Cant get ammonia to come down

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Jennlee

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Mar 11, 2013
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I started up a salt water tank jan 15. The rock is kupang rock and I was told it was fully cured so I figured it wouldn't have much of a cycle time. The tank was good for about 2.5 weeks. I got a rock covered in aptasia so I bought 2 peppermint shrimp and with in 1 week the shrimp died and the tank had ammonia. Now I can't get it to come down. I had bought 2 strawberry top snails and 2 turbo snails and all that's left is 1 turbo snail. There was a lot of crabs in the live rock as hitch hikers and in total 9 died. I can't stop this ammonia. Any suggestions?
 
I had a rock with aptasia on it I removed it and boiled it. Best to remove it and kill it asap. before it reproduces...but to answer your question better I'm sure we will need to know some more info. tank size how much live rock, Type of substrate? types of filters? Do you have any powerheads ? what all do you have in the tank?
 
Like bill said we need more info on tank. A massive water change is in order before adding any more creatures.
 
I started up a salt water tank jan 15. The rock is kupang rock and I was told it was fully cured so I figured it wouldn't have much of a cycle time. The tank was good for about 2.5 weeks. I got a rock covered in aptasia so I bought 2 peppermint shrimp and with in 1 week the shrimp died and the tank had ammonia. Now I can't get it to come down. I had bought 2 strawberry top snails and 2 turbo snails and all that's left is 1 turbo snail. There was a lot of crabs in the live rock as hitch hikers and in total 9 died. I can't stop this ammonia. Any suggestions?

Sadly some LFS will sell stuff and mislead people to its effectiveness. It sounds like the rock wasn't cured at all, and in any case, you should have still cycled the tank. When you said "I got a rock covered in aptasia" does that mean it became covered, or you went and "got" another rock? I would start a new cycle. If you have a fair amount of livestocj still in the tank, your probably going to have to go into emergency maintenance. I hate BioSpira and other cycle additives, as I believe they create a false cycle. However, what they can do, is add bacteria to the water column which will consume the ammonia present. The other option is ammolock, which binds with the ammonia rendering it less poisonous to livestock. , while still allowing the cycle to continue.
 
Sadly some LFS will sell stuff and mislead people to its effectiveness. It sounds like the rock wasn't cured at all, and in any case, you should have still cycled the tank. When you said "I got a rock covered in aptasia" does that mean it became covered, or you went and "got" another rock? I would start a new cycle. If you have a fair amount of livestocj still in the tank, your probably going to have to go into emergency maintenance. I hate BioSpira and other cycle additives, as I believe they create a false cycle. However, what they can do, is add bacteria to the water column which will consume the ammonia present. The other option is ammolock, which binds with the ammonia rendering it less poisonous to livestock. , while still allowing the cycle to continue.

So will petsmart
 
I had similar problems when I had started a 16 gallon. Ammonia and nitrites were very high for two weeks. I talked to someone at one of the stores I go to and he recommended I get some of his live rock which was fully cured, so I did. I got about 9 pounds. Once I added it, within a few hours, everything was zero.
 
Ok so to clarify the rock I bought had aptasia on it from the Store. New to the hobby and not knowing what aptasia looked like. I've done a water change and filter clean as well. Ya it could vet have well been the chemicals the store told me to add. But now where to go from here another water change?
 
I have a 55 gallon tank with about 1.5 inch live sand and 50lbs of kupang rock. I have a LED light with a 305 fluval filter.
 
I'm having the same prob also but I switched tanks due to a leakage and having ammonia spikes what I'm doing is dosing BB ill let u know how it goes with mine
 
jennlee I have a similar setup with corals and more fish than you have. I started my tank on jan 30 it was a fresh water tank for the past 15 yrs.....If you have 1 rock with aptasia remove the rock asap and kill the aptasia if you boil it I would not put the rock back until you get a skimmer and bring down the ammonia...how often do you clean your filters it needs to be done weekly that could be the source of ammonia...and you really need a good skimmer.. The problem I believe is your filters and the absence of a skimmer and prolly a bit of overfeeding...my skimmer pulls out a lot of waste, without it i'm sure I would have problems like yours I bought a good skimmer on ebay for about $140 its a reef octopus bh1000ss...I would not buy anything but a reef octopus....here it is. Reef Octopus BH100SS Hang on Back Skimmer | eBay
 
How large is this rock we are talking about? If it's not too big, I wouldn't worry too much about the aptasia. You can kill them off with kalkwasser paste, vinegar, or a host of other products. You are always going to run into a pest here and there. It's inevitable, if you are adding things to the tank.
Meeanwhile, cycle the tank as afore mentioned. Don't add any livestock during this process. it's perfectly normal to see ammonia for a week or more. The length of time you see the ammonia directly correlates with the amount of dead stuff on the rock you bought.

Since no two tanks, rocks, ammonia spikes, amounts of die off, or water parameters are alike, I disagree with adding a piece of cycled rock to the tank and resting assured that your cycle is over.
 
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Thank everyone for ur advice. There is 50lbs of live rock and the aptasia is on the rock with a feather duster and a few clams. That's why I didn't want to boil them. I didn't think the aptasia was an issue at this point. I don't have any fish yet its still doing its cycle I knew not to buy fish yet. But thought I should get on buying a clean up crew, my bad!! They added to the ammonia problem when they died off! Learnt the hard way but nothing has died in about 3 weeks now and the set up has been 4.5 months I was thinking it should have come down already if I get new canister guts and maybe a water change kinda get rid of the bad and wait again for ammonia to come down. I didn't really want to buy a protein just do more frequent water changes.
 
For the aptesia, you can buy pickle lime from the store and using a syringe insert it into infected area. Ph is so high in pickle lime it will kill it from inside out but not hurt your tank.
 
You've had detectable ammonia for 4 months without livestock, except for some snails and crabs? something isn't right.
 
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