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ammonia troubles

i have been having ammonia troubles in my display tank. on my api test it registers .25ppm corals seem to be ok my gonipora is fully extended along with zoa's my hammer and frogspawn isnt opening up. my paramiters is within range my alk is 9dkh , cal. is 420 , 0 nitrates , ph. is 8.1. I tested my ro water for ammonia and i have no trace . i mix my salt up with it and im getting .25ppm- .5ppm . I had also ordered new ro/di filters along with my ro membrane. i've started to get a 7ppm on my tds meter. Any help in this area would be appreciated.
 

myrjon

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Frogspawn and hammers do not like amonia .Im battleing that now. i had bad luck with test kits .api vs red sea way different results . try a red sea reef pro.what kind of salt are you using.tds should be at 0 when all filters are new. Some shops around will use till 14 tds ...water changes .water changes
 
I'm using IO salt mix I do water changes and if my new salt mix has ammonia in it what ever ammonia I have taken out I'm just putting back in I feel like I'm just wasting time doing that until I figure what to do with that. I use Red Sea for my mag And A German test kit for my cal. And alk . API I just use for ammonia no2 and no3.
 

redfishbluefish

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Most (if not all) salts have trace ammonia in them to assist in dissolution. If you have a cycled tank with established denitrifying bacteria, that trace amount of ammonia will be quickly consumed.

My guess is that you don’t have a completed cycled tank or you have a bad test kit.
 
My tank has been up and running since early last year . I lost power durning hurricane sandy I took all fish and rock to another tank temporary till we got power let everything run for 2 weeks and ammonia wasn't present so I added my fish back into my display and 2 weeks later my tank cycled on me and lost everything. Then got everything out until no ammonia was present then I added livestock and my coral everything was fine then about 2 months ago I started to get traces of ammonia and I did water changes and haven't had it go away could it be that my sand is no longer doing its job ?
 
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