Wierd phosphate readings

[jasonburge1990]

Hi everyone! I am new to the marine aquarium hobby Yes I fell victim to New Tank Syndrome. I started out with a 10 gallon bow front fowlr and had that tank running for about 5 months. It had a pep shrimp, 5 hermits and a clown fish and all did well.

Then I upgraded to a 60 gal. tank. due to my impatience of the nitrogen cycle, about right after the first week into running my new 60 gal. tank to develop beneficial bacteria, I added all my live stock and some of my base and live rock.

The begining of the 2nd week, I added some new livestock, 10 hermits, emerald crab, and cleaner shrimp. (basic clean-up crew) :headwalls:. I didnt test my water to see how far along my cycle was at in the ammonia-to-nitrite stage at that time.

3rd week all my animals were doing good though. No signs of ammonia poisoning? I had to give my clown fish back to my brother (He needed me to keep it so I babysat him). These next additions is what I think is stalling my cycle, besides me adding livestock so early, I added 5 blue chromis. My Remora C protein skimmer also came in and I ran it in my tank to for a while and got some green skimate over the couse of running it after break in.

4th week to the present day, I added a frag of galxia and a frag of star polyps. I started testing my perams for the phosphates to see where I was. I am constantly reading flucuations in Ammonia anywhere from .50 to 2, but it never exeeds 2 for some reason and never goes below .5!? :( And my nitrites and nitrates are always zero everytime I test. :confused: To help my critters deal with my epic fail, I dose Prime once every week to convert it to ammonium and they have survived because of that and I do 25-30% water changes every week. All my livestock is still alive. here are my tank specs.

60 gallon:
-aquarium size: 48" L x 12" W x 24" H (flat front)
-heater: 200w fluval (I always keep at 78 F)
-filter: penguin 350 -2-750 gph powerheads on each side
-sand: about an inch deep all along the bottom. fine grain (tried to seed my tank with live sand from old tank to. about 1 lb.)
l-ights: fluval 48", blue and white lights, 32w max (on from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm)
-water: rodi saltwater (SG 1.024)

Does anyone know why my ammonia flucuates and nitrite and nitrate wont even budge?

I think I should move my livestock to my old tank and do a 100% water change to try again. :hmm4:

[thegrun]

How much total rock do you have in the system (weight)? If you are getting high ammonia readings it is likely no waste has been converted from ammonia to nitrites or nitrates which explains why they are reading zero. 4 weeks is however a long time to not see the ammonia drop. What type of tests are you using to check the water? I would move the livestock to a tank without ammonia, but I would also quit making water changes and dosing anything until the cycle is complete.

[jasonburge1990]

probly 50 lbs of live and base rock. I use api saltwater master kit.

Thanks for the info. I will stop water changes for a little bit and I will move my rocks and livestock to my old tank once its ready again.

Anything else I should do?

[Roachant]

I have heard using prime can you false readings with certain test kits.

[dkeller_nc]

First, stop adding Prime to your tank. There's no way that you have the actual ammonia concentration that your test kit is reading 4 weeks into this, particularly if you had some true live rock in the tank.

Prime or other types of ammonia/chlorine removers are appropriate for rapidly conditioning tap water in an emergency, but not for adding to an already established saltwater tank.

Change about 40% of your water in 10% increments over a week's time with new Artificial Sea Water (ASW) made from high purity RODI, not tap water. That should get a lot of the chemical components of Prime out of your water (the rest will be chemically broken down).

Then, realize that you must follow the API test kit instructions exactly to get a correct nitrate reading. That means shaking the crap out of bottle #2 for a timed, 30-second interval (you must use a watch or clock with a second hand, counting one-mississippi, two missisippi, isn't going to do it for you), and shaking the crap out of the test vial once the reagents are added for the specified one-minute interval.

The problem with the chemistry in API's nitrate test kit is that failing to correctly agitate the reagents and the test sample with the reagents added will result in a false negative. This is one reason that a lot of folks prefer the Salifert or Red Sea Pro test kits for nitrate.

[Hobchoice1]

I agree with stop adding the Prime, but you probably need to add some nitryifying bacteria product - Microbacter7, Seachem Stability, Continuum Bacter Gen - seems like all the major companies have one.

I would not do a water change. I don't think your tank has cycled as evidenced by constant ammonia and no nitrites or nitrates. I agree with issue about API test - make sure you read the directions.

It is unclear, but seems like you are using tap water. STOP and get RO/DI to do you top offs.

[jasonburge1990]

Hey I said in my specs up there that I use rodi saltwater. Now I know better than to use tap water! And I follow the directions for the api test kits correctly. I will add some nitrifying bacteria to help with the cycling.

btw I moved my livestock and rocks to my new tank. I will STOP doing prime to.

I just tested my phosphates and here is my readings.

ammonia - .50 ppm
nitrite - 0 ppm
nitrate - 40 ppm

so these readings, what does this mean? ammonia is up but no nitrite. and nitrate is way up! Is that showing progress? Does that mean its cycling?

[jasonburge1990]

Now I just dosed seachem microbacter and my ammonia went from .50 to 2!? WHAT!?

[dkeller_nc]

Hey I said in my specs up there that I use rodi saltwater. Now I know better than to use tap water!

Sorry, I missed what your saltwater was made with when I first read your post. I added the italics just emphasize the point and not knowing whether you'd used tapwater or not, not to imply "you're doing it wrong".

So, a question - your original post said you'd added live rock and base rock to your tank, and you'd provided a chronology where the last entry is "4 weeks to the present day". Does that mean the tank has been set up for about 5 weeks (longer?).

And, about the "live rock" - was this truly live rock (i.e., natural rock from the ocean)? I ask because sometimes folks will use the term "live rock" to mean anything from dead, dry natural rock to man-made artificial substitutes ("Real Reef Rock" is an example) to the real deal.

The reason I ask is that unless you put a huge bio-load into the tank, are feeding the crap out of the fish, had something significant die (like an anemone or large sponge) or started from dead, dry "live rock", it's pretty much impossible for you to actually have a significant amount of ammonia in your water. Your nitrates at 40 ppm strongly support this conclusion - you don't get that kind of nitrate concentration without a reasonably well-established base of nitrifying bacteria.

If you want to diagnose the test kit, I would suggest running the test on your freshly made saltwater. You should get close to zero ammonia if the saltwater's been made up and circulating for a day or so. This test will tell you whether you're getting interference from the Prime in the tank water, or whether the API reagents have gone out of whack.

[shifty51008]

IMO besides the added livestock you just added, also adding the bacteria raised your ammonia levels, these things are not ment to add then your ready to add fish, they will start your cycle which starts the ammonia levels to raise.