Can I get a cycle?

[BlueMoonFox]

29 gallon tank was started threeish months ago. I used 15 lb life rock, 13 lb live rock, and 10 lb base rock that had been well cycled, as well as 16 lb live sand. From there I used Niteout and another bacteria-in-a-bottle. It has a canister filter and copious power heads. Temp 98.0 +/- 0.2 f, Phosphates undetectable, Ca 420, pH 8.2, Salinity 1.026. Inhabitants are a dozen small coral, two turbo snails, eight blue hermits, and a false percula. All are alive and happy. All parameters sit stable...

Except my ammonia between 0.25 - 1ppm and 0.00 nitrates and nitrites. The Ammonia is typically 0.25 on Sat after the water Chang and slowly climbs throughout the week until peaking at 1.00 Sat morning. This routine has been going on for about two months. The tank did its initial cycle within a month, diatoms and all. Had a week or two of no ammonia and then here we are. What, if anything, can I do? What could be doing this? Thanks in advance for any insight.

[gallegos]

Hey rid of the canister. It can cause your high ammonia. All that junk gets stuck in there. It's better to run hob skimmer instead

[thegrun]

What test kit are you using? Your situation is rare and I suspect either a bad test kit or user error. Ammonia at 1.0 is usually fatal

[BlueMoonFox]

I know the canister can become a problem if not maintained. Currently it gets a good scrub down every two weeks with tank water. I might try another ammonia test kit.

[BlueMoonFox]

I'm using API reef master kit and saltwater kit. I know (now) it isn't the most accurate. Could it really be reading off by that much?

[Dkuhlmann]

Originally Posted by BlueMoonFox

29 gallon tank was started threeish months ago. I used 15 lb life rock, 13 lb live rock, and 10 lb base rock that had been well cycled, as well as 16 lb live sand. From there I used Niteout and another bacteria-in-a-bottle. It has a canister filter and copious power heads. Temp 98.0 +/- 0.2 f, Phosphates undetectable, Ca 420, pH 8.2, Salinity 1.026. Inhabitants are a dozen small coral, two turbo snails, eight blue hermits, and a false percula. All are alive and happy. All parameters sit stable...

Except my ammonia between 0.25 - 1ppm and 0.00 nitrates and nitrites. The Ammonia is typically 0.25 on Sat after the water Chang and slowly climbs throughout the week until peaking at 1.00 Sat morning. This routine has been going on for about two months. The tank did its initial cycle within a month, diatoms and all. Had a week or two of no ammonia and then here we are. What, if anything, can I do? What could be doing this? Thanks in advance for any insight.

Is that temp a typo? If not it's WAY too high.

You do not need the canister filter since you have LR. The LR is all the filter that you need. But if you feel that you must have something else I highly suggest a skimmer over either a canister or a HOB filter.

[BlueMoonFox]

Lol my daughter has been sick lately, got me thinking in human temps. 78.0 +/- 0.2. I have an in-tank skimmer as well. Without having a sump, I wanted a place for carbon or purigen. The canister serves this purpose as well as water polishing.

[Bldgengineer]

Just FYI. I tested my api ammonia with distilled water and it still showed 0.25 clear as day. Have you tried a control test? This might explain some of your readings. From what I understand, if the api kit sees even a trace amount it will test 0.25 or a little higher.

[evan47]

When I was testing for ammonia in my freshwater tank I found that the API test always showed a minimum of .25 until I carried out a test using an unused vial.

[BlueMoonFox]

I'll have to try the test in a new vial and fresh water. I think part of the problem is user error. I was looking at the freshwater indicator which looks slightly different from the salt. Almost embarrassing really. If that's not the issue, time should fix it