n8n November 17, 2014 Share November 17, 2014 Howdy, so i have two maroon clowns in my new QT tank (27g).. anyways i've been watching the ammonia / nitrite /nitrite / temp / ph .... Anyways so the ammonia has been really hard to read. its Salifert brand, cloudy white maybe barly yellow tint. I initally baught Salifert because i heard API is unreliable... is it true? So my clowns are new little one is hiding in corner and not eating, larger one appears to start eating a little and is patrollign the back of the tank when he thinks i'm not looking... [ i have a camera on them -wink- -wink- ]. Anyways so i head to store p/u some different frozen foods and decide to grab an API ammonia test kit since when i pop open box the color chart looks way easier to read.... To my panic / discovery ... please look at the image and explain. side by side. Salifert & API. I re-ran test with RODI [with salt at correct temp] Salifert no difference, APi s the yellow zero color... I just did a 12% water change since i saw results and trying to figure out if i need to be more drastic. Thank you! -Nathan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n8n November 17, 2014 Author Share November 17, 2014 Oh also the APi looks like i over filled it, i actually used medical grade measuring surengies (from salifert kit) to measure exactly 5 ml as per instructions. the line on teh side appears to be totally off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BowieReefer84 November 17, 2014 Share November 17, 2014 Any amount of ammonia is really bad. You need to get some PRIME as soon as possible and do some very large water changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM November 17, 2014 Share November 17, 2014 Seems like either one of the test kits is bad or you're doing one of them wrong. I agree that I'd toss in some Prime just in case and do some water changing and see about eliminating the possibility of a bad test. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n8n November 17, 2014 Author Share November 17, 2014 Add 2ml water the 1/2 ml fluid swirl then another 1/2 swirl let sit. The other is 5 ml water then like 8 drops of one type shake 8 drops of other shake wait 5 min. Not to hard to jack up way dif results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n8n November 17, 2014 Author Share November 17, 2014 So I read the measure is different on side. Nh3+nh4. The other says nh3/nh4. Any chemists want to explain difference. Either way I just did 12% water change and will do more once I get more premix. That was all I had on hand at correct salinity. I have 45g of salt water mixing but it only reads 1.015 and has chucks of visable salt still needing to dillute so ill be buying some premix. btw what is prime ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n8n November 17, 2014 Author Share November 17, 2014 Only thing in tank is two clowns and PVC its quarantine tank. No corals or live rock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM November 17, 2014 Share November 17, 2014 Prime is a dechlorinator in red bottles at pet stores. It's also an ammonia binder. Doesn't get rid of ammnoia which will still show up on tests, but does bind it up so it doesn't harm fish. Most people running a QT tank for fish dump in prime regularly, do lots of water changes, and/or have a cycled and seeded sponge filter or hang on back filter of some sort to convert out the ammonia. Also most people running a QT have one of those ammonia badges that you stick on with a suction cup to give you ammonia in real time so you can see if a problem is developing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n8n November 17, 2014 Author Share November 17, 2014 Ok I did son reading. Salifert measures Ammonia only, while API is showing Ammonia and Ammonium. Apparently Ammonium is why the results are different... More reading to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BowieReefer84 November 17, 2014 Share November 17, 2014 Point is anything other than zero is really really bad for ammonia. You need to either use bio filtration (liverock) or do constant water changes and dose Prime or a combination of all three. Fish don't live long in ammonia. It burns them from the inside out basically. If you have any new water put them in that with some prime, and get new water mixed up in your QT tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DuffyGeos November 17, 2014 Share November 17, 2014 You can even get this at petco or other pet stores Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n8n November 17, 2014 Author Share November 17, 2014 I just got a bottle prime and a bunch of water premix to follow tips. I know one of the two readings is totally wrong. It can't be .5 ppm and 8 ppm at same time. Tomorrow will pickup red sea test kit at marine scene and determine which of the three test kits is giving a garbage reading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DuffyGeos November 18, 2014 Share November 18, 2014 I just got a bottle prime and a bunch of water premix to follow tips. I know one of the two readings is totally wrong. It can't be .5 ppm and 8 ppm at same time. Tomorrow will pickup red sea test kit at marine scene and determine which of the three test kits is giving a garbage reading. good job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Mc November 18, 2014 Share November 18, 2014 If your going to marine scene they will do an ammonia test for you which might help determine if one of your kits is bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime November 18, 2014 Share November 18, 2014 If your going to marine scene they will do an ammonia test for you which might help determine if one of your kits is bad. Good call, Jim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n8n November 18, 2014 Author Share November 18, 2014 So i put in 1/2 a cap of prime, then transfered the water into buckets and put heaters in the buckets to get them upto tank temp, [it took about 15 minutes to get them close enough], also ran a full set of tests on the water, and it was 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, ph like 8.3 [same as my tank], salinity 1.025 (mine is somewhere between 1.025 and 1.024). So i did a 15g water change (55%) on the 27g qt tank. Keep in mind I did a 3.5g water change earlier today, a 1 gallon sunday and a 2 gallon thursday... so its not like i'm not changing water and this is a really new tank, and the only occupants are super tiny. After the water change i did another half a cap of prime. it said i could go upto 5x the dosing if necessary. for the Salifert tests the 55% water change made almost no difference (little ammonia to little ammonia) for the API the level of greeness changed but it still shows uncomfortably high ammonia. I honestly think one of the two kits is junk but between 55% fresh water premix + the prime the fish should be safe until i can get someone else to do some tests. I'm retaining some of the old water so i can test it tomorrow with red sea test kit, and will have see what marine scene thinks. Comments are always welcome. Thanks! -Nathan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DuffyGeos November 18, 2014 Share November 18, 2014 Great idea to save some of the old water to test it. Way to go the distance to try and fix things. Hopefully things will be better for your new clowns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n8n November 18, 2014 Author Share November 18, 2014 Here are the clowns this morning. Newly paired and only few days new. Wife is taking water sample to Marine Scene later today after work. I have masters class till 7:10pm at mason. thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami November 18, 2014 Share November 18, 2014 NH3 is ammonia. NH4+ is ammonium - an ion of ammonia. When you put ammonia into water, some of it dissociates into ammonium. Ammonium is less toxic to fish than ammonia. However,neither is good to have. The balance, or equilibrium, that's attained varies. At low pH, ammonium is favored; at higher pH, ammonia is favored. In other words, one can shift to the other - i.e. they're two facets of the same thing. You need to monitor ammonia carefully in a QT tank which typically doesn't have much in the way of biological filtration (though you can help address this by using a sponge filter in the tank and maybe dosing a bacterial additive, or through water changes). Your results on the API kit look through the roof. I suspect that kit is bad. I'm not even sure that your clowns could survive 8 ppm ammonia/ammonium but am not sure. That's 4x-8x higher than I like to see when cycling a tank. Keep in mind that some ammonia test kits won't be worth a darn when you use Prime. At least, it won't give you a sense of the toxicity of the soup that you're measuring. This is because the kit will measure even the ammonia that's bound with the Prime. Some other kits, that measure ammonia differently with a different set of reagents can give you an accurate measure. This, by the way, is mentioned on the label for Prime. Unless you have the right kind of kit, you'll be in the dark about the ammonia measurement. However, Prime does work, so follow the instructions and keep moving forward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrueTricia November 18, 2014 Share November 18, 2014 One of the other things to keep in mind with the test kits, is that it's very important to do things the same way every time. While it won't explain the drastic differences between kits, the process you go through when testing can make your results vary. Do you fill up to the exact same point every time? Do you look at the test tube at the same eye level every time when measuring the fill? Do you shake for the exact same amount of time? Rich Ross went through how these can through off your tests at our last meeting. His point, and I agree, is that it doesn't matter so much if you do things the exact way that the test tells you, rather the most important thing is for your process to be as close to the exact same every time you test. This will give you consistent results. I don't think any of that explains the difference between the tests, but it is important to keep in mind as you move forward and track your progress. Also, have you checked the TDS coming out of your RODI? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msl5078 November 19, 2014 Share November 19, 2014 I used API for years, but they are notorious inaccurate with what the kit provides. When I use the API kits with syringes, I get fairly consistent results. I heavily recommend using Prime or some other ammonia binding agent for a QT tank. When I had my 120 up and running I would run QT with a seeded cheap sponge I kept in my sump and prime to help with ammonia for when I couldn't keep up with the frequent water changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime November 19, 2014 Share November 19, 2014 Any updates for us, OP? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n8n November 20, 2014 Author Share November 20, 2014 First off thank you everyone for advice. Yesterday we didn't realized Marine Scene closes at 3PM tuesdays... Anyways I did get a seachem hang in tank badge that was reading watch (green 0.05). Fishies were eating more and seemed pretty chill, even with 55% water change and prime added. Today made it to marine scene and they were sold out of Red Sea Ammonia kits, but they did test my water. I learned my API test kit was totally completely accurate as long as I divide by 10! Yeh seriously API == 8.0 PPM. Marine Scene == 0.8 PPM. The Salfert Test Kit reads somewhere around 0.5 or possibly 0.25 depending on how you hold it up. (its like milky white with a light yellow tint). And the difference is in values is like super minor shades of yellow. Marine Scene did recommend tossing in a small amount of live rock to provide more surface area for the bacteria to attach onto, and even if the tank goes south since its a QT I can toss out the very small quantity of live rock worst case. Here is some relaxing music with my fishies from yesterday in QT tank: Since i've re-arranged the tank the fishies are doing a "shelter in place" drill hiding along one of their known safe places together. Its hard to believe a few days ago when i added the big clown the first thing it did was attack the little one, and now they are star crossed paired! Thanks -Nathan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
20LogR November 20, 2014 Share November 20, 2014 Not to make anything more complicated, but you should know that using Prime and copper medications like Curpamine together is supposedly highly toxic. I haven't tried myself, but its on the FAQ for Cupramine Q: I've been dosing with Cupramine™ and then I added Product X and everything died. What happened? A: If Product X is a reducing agent such as ParaGuard™ (or other aldehyde based medications), or if you overdose with a dechlorinator, such as Prime® then the Cu+2 will be reduced to Cu+. Cu+ is 10 times more toxic than Cu+2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n8n November 20, 2014 Author Share November 20, 2014 Wow that's a great point. I will have to keep that in mind. Thank you much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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