Ammonia and Rock Question

[MightyMike1]

I was forced to place two small damsels from my 13g. nano cube to my 30 gal reef tank; that has been established for 2 months. Now my amonnia levels have been high (0.25) for almost two weeks. I think i may have overloaded my tank; but, that doesnt seem right because i dont have much in there. I still have some room for atleast 5 or 6 pounds of live rock. Should I put more in?? Will it make my ammonia levels drop?

 

[tazdevil]

Its probably due to the sudden increase in bioload. A 30 gallon is almost a nano as well, and adding 2 fish to a relatively new tank could cause a ammonia spike as your seeing. If there are no other critters in there, and the damsels are not in distress, I wouldn't do anything drastic, just wait it out, and perform normal water changes. Adding more LR could make the problem worse, as most newly added LR will raise ammonia levels as well.

 

[Johnsteph10]

Agreed -- if you added more LR, it would also a further ammonia spike since you would be initiating another cycle.

Wait it out, like Tazdevil said. routine water changes, monitor for stress. damsels are tough -- as long as things aren't too bad, they'll be fine.

John

 

[Baianotang]

PUT MORE ROCK sorry I disagree (think about the long run)

 

[tazdevil]

PUT MORE ROCK sorry I disagree (think about the long run)

In the future, when his ammonia levels calm down, adding it slowly would work well. Adding it right now would only compound an already existing problem. All LR when added to a tank will experience a small amount of die-off, (it only takes a second of air exposure to kill a sponge for example). This will cause an ammonia increase-and so on and so forth. You don't want to add more ammonia to an already existing spike-the spike would only be higher, causing more die off potentially, which raises the ammonia levels even more etc. etc.

 

[MightyMike1]

thank you people for your input