How much to feed and how often?

[Saltar]

I have a 55 gallon tank, with sump, UV, and about 70 lbs of live rock. Only one fish in it for now, a flame angel. I am getting spikes of ammonia about .25ppm. So only thing I can think of is over feeding? I usually feed him one flake a day of Fomula 1 is this too much?

 

[fishfreek]

Are you seeing the fish acutally eat the flake? One flake a day should not be overfeeding by any means.

Please provide more info on your tank like how long its been setup, etc.

 

[Saltar]

Is has been going for about 2 months. The Flame has been in there about 2 weeks. Ammonia was 0ppm when I put him in. I have about 15 snails and 3 red leg crabs in there also. Protein skimmer in the sump, dual output coming from sump for return, plus I have an additional powerjet in tank for more water movement. The flame eats the entire flake in less than 2 minutes. I have VHO and Powercompact for lighting and have lots of Coralline algae growing (Purpleup seems to working, thanks for the advice I read here btw). SO I can't really figure out the ammonia spikes.

 

[fishfreek]

I have seen some test kits report inaccurate ammonia readings. Are you using a FW test kit or a test kit that does not say explicitly its a SW test kit? Who makes the test kit your using?

How big are these flakes? I was thinking the flake could be eaten in a few bites vs taking a few minutes.

 

[Saltar]

Its a SW test kit made by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The flakes are about 1.5 x 1.5 inches.

 

[Lagger]

Its a SW test kit made by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The flakes are about 1.5 x 1.5 inches.

I have the same kit and it's very hard to differentiate between 0 and .25ppm. Start off in a medium lit room (if it's too bright it'll show greener than it really is), hold the color chart against the side of the vial and compare. If you put the bottom of the vial against the color chart it's hard to tell. Use the side. Your load seems very light so it's hard to tell whats causing it.

 

[Saltar]

The kit I have for ammonia has yellow for the color chart.

 

[Lagger]

I didn't say it was green. I said it would show up greener if you put it in direct lighting. True, it's yellow for 0 & .25ppm, but it's green after that. And .25ppm isn't really a 'spike'.

 

[localhost]

My RedSea test is difficult to tell between 0 and .25 also. Same Yellow...Green color chart. Do salifurt tests have a larger degree of color change than other tests? Are they easier to read.