Weird Nitrogen Cycle: Advice?

[jbdreefs]

This tank is giving me fits!! I'll save the long story.

The short story is that I had to pull my fish out of the DT and put them into a hospital tank to treat Ich. This was about 2 months ago. During the fallow period, I target fed my anemones a few times and I dosed some of the filter feeder food every few days to attempt to maintain my beneficial bacteria.

I have a 60 gallon DT stocked with a pair of clowns, a black cap basslet, and mixed inverts (not that many, but everything from soft to lps to sps). Shortly after transferring my fish back to the DT, I started to see signs of ammonia. From the get go, I feared a cycle once the fish returned to the tank.

I attributed the ammonia spike to introducing the fish back into the DT and I picked up some Stability. It does not appear to make a difference. I dosed it accordingly for about a week before I quit and went more into preservation mode.

I have since began doing water changes about every other day. I changed my carbon over the weekend and I have added zeolite to my media reactor to help with the ammonia.

I can't seem to get ahead of the ammonia. My water changes have been 10 gallons at a time.

I have pulled anything that appeared to be on the verge of death out of the tank (to include snails and coral). I don't see anything else that is dead. I have attempted to clean my overflow for fear that food may be collecting there. However, I can't exactly see in it.

I re-ran my plumbing to give the water more of a vertical fall for fear that rotting material was somehow collecting in the horizontal runs.

I'm just not sure what I can do at this point but wait and pray. Nothing I do seems to be helping and I'm scared of trying to do too much and really screw things up.

Would you advise that I setup some sort of QT tank for the corals, anemones and/or fish? My QT setup has been exposed to cupramine, so I don't think putting the inverts in it would be the best idea. I recently took it down because I wasn't planning to add additional fish for a while. Maybe use a bucket of some sort?

Your advice is welcome. I have been testing ammonia with seachem and API. I'm at 1.0 ppm or so (does anyone else hate reading color charts!)

I have been testing for Nitrites also and I'm not detecting any which I find weird after two weeks also...

 

[jbdreefs]

Figured someone would ask:

PH - 8.0
Ammonia - been reading about somewhere between .5 and 1.0 ppm; ran a test of the sample side by side with actual test water via seachem. Ammonia appears to be less than 1.0 ppm.
Nitrite - .1
Nitrate - 10ish + or -
Calcium - 480
Alk - 6.5
Phos - .07ish
Salinity - 1.025
temp - 78

If you need any other parameters, just ask.

Inverts are definitely not happy, but I still see some polyp extension on the sps.

 

[jbdreefs]

Age of tank: tank was originally a 33 long started in September of 2013. Around the end of January, my tank sprung a leak and I was forced to house my pets in a 30 gallon tote from Home depot for a week or two. About the first week of February is when I upgraded to the 60 gallon. I used the same sand/rock and added about 30 pounds or dry base rock. About the middle of February is when I moved my fish to QT. Pulled them out towards the end of March. Been battling this ammonia since shortly thereafter.

 

[curtismaximus]

What filtration equipment are you using on the DT? Sump, skimmer, reactors, carbon dosing? Have you tried a large water change?

 

[jbdreefs]

Sump operates with about 15 gallons of water, no fuge, matrix chamber with matrix and filter pads to absorb nitrates/phosphates (wondering if the pads work). Mag 5 return pump. I am running a coralife skimmer and a TLF reactor with seachem sea gel (I think that is the name). The product has both carbon and phosguard. I recently added zeolite on top of the carbon/phosguard.

I chage the filter pads about weekly and the reactor media twice a month or so.

Haven't done a large water change. However, I would say that I have changed 50% in the last week or so.

 

[franciscosalazar]

I don't know if that's an acceptable level...

 

[jbdreefs]

franciscosalazar;948380 wrote: I don't know if that's an acceptable level...

I agree that 6.5 is a little low, but I doubt it is the root of my problem. Natural seawater is 7.0 I believe.

I try my best to not chase numbers. I have been happy with a stable level around 7.

 

[jdavid]

JBDreefs;948386 wrote: I agree that 6.5 is a little low, but I doubt it is the root of my problem. Natural seawater is 7.0 I believe.

I try my best to not chase numbers. I have been happy with a stable level around 7.

Seawater is closer to 8.

However, your problem with the pH is (more than likely) directly related to the issue with the tank cycling. Before a tank is "cycled" it has way more carbon dioxide, a byproduct of organics breaking down and also the nitrogen cycle produces acids lowering the pH

If I were you I would take out the livestock and let the tank cycle. If you just keep diluting the ammonia you'll never grow enough bacteria to support a full bioload.

 

[jbdreefs]

So, after another ammonia test and more of the same failure feeling, I went ahead and did another 10 gallon water change. During the water change, I could hear my WP25 winding. I had thought that the strength of the wave maker was diminishing recently but was more concerned about the ammonia problem and just ignored it.

After hearing the noticeable winding sound, I figured that I might as well clean it while I was doing tank maintenance anyways. The grates around the back and in the cylinder had a noticeable 'sludge' that didn't quite look like algae.

Being that this piece of equipment is the only piece I had not cleaned and/or inspected for decaying matter, I'm now wondering if it could be the cause of my ammonia spike. More often then not, I would not turn the wave maker off when feeding. I guess maybe there is a 'feed' button for a reason.

I guess a few days will tell if this was the cause. Until then, I still look forward to any other ideas you may have. I tested my water change water for ammonia tonight thinking that maybe it could be the source, but no, it's fine.

 

[jennm]

If you haven't already, you should hit it with some Prime.

Did you use the Stability following new tank directions? If not, I'd give that a go too.

It's unusual for a spike to happen given the process you described, unless you have a LOT of fish and feed VERY heavily.

Do you vacuum your substrate?

Jenn

 

[jbdreefs]

I do vacuum the sand and I do not have a lot of fish: pair of clowns and a basslet.

I have not used prime. Guess I should.

Since my last post the ammonia levels are dropping although still present. According to API (which I use most frequently for ease of use), I am down to about .5 ppm from 1.0.

I will be doing another water change today and I will pick up some Prime.

It is strange to be having a cycle like this. I hope that I am near the end.

 

[jennm]

If your API test is old it will give you a false positive for ammonia.

I thought you were using Seachem (you mentioned using the reference solution).

API for nitrite too?

Is there an expiration date on the reagents?

 

[jbdreefs]

I do use seachem also but not each time. Api gives me good idea of where things are and it is quicker.

 

[jbdreefs]

I do a mix of both api and seachem nitrite/nitrate tests. Results are comparable.