Ammonia Spike , but why?

[rc cola]

The other day I came home from work and my lemon goby and royal gramma were on their last legs... and gasping for oxygen. I immediately tested my water and saw the following results
Nitrites - 0 ppm
Nitrates - 20 ppm ( for some reason i have never been able to get this down)
pH - 8.3
Ammonia - .5 (I know this is where the prob is)
question, what causes Ammonia to spike all of a sudden?
About 2 weeks ago i came home from a weeks vacation and my Bengaii Cardinal was missing.. my roomate had been feeding my fish and they were all fine except him... just gone.. I assumed that the crabs ate him but is it possible that he died, floated up into the filter and started rotting.. and the decomp is causing this ammonia spike?
---INFO---
my tank running for about 6 months now.
47 gal tank
30 lbs of live rock (working on adding more) -lots of coralene growth
5 - Hermit crabs
5 - Snails
1 - Lemon Goby (dead)
1 - Royal Gramma (dead)
1 - Begaii Cardinal (dead)
2- Chromis (Alive!)
2- Rock Anemonies
Live Sand

[hr]
Any suggestions regarding this issue or any suggestions at all are MUCH APPRECIATED!
THANKS IN ADVANCE!!

 

[perfectdark]

Has the live rock been in there since the tank has been started? Have you added anymore reciently? Its possible the bangii could of created the issue, how big was it? The larger the tank and the smaller the fish the less of a spike if at all it would create. I have a 29gal cube and lost a neon goby with no ammonia spike.

 

[fishfreak1242]

Originally Posted by -- cola
http:///forum/post/2581383
The other day I came home from work and my lemon goby and royal gramma were on their last legs... and gasping for oxygen. I immediately tested my water and saw the following results
Nitrites - 0 ppm
Nitrates - 20 ppm ( for some reason i have never been able to get this down)
pH - 8.3
Ammonia - .5 (I know this is where the prob is)
question, what causes Ammonia to spike all of a sudden?
About 2 weeks ago i came home from a weeks vacation and my Bengaii Cardinal was missing.. my roomate had been feeding my fish and they were all fine except him... just gone.. I assumed that the crabs ate him but is it possible that he died, floated up into the filter and started rotting.. and the decomp is causing this ammonia spike?
---INFO---
my tank running for about 6 months now.
47 gal tank
30 lbs of live rock (working on adding more) -lots of coralene growth
5 - Hermit crabs
5 - Snails
1 - Lemon Goby (dead)
1 - Royal Gramma (dead)
1 - Begaii Cardinal (dead)
2- Chromis (Alive!)
2- Rock Anemonies
Live Sand

[hr]
Any suggestions regarding this issue or any suggestions at all are MUCH APPRECIATED!
THANKS IN ADVANCE!!
It probably was your bangaii cardinal dissapearance that caused the spike. How long ago did you notice that it was missing? When one of my damsels went missing I ended up finding him is the back of my tank rotting and being eaten by my hermits. If it was recently that he disapeared the hermits and snails probably wouldnt eat the fish that quickly. It would take them between 3-7 days to eat an entire fish. What you should do right now is quarintine the remaining livestock that you have left and do a 30-40% water change for the next few days to get the amonia to go down.

 

[rc cola]

PerfectDark,
Thanks-- The live rock has been in there since the beginning. I took one piece out last week to cut off some Bubble Algea. When was putting the rock back in another one came loose and fell into the sand causing a lot of stuff to stir up in the tank..
The Begaii was a little bigger than the size of a quarter .. so pretty small... and it has been missing for about 2 weeks before this happend.
?!?!?!

 

[perfectdark]

How deep is your SB? I dont believe that your bangii was the contributer although it is possible. But you do or did have some die off coming from somewhere. Your tank is still considered new, although I dont know how long it takes to get enough anerobic bacteria to create a problem if you stir the SB up. But you would need a DSB for that to happen anyway.