blue color on green ammonia test!?

[Mihai]

Hi,

I was trying to figure out if my LR cured so I can move it in the main tank, but I can't measure the ammonia level! On my test (from Aquarium Pharmaceuticals) I only have different hues of green
(from light green to very dark green), but the test comes out BLUE!. Sky blue on a clear day (or same as the blue at the top of the topic on reefs.org forum). Hence I can't tell if it's done or not.

The LR cured for 10 days so far, I changed the water 100% 3 times in this time, the skimmer slowed down a lot (from 2 cups a day to 1/2 cup for 2 days). The other tests are good (nitrite 0, nitrate 0, ph 8.2).

As far as the smell test goes, the water doesn't smell at all, but if I pick up the rocks they still don't smell like clean ocean.

Any ideas where is the blue color coming from, and what does it mean? Is the LR cured?

The test has 2 bottles, I need to put 8 drops from each. First bottle has some Xn as a dangerous substance, and the second one has sodium dydroxide and sodium hypochlorite...

Thanks for the help,
Mihai

 

[Mihai]

I forgot to say that I used this test before at least 10 times, and each time it gave me a shade of green (light for the clean water in the main tank, and dark green when I got lots of die-off in the first 3-4 days).

Also this evening I got the green from the main tank. I got the blue only from the LR curing tank (a 31 gal Rubbermaid + protein skimmer + 2 x 1400 Rio + heater + fluval 1+). I also got the same blue color by testing the old water used to cure the LR ( I got the LR out of it 3 days ago and didn't get around to empty it and prepare new one).

Again, why the blue color, and is my LR cured?

Thanks a lot,
Mihai

 

[Anonymous]

Blue sounds like a spike that is out of range of your test kit. If you're curing LR this might not be a problem, it might be expected. Retest again, be sure you're not making any errors (just to be safe, you know?) ... the spike shouldn't be prolonged.

Either way, keep up on some copious water changes.

 

[Mihai]

I doubt that it's "out of range":

Reason 1: Last week (day 3-4 of curing LR), the smell was pretty bad and the ammonia was probably spiking, and at that time it was just a nice dark green.

Reason 2: I also have one of those hang-in amonia testers that change color from yellow to purple (going through shades of gray), and that one shows a nice "alert" (there is "alarm" and "toxic" after that), so it's unlikely that ammonia is excesively bad (in day 3-4 it was close to "toxic").

Furthermore, I repeated the test last night (I also thought that I made a mistake), and it came out blue both times. It's something really strange.

Thanks,
Mihai

 

[Anonymous]

Is it a test strip or regents/drops or what?

 

[Anonymous]

Drop reagents.

Try a test with plain bottled water first. Then do a test where you've diluted the water from the holding tub in half, see if you get any difference there. I'm assuming that your kit is new, so that shouldn't be an issue. The only other thing I can think of is that if you've used any kind of ammonia-removing product and this Aq.P. kit (I'm not familiar with the Aq.P. kits that use liquid reagents) uses a reagent mix that can give false readings. This doesn't sound like it's the case, though. I think you might want to contact the company as well.

I strongly recommend (when you can) replacing the A.P. kit with SeaChem (or Salifert, though they're a Dutch company and often out of stock).

 

[Anonymous]

*agrees with the seamaiden*

 

[tazdevil]

It is reading out of range. I had the same thing happen when I cured LR. Went from green to blue, then to normal. On the Nitrite test, the test was also well over range after about a week, looked like dark red wine.

 

[Anonymous]

<sm breaks into song>

Red, red wi-hi-hine!
Stay close to me-hee-hee-hee!

<stops.. looks around..>

sorry.

 

[Mihai]

I went for the 1/2 clean + 1/2 curing tank trick and I got 4ppm ammonia. That would mean that in the curing tank it's 8ppm.

However, there are two things that go against this conclusion:

1. 8ppm is still on the scale of the test (the darkest green)
2. The seachem hang on amonia warning tells me that it's not that bad (again it's a 2 on a scale of 1-4).

Thoroughly stumped.
I hope it will clear up (like a bad dream) in a few days.

Thanks for the advice,
Mihai

 

[Anonymous]

I'm going to suggest doing some HUGE water changes. You want to get as much life through this curing process as possible (the l/r already has nitrifying bacteria in and on it), not kill more. Best way to achieve highest remaining numbers is avoid these huge spikes.

 

[Mihai]

Sure, that's why I was wondering if my ammonia is really high or it's something wrong with my test
(the skimmer slowed down, a SeaChem indicator shows only "alert", but no alarm or toxic, and the water stink is gone). I'm also trying to keep most of the life alive (#1 reason for self curing, right before the price .

Regarding the life, I'm not sure how much survived in the first place, as most of it was cleaned before the rock was shipped, and then the rock was around town for 9 hours in freezing conditions in the FedEx truck (the insulation was slightly damaged).

I'll take a sample and go to PetSmart to get it tested for ammonia,

Regards,
Mihai

 

[Anonymous]

Too bad the ammonia got so high, but it was likely more of an indicator of that which didn't survive the chilly trip than that which has died because of the ammonia.

Have you tried halving the sample first?

 

[tazdevil]

A lot of life may survive this. When my curing happened, and the ammonia/nitrite where so extreme, about a month later many different types of life (peanut worms, spaghetti worms, bristle worms, a few aptasia's, many micro snails, and varieties of shrimp I have no idea about-no mantis's though) came out.

 

[Mihai]

Last night I went at PetSmart and they tested the water with a test from Jungle (a dip-strip).

The ammonia came out at 3ppm, which means that the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals ammonia test is a junk. The 3ppm from Jungle is
consitent with the SeaChem test that I have hanging on the wall of the curing tank (which in the mean time moved to "alarm".

It's probably the time to make another 100% water change (I have 2 tanks side by side).

The rest of the tests were fine (I think, I'll post them in the evening, I forgot them at home).

Regards,
Mihai

 

[tazdevil]

I'd hold off on that water change, you may cause your cycle to stop and start from the beginning. Remember, this will take some time.

 

[Mihai]

Probably last page in this story: the salinity in the curing tank was *way* off (probably 1.035-1.04) due to evaporation during the last week (some 4-6 galons of fresh water missing out of an about 25 gal curing tank)
and probably that's why I got the blue results on the aquarium pharmaceuticals kit.

I'm bringing the watter salinity slowly to normal (in hope that something actually survived!) and I'll make another test.

Regarding the water change, taz, why does a 100% water change (i.e. movement in a new tank) stop the cycle? aren't the bacterias supposed to stay on the rock, and hence moved to the new tank with the rock? Am I missing anything?

I'm asking because I'm looking forward to cure 2 more batches of rock and I don't want it to take longer than it has to.

Regards,
Mihai

 

[Anonymous]

Regarding the water change, taz, why does a 100% water change (i.e. movement in a new tank) stop the cycle? aren't the bacterias supposed to stay on the rock, and hence moved to the new tank with the rock? Am I missing anything?

Yes, the majority of your bacteria cultures are in the live rock, substrate and filter media (if any). But there is also a significant portion of bacteria in the water column itself. Also, the cycled water in your aquarium has different properties than the clean water you put in. The differences may be slight but pH, salinity, nitrates, ammonia, trace elements and nutrients can all be off. It takes a while for everything to work itself out.

So when you do a 100% water change you are removing ALL the bacteria in the water colum and causing your aquarium to repeat the break in cycle.

 

[Mihai]

Aha, thanks for the tip, so it would be better to do
two 50% water changes twice as often? Or not change the water at all?!! In this case I'll probably get ammonia spikes that will kill everybody around.

Thanks,
M.

 

[tazdevil]

Just do the regular 25% water changes. When you say you'll get an ammonia spike that will kill everything around, is there more in this tank than just the LR? If not, don't worry about it. As I said, even through my curing/cycle, its amazing how much desirable life survived. That's including a trip from Fiji to Minnesota, in the middle of winter, in boxes with wet newspaper. If they can survive that, they certainly can survive a cycle. That's my honest opinion.

BTW, if you have more than just LR in the tank, get it out now, and into a tank that is stable.