Ammonia Spike!

I have not added any fish within the past few months. I've recently added a mushroom covered piece of LR from my LFS coral tank and a 'cow tongue' coral. I added to my CUC. My CUC includes a 300G crew with hermits from Reef Cleaners and 1 sand sifting star and 1 cleaner shrimp. my live stock includes two clarki clowns, two false clowns, 6 line wrasse, xmas wrasse, flame angel, blue hippo. I lost my yellow tang this AM. He had been eating great and a member of the tank for a year now. I noticed friday evening he skipped out on the frozen brine and didnt touch his nori. Also this AM noticed my blue hippo has spots of ich now. Instantly tested ammonia and it was .025. The salinity was .023 and the I bumped the heater to 80 from 78. Looked down in my sump area and noticed my skimmer wasnt doing to much so I cleaned it out as well. I as well did a 35G water change on the 210G tank.

Any suggestions on my next steps? :-/

 

I'm thinking it's the new LR that caused the ammonia spike or the dead tang. I wouldn't feed for a few days to let the bacteria to break down the ammonia.

 

The tang may have been dead for 6 hours at the most before he was scooped out.


The LR was no bigger than your palm and was a flat piece of rock with mushrooms on it.

 

You can use Amquel to neutralize the toxicity of the ammonia but will still need to do water changes daily or twice daily and monitor your ammonia levels often.

 

With me just doing a 35G water change today, how often should I continue to do them? Currently i'm doing WC every other Wed.

 

i would do that atleast once a day untill the ammonia breaks down

 

a 35G water change once a day ?

 

Had diatoms when I came home. I can't believe this small piece of mushroom rock caused this.

 

The diatoms may be from your water change. Do you use RO/DI? Did you test your water again to check your ammonia level? Your fish should tolerate a little ammonia spike over a short term. Let your level dictate your water change interval. If it is continuing to rise, i would start to look for another source such as an unnoticed dead fish, an area of detritus or some other area that is "polluted" that may be causing your issue. Good luck and make sure you know how the issue gets resolved!!