Ammonia Rising?!

The tank already cycled. I had both nitrates and nitrites, they have both gone away now.

 

well yea but if you have ammonia then nitrates have to come right after the ammonia goes away. or at least thats what i have in my understanding. but i could be making that up.

 

Higher psi actually makes a RO membrane work better not worse.
How long did you say the reef has been up and running? How long have the rock and sand be in it?
Yes, ammonia comes first then nitrosonomas bacteria consumes it and creates nitrites which are then eaten by nitrobacter and creates nitrates.
Did you go through a complete cycle when first set up?

 

You know what, after all this freaking out, I think the problem is an inacurate ammonia test kit. The batch of 40g of fresh saltwater I just made has the exact same ammonia reading of my tank. No way a fresh batch of saltwater can have that much ammonia right of the bat. I'm using the Red Sea test kit. Anyone have problems with this brand before?

 

Go buy a jug of distilled water and test it. If it shows zero then you may have ammonia in the treated water, if its the same or shows ammonia then I would suspect the test kit. You could also take a sample to the LFS and have them test it for you.

 

It was a bad test. Check out my experiment to confirm it here:

Red Sea vs API - Ammonia Test Kit Accuracy Experiment

 

Good Catch.
It makes me so mad when that sort of thing happens.

Soo much panic and what not all for a bad test kit

J

 

As I suspected.