treesprite

All I can do now is emphasize the importance of research and communication in this hobby. I had purchased flucanozole for the algae before this thread started, which I not used because I was worried I'd screw up things. As it turns out, I doubt it would even have worked because of the ammonia problem. The communication saved me from possibly making a bad situation worse.

You have done me and possibly a lot of other future hobbyists a huge service simply by posting about the problem! It really would be great if someone could do a formal article about airborne ammonia, sources, and how to keep it from affecting aquariums.

Mari and I have been having the same issue. Both of us have cats and litter boxes, which of course give off ammonia gas. The solution I chose is to limit airborne ammonia, prevent it from getting into the water, and use something that will take ammonia out of the water before the ammonia has a chance to feeds algae growth. The 40g new water container no longer gets an ammonia reading; I am not using any media in it, but keep the container covered. I am using the media in my sump, but not sure if I actually still need it because the water in the tank has always shown no detectable ammonia, because the algae was eating it up. I am assuming the algae die-off to be the result of a decrease in the addition of ammonia from the air. I had not a trace of cyano all the while that the algae was growing, but with the algae die-off, I now have the cyano. I believe as long as I keep airborne ammonia out of the tank, the tank will straighten itself out.

Awesome! Are your dottys the captive bred ones or wild? I really wanted a pair, but was afraid of getting two same-sex fish and ending up with just one.

Wow, such cute little critters.

Cute fish.

Using two smaller ones rather than a single bigger one, will also spread out the suction, so critters aren't as likely to get sucked against the intakes.

How is your tank doing now? I too had the algae die-off and have the cyano now. I haven't bothered doing any chemical tests because it is rather obvious what is going on in the tank. Basically, the tank is in the end of a very long, drawn-out cycling process, with the chemistry of algae die-off to complicate the situation. Since any damage was already done, I've been kind of letting the tank go through the process without going overboard on water changes, thinking too much of that would be more of an interference than a help. I just can't put anything new in the tank for a while that wants perfect conditions. I thought about setting up a temp tank for new stuff, if I want anything from ff.

My tank looks the same as this. I couldn't do anything with salt water for a while due to an allergic reaction on my hands. But when I eventually tested my unused water, it had ammonia in it. I bought some ammonia sponge stuff so the test then read zero - there wasn't any point in making all new saltwater when the water in the tank was (presumably) also taking in ammonia , but I didn't want to add ammonia (the tank reading was zero, due to the usual biological process). I discovered some spots where it turns out cat was peeing in secret, put an end to that nonsense. Hopefully I can get my tank back on track too, which could have started happening sooner if it weren't for me being allergic to the steering wheel of my car.

The Sofresh brand at Petco has a version of litter specifically for breaking down ammonia. I usually use a sand-sized crystal litter, but I'm going to try this ammonia stuff - it is a cheaper litter but it still might be better as far as ammonia goes. I got some ammonia reducer filter pads at Petco today, to try to catch up ammonia before it feeds algae. I need to figure out how to put them in the tank. I have some HOB filters, one is a double biowheel exlg penguin filter - I might put that on with pieces of the ammonia pads stuck in it.

The air filters designed for removing ammonia are embedded with carbon, alumina, and potassium permanganate. The machines are exceedingly expensive. There are some HVAC unit filters that are still around $100 just for one, so I will keep looking for something cheaper that will fit the unit.

I'm thinking of getting something like these air ammonia test papers: https://m.ebay.com/itm/Hydrion-AM-40-Ammonia-Test-Paper-0-5-10-20-50-100ppm-Tests-ammonia-in-air-/370934069428?_mwBanner=1&_rdt=1

It seems those lady palm plants are really expensive. I'm trying to find some other good ammonia eaters that are not toxic to cats because my cats eat my plants. I think in this airborne ammonia situation, the algae growth in the tanks is quite ironically a good thing. Algae uses up ammonia more easily/faster than nirate, so it is keeping everything else in the tanks from dying of ammonia toxicity.

WELL I can thank you, Mari, for your thread because I finally just now got around to testing my clean water and it does have ammonia in it. It must be ventilation for me, because I did not have this problem in my old place where I had 3 cats not just the 2 that are here. Here, there is only one window in the main area, which is a sliding glass door that has no screen component so I don't leave it open (cats will run out and bugs will fly in). I better solve that ventilation problem then see what happen. I am going to buy some kind of ammonia media to use while I am trying to get the airborne ammonia problem solved. I wonder how many other people out there are also having this issue behind their aquarium woes. I always associate poor ventilation with pH problems, but would never have guessed this ammonia situation. Maybe we need a sticky post on the effects of air quality components on water quality and the potential associated issues (like low pH, algae, and others). The post would need to include some air quality control solutions.

https://www.homedetoxing.com/air-purifying-plants-remove-ammonia/

Yep, and I am pretty sure one of them peed a few times in a sump I used to have (can't get to the current ones).

Algae. Maybe I should do an ammonia test of my new water. I never test for ammonia except for in a QT. I hope ammonia in the air isn't the reason for my algae problem.

LOL. I've had reef tanks long enough to know what is what. There are a handful of people here that might be able to to tell me something I don't already know or haven't already considered. I'm not going to keep stressing myself over the dang stupid tank when I have so many other things to be stressed about right now and on top of that have physical pain keeping me awake all night almost every night. The only small tank I ever had that was effortless and still had "perfect" water, was roughly 12 years ago, a 16 high office tank that I had sectioned a third of off and packed with caulerpa, and had a 4-5 inch DSB because I was only using PCs and wanted corals closer to the light. There was no sump, no filter, no protien skimmer. Water changes were 50% roughly every 3 months. Undetectable nitrate and undetectable phosphate. I would love to try to duplicate on a larger scale, but I'm afraid of having a DSB that size go foul. Maybe when the tank sees that I'm not going to let it get the best of me and am not going to give it up either, it will work things out on its own.

Green hair algae. I probably had bits deep in my liverock from when I had the bigger tank before I moved 3 years ago, I just didn't ever see algae because the tang ate it. I guess that it why we don't see so much algae on the reefs, the algae eaters eat it at a pace that keeps up with the growth. I pretty much knew, when I decided to have a smaller tank, that without a tang I would probably have algae issues. My favorite fish of all time is yellow zebramosa tang - I can't wait to be able to have another one. Thanks for the suggestion. I'm going to look up the fluxanole as suggested. I just don't want to have to dose a bunch of stuff.

Pudding wife..... I thought zoanthid names were crazy.

Last night my water alarm thing didn't go off and I fell asleep in my chair with water on. There was an empty 12g tank on the floor next to the 40 brute, and luckily the way the water was slowly spilling over around the brute rim sent it right into the 12g. The 12g started to overflow after that, but things would have been a lot worse if I hadn't been too lazy to put that empty tank somewhere besides the floor (it's been empty for over a year).

Do you have cats? It isn't unheard of for them to pee in containers of water, crazy as it sounds.

How do grains of sand not get through into the pump? The plates for UGF do have holes or slats in them, so there must be some grains going through there building up over time. I would hate to have to take all of that apart to fix a problem.

Dealing with this 50g tank (75 sv) has been a big hassle. I'm not going to set up the 120 that I was working on that has just sitting empty in a junk room for a couple or few years (I left it with half the silicon stripped off when I decided not to set it up). When I had my 75g tank (100-110 sv), I could at least spend some time enjoying it without having to work on it. I think the rate of nutrient production matched up precisely with the rate of my tang picking at the rocks. I hate dealing with this 50g, but I can't set up a bigger tank right now. I have had too much going on to deal with this unforgiving little tank, and I am tired of being frustrated with it. I'm going to just let it go to the amount of work I did on my old tank and try not to worry about it. I won't get any more sticks or zoas until I get a bigger tank; they grow, but I have to pick bits of algae and when I don't have time to do it, the algae takes over them. I was going to let mushrooms grow all over the rocks so algae wouldn't grow on the rocks, but then a purple shroom killed a couple heads of duncan by expanding more than I thought it would, so I guess I'm not going that route. I got crazy and bought a couple mollies a couple weeks ago think I ng maybe they will eat some algae. The salinity now matches the tank, so right now I'm doing the final tank transfer acclimation. They were eating algae off of rocks I had in their acclimation tank, so I think they will eat algae in the DT. They love Rod's Food... I bet they never had that at PetCo. The only fish already in my DT are an orchid dottyback and a blenny, both of which are pretty much peaceful fish that don't dart around, so I think the mollies will be fine with them. That's my rant for now. I don't really want any advice right now aside from anyone saying I made the right decision to not get sticks that are going to die from neglect.

All nice looking clowns. I haven't had any in a really long time