Add live rock with over .08 ammonia levels?

[Marino13]

Should i? or wait to see if the levels drop. the girl at the lfs said ammonia levels that high migh make it dead rock. i am getting so much conflicting info its driving me crazy. Tank has been up for 4 days now salinity 1.024 and temp 78. i have not even checked nitrate or trite, concerned with the ammonia levels right now. Thanbks

[cubalz]

You can wait, but I didn't- I cycled both the live rock and sand together. I have set up 2 of my 4 tanks this way with no ill effects on the live rock. Remember, no matter what, you will have die off on your rock but a fair amount will come back with the right amount/duration of light and the addition of calcium in the water will really do wonders.

Should i? or wait to see if the levels drop. the girl at the lfs said ammonia levels that high migh make it dead rock. i am getting so much conflicting info its driving me crazy. Tank has been up for 4 days now salinity 1.024 and temp 78. i have not even checked nitrate or trite, concerned with the ammonia levels right now. Thanbks

[Poseidon]

Yes, you can add it. But I would wait myself. As cubalz mentioned, it is generally best to cycle the tank as a whole. The process could take 4-6 weeks total. As far as conflicting info, that is a MAJOR dissapointment to here. My best suggestion is follow the advice of only ONE source. Whether it be here or another board, or a friend that has been successful. When you get in trouble is when you take advice from EVERYONE and use a little of this and a little of that.... Stick to one method.

[Reefland]

Ok, well here is a bot more of conflicting info.

I would go ahead and get the rest of the live rock I intend to add and get it in the tank. If you wait, your taking a chance of another mini cycle happening and that is just going to extend the time before you can add some clean-up critters, etc. Whether you add uncured LR or cured is your preference but either way I would go ahead and get it and be done with it.

Also, don't over react trying to reduce this ammonia level in a new tank. Even if you were to get fully cured liverock, there is going to be some amount of die off that could raise the ammonia a bit. Just stay patient, get all of the live rock and live sand in the tank that you want to add and then wait it out until the ammonia and nitrite have hit 0.

Scott Z.

[Ninong]

the girl at the lfs said ammonia levels that high migh make it dead rock.

You did tell her your ammonia was 0.08 ppm, right?

And my second question is what brand of ammonia test kit are you using? It must be an extremely expensive test kit if it is capable of measuring ammonia that low.

I'm using a Salifert ammonia test kit, which I admit is not all that good for measuring ammonia, but it is only capable of measuring ammonia above 0.5 ppm. There are five color squares on the little card, the first one is white and represents <0.5 ppm (that means the kit is not capable of measuring ammonia below 0.5 ppm). The next square is pale yellow and it represents 0.5 ppm, then dark yellow representing 1.0 ppm, light orange representing 1.5 ppm and finally dark orange representing >2.0 ppm.

Is it possible that you meant to say 0.8 ppm total ammonia? If that is your ammonia reading, it won't kill your live rock. Some people order raw live rock and their ammonia spike will be above 2.0 ppm before it starts to come down.

[Marino13]

My kit is a fast test it goes from 0 to .08 pee yellow=0 to dark green .08 that is as high as it goes so actually is coluld be even higher than .o8

[Ninong]

My kit is a fast test it goes from 0 to .08 pee yellow=0 to dark green .08 that is as high as it goes so actually is coluld be even higher
than .o8

You are probably off by a factor of 100 because none of the ammonia test kits marketed for the hobby market would have an upper limit of either 0.08 or even 0.8. The upper limit is probably 8.0 ppm total ammonia.

If your measurements match the upper limit of your test and the number 8 is in there somewhere, then I suppose you have 8 ppm total ammonia, which is very high. You should re-read the instructions so that you get the decimal in the right place.

[Marino13]

My bad, there are 5 colored plastic tiles stacked from 0.0 pee yello 0.2 slightly darker 0.4 light lime 0.6 darker lime and 0.8 lime peel color. mine has been .8 the past few days. sorry for the confusion.

edit, update.

Actually, i just finished testing it for the first time today and it looks much better it looks under 0.0 not even pee yellow wich would be 0.0 yeasterday it was bright green. That was quick. That aragalive must be kicking in. i will test it again to be sure and see what my nitrates and trite are.