Ammonia

[Sophie1213]

Anyone know how to reduce ammonia?

I had a 125 running that I broke down since my parents are moving and the tank was at their house. I bought a 20 gal jbj cube and used 10 gals new salt water and 10 from my 125. Per the fish stores recommendation, I got dry sand since they said the live rock was already seeded enough from the last tank. I added it all in, including the coral I kept from that tank, and I’m having a massive ammonia spike. When I tested it was at 8.0 ppm on the api test. You can also smell this horrid waste and ammonia smell now. The corals were dying rapidly. I was hoping it would be an easy tank transfer but it appears that my tank is cycling all over again. I have been doing 40% water changes, and have done 3 so far. All the mushrooms I had turned to goop, so I took the rocks out to get all the shit off in case that’s where the waste/rotten smell was coming from and then returned them to the tank. The water quality is very cloudy. I don’t know if you guys have any recommendations or if I need to wait it out?

PH 7.8
Ammonia 8.0 ppm
Nitrite 0.0
Nitrate 0.5 ppm (probably because the ammonia killed 2 hermits. I fished them out)
Mag 1080
Alk 7.7
Calcium 400

Alk has always been low without problems

But wow the smell.

Help pls

I have tried to use seachem prime to see if it would help but so far nothing. I did put what living corals I had towards the front since I can’t see in there

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[neil82]

My first thought is to setup a separate temporary holding tank for livestock. The tank is going through substantial cycle. Do you have a large rubbermaid or tank that is not in use?

 

[SynDen]

Ya, adding dry rock will cause a full cycle. The LFS gave you some bad info in this, If you had stuck with just the live rock, you likely would have been fine, but now the dry rock needs to cycle fully.
I would try and find a friend to take your corals, if you can, until the cycle finishes, as it could take a month or more to get through it.
You can also remove the dry rock and do a series of large water changes daily until the levels drop. Put the dry rock in a tub with some saltwater and let it cure and cycle for several months before adding back to the tank

 

[Sophie1213]

Yikes. ): and there is just dry sand. Should I siphon it out? All the rock was from my last tank so that luckily is not an issue. I can probably put the corals in a bucket?? This sucks


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[jda123]

The only hope is to get any living thing into another tank. Sorry. With ammonia near 8, there is no quick fix and removing stuff and changing water will kinda be like driving a pickup truck into a moving fright train.

You can try posting your location and see if anybody is close who can babysit the corals for a while.

 

[Sophie1213]

Thanks for your replies. I’m near reunion if anyone can help by babysitting


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[flagg37]

It’s a long shot that you can find it locally but the zeovit media neutralizes ammonia. You’d need the reactor too. At 8 it’s probably still too high for it to bring it down quickly enough for things not to die.

I’d echo what others have recommended and try and find a friend’s tank.

Once the livestock is out, I’d do water changes to get it down to at most 2 ppm. Then add Dr. Tim’s or one of the other bacteria in a bottle products to hopefully jumpstart the cycle.