Ammonia Spike!

Since I was moving the live rock around and rinsed them in hot water today my ammonia spiked to 0.50.. and I have clownfish, cleaner shrimp, astrea snail.. and some reef... how should I quickly drop the ammonia? or any recommendations?

I am doing a 10% water change right now.

 

Water change.

 

but will the ammonia come right back up? also up to how much ammonia can clownfish take?

 

They'll do alright if you stay on top of it. Watch your fish for stress and heavy rapid breathing. Got any nuetralizer like Amquel etc.? Be prepared for water changes over the next couple days. Also if you use an ammonia blocker the ammonia will still show on your tests but isn't toxic.

 

Why did you rinse the rock in hot water? Did you wash all of the rock? That probably killed a fair amount of bacteria and you will probably need to go through another cycle. I would try to get out the live stock such as the snail and shrimp. If you keep doing water changes, you will just delay the cycle and it will result in continuing problems.

 

Why did you rinse your LR with hot water? You have effectively detroyed your bio filtration by doing so.

 

This:

http://www.3reef.com/forums/asap/new-cycle-85657.html

 

I dont know what to suggest to reduce the ammonia if im honest. W/C will only delay IMO. You could try carbon? Also ozone destroys ammonia if you have one.
There are a lot of poructs out there that claim they instantly cycle your tank, you could visit your lfs and see what they have, but im my experience the only thing that works is just letting the bacteria in your tank naturally accumilate.

Sorry not much help i know...

 

I didn't see that older thread. For future reference, you should rinse the rock off in salt water instead of fresh water or hot water. I just use the old water change water when it's in the bucket still. IMO, there's really nothing much you can do except to wait it out. If you didn't wash all of the rock, then there should still be a decent base or bacteria, so the cycle won't last too long. But as Phoenix said too, I wouldn't do water changes, that's only a temporary fix which will result in constant ammonia issues.

 

I don't think a crab would crawl out of the rock if you used salt water to flush it out.