causung skin rash." I battled the ammonia since day 4- that's 10 days. No one was able to give a solution. The test kit I used daily, was verified by use in reef tank which of course read zero. My vet will be back Monday, and on the rare occassion I lost a fish, he did the necropsy for me. The Hippo tang which was constantly hiding in QT- is out and very happy after a short session of "tail swords with the chevron. If you read the thread I noted at top, you may understand. Regards, Dawn.

 

[brandon4291]

in all fairness I've already addressed your testing angle too

Test from another source, not that kit! I had said that I know you have another tank reading zero, and that your current test kit may not be registering a true amount, even though it is detecting some. Simply rule out an inaccurate test kit before we proceed! All else is guesswork, I'm really not trying to argue I'm just saying that assumptions is the only reason we can't pinpoint your NH4, and many of them are coming from this thread but not from the guy who types 6 pages over simple matters

Can we at least agree it's not possible to battle ammonia for that long and it not be one of my above listed reasons? Take those to the vet, he'll agree. Your ammonia levels (if indeed accurate) are from one of the above mentioned sources, for sure, 100%.

Here are the options again. If you have truly had ammonia problems for that long, it's from one or more of these:

-Dead or decaying proteinic matter. Foam sludge can be a source, but it's the least likely considering the age of the filter foams, they are dense with nitrifiers by now. Substrate sludge is also possible but unlikely, it'd rather be detected as nitrate tolerances in a working system. Dead fish or uneaten food is the #1 likely source of whole-protein degredation if indeed this is the origination point.
-Something killing nitrifiers...used erythromycin lately for a cyano bloom, either in QT or your other reef?
-Bad test kit. Please don't hesitate to verify it by having someone else test your water not using your current tester. I realize your other reef registers zero, just use another for once so we can see if the amounts of NH4 indicated in that test are correct, maybe it's reporting too high but is accurate when zero is in suspension...validate your tests, no scientific inquiry is valid without a control for your tests and reagents.
-Additions from another ammonia-laden source.


And, out of all this conjecture we're sifting through, they way to end your battle is to perform a giant water change with clean water, making sure all of the above variables are addressed. Don't put the fish back in for one week, you will not have ammonia after that as long as the fish and his waste/feeding regimens are reasonable for your tank's size, it does seem reasonable based on what I've read.

 

[brandon4291]

How about this? Anesthetize your fish while it's alive, lift the operculum, take some macro shots of the branchial networks and post them up here for me. Put him back in the tank. It would be very helpful for you to provide the same pics from another healthy fish in your tank, but I can web around to find comparisons if needed. I can probably get a darn good guess with just macro shots though, several of them with good lighting.

At least we wouldn't have to guess about the trouble source for your fish after that...I know it's stressful but no more so than him dying slowly while we guess and wait. You can probably do it without anesthesia if you are careful. If you want to anesthetize to keep it calm, you can do it with CO2 gas or some basic additives from this website (they also provide free phone consultation about fish anesthesia using gas or their products, how much to use, how long etc)

www.aquaticeco.com

 

[Rlumenator]

I think it's time for you to back off and calm down. Obviously I tried new water and a different test kit.

 

[Rlumenator]

PS I guess you didn't look at my other thread.

 

[Nautilus1]

At this point i think that doing water changes is not going to help your ammonia problem. There is something else going on in your tank. If it is cycling , doing a water change will only prolong the cycle period.

Why is that? That has never been my experience.

When cycling a tank you dont want to be running carbon or do water changes. You want the ammonia to accumulate to supply a healthy and thriving population of nitrifying bacteria.

 

[brandon4291]

I think the reason I may come off too strong for you is because there is no need to have 4 pages of conjecture over ammonia when I listed the only ways you can have it in one paragraph. If you would have been helped like that originally, instead of being sold on unneeded products and misinformed about the biological role of ammonia in the reef aquarium, we'd be over this by now. It was a one-page matter, but not if you are presented with several conflicting viewpoints and don't know which one to take. My writing style was designed to convince you to take this one ( ) but hey I've lost a few bee-gathering adventures by using vinegar...I'll try to work on that.

Having multiple threads over the same issue makes it tough to follow...as far as I can read this was the first time (at least in this thread, the original one) you agreed to validate your test kit, it would have been nice to have that on page one rather than go back and forth as to why we must isolate that variable. I will go look at the other thread to see if you have isolated: 1. whole proteins that are degrading in your tank, either a dead fish, food, or accumulated waste. 2. What systemic medications you may have used in your QT or other reef that is killing nitrifiers. 3. What sources of input into your tank are adding unoxidized ammonia. If you have a standard tank setup involving decent circulation and good husbandry, you should not have ammonia after 14 days, I've never seen it happen before and you are being misled by some variable among the few I've listed. One of these variables hasn't been isolated and addressed, there's no other way to go about it.

I see this thread much like the way some people try to design their reef systems, using everyone's method all at once rather than following a basic design principle and riding it out. Rather than listening to all this at once, I recommend you pick the aquarist who writes in the most pleasing manner and take the issue up with them only. Exhaust their methods before trying anyone else's approach. If you still have ammonia readings at the end of a week, disregard them, and move on to another method 100%. At this point it would be reasonable to let your LFS hold the fish for you in quarantine so you can start this tank over following someone's method to the T. The last place you should get advice is the LFS who wouldn't press you for design specifics, but instead offered a bandage that didn't address a problem in the first step of setting up an aquarium.

I'll let the assumptions continue unmitigated from here on out, but as I watch you get told anything other than 'find your antibacterial source' or 'find your waste problem' (considering how many days you've been registering ammonia on a validated test kit) I'll know it is a sad day for internet reefing advice. As one last parting gift for me before I 'back off', can I get you to post a nitrite reading? Anyone with knowledge who is intent on helping you, not selling you, must ask that question.

 

[Rlumenator]

#1- after 3 years in this area, I know which lfs are trying to help, and which ones are not. All lfs are not my enemy- just the original one I went to when I was fresh.
You seem to keep calling this a reef tank, when it is a quarantine tank. You must have seen that the Regal is now in the reef.
The only day I measured the nitrites was on day 5- it was between less than .3 and .3, this is Tetratest, and the scale is not well defined- the reef ran zero on test.
The tank was a-ok for 3 days.
20 gal with Aquaclear 50, no sand , few pieces - baseball size of live rock from reef (I picked each one up and smelled each couple of days- just because I'm parranoid). A snail and hermit crab had been residing in the tank previously, and still are.
The tank is still set up- I will test today, do a water change, test tomorrow. If there is still ammonia, I will remove live rock, do water change, and check next day.
I have made mistakes in the past with the QT. One time, I had a sand bed, the qt ran unused for prob. 5 months. I did a water change- checked all parameters, and put in a small regal, yellow tang, six line wrasse. Everything was fine until day 10 when I stirred the sand up- you'd think I never read anything- they all died in short order. I hover over the tank like an anxious mother, and thinhs like these kill me.
My concern now is- the last fish for now to go in the reef will be a yellow tang. He will go in the QT in maybe 2 weeks if all is well in the reef. I have never had this prob. before with ammonia in the QT, so now, what do I do to assure this doesn't happen again?

 

[Anonymous]

At this point i think that doing water changes is not going to help your ammonia problem. There is something else going on in your tank. If it is cycling , doing a water change will only prolong the cycle period.

Why is that? That has never been my experience.

When cycling a tank you dont want to be running carbon or do water changes. You want the ammonia to accumulate to supply a healthy and thriving population of nitrifying bacteria.

I disagree that you want ammonia to accumulate. As long as there is some amount of ammonia in the water the bacteria will not be limited by food. This is a good subject for a different thread though so we don't derail this one.

 

[Rlumenator]

When I skipped a dayof water chges, the ammonia went up- ok for a cycling empty tank, but not a qt with the Hippo tang.

 

[Rlumenator]

What can I do to prevent this happening The next time I quarantine?
Thanks, Dawn.

 

[FragMaster]

Keep base rock in it. It will hold the bacteria needed just as the Live rock in your tank does. ( unless you add copper then its lights out.)
Other wise I would keep chromis in there in between fish that need it.

 

[Rlumenator]

I thought the concept was to have a tank to treat in if necessary.I originally had a decent sized piece of live rock- now just a few baseball size pieces, after I had a fish that was sick, and was worried it would have contaminated the large rock. What about treating fish, or if you do get a disease in the tank? I thought about keeping chromis in there, as one of my 6- the largest one, is a bully.Not to others- just to his co-chromis pals. Do I keep the chromis in there all the time? Does this work for you? How long have you been running your QT this way?
Thanks, Dawn.

 

[Anonymous]

Here is how I QT a fish

1. Wash the tank out and let it air dry (done after I tear it down from the last fish)
2. Fill with water from my tank.
3. Add heater and filter, the sponge I use is in my sump I sort of wring that out in my sump before taking it out. I also use carbon in a bag. Mine is an aquaclear filter
4. Add pieces of PVC pipe for the fish to hide in.
5. Let it run for a couple of days.

Then I add the fish. I have had the ammonia level go up right after the addition of a fish, but it always went right down again.



Things I do not do.

I don't put any kind of live rock in the QT tank. 2 reasons for that really, the first is I don't want to ruin rock if I do have to use copper to treat the fish and the second is that anytime you remove live rock from the water you end up killing some of the creatures on it and that adds to the pollution in the tank.

I do not feed heavy, but then I do not feed any of my fish heavy. The last fish I had in QT were Chalk bass I think and I fed them less than once a day.


Remember, a QT tank is supposed to be bare bones, so you can set it up cheaply and easily, that way you will be more likely to utilize it.





I feel that you probably had one of the problems brandon outlined above.