Ammonia/Protein skimmer

Question
QUESTION: Dear Jennifer,

I have a system about 2 months old. It involves a 90 gallon saltwater aquarium, eheim 2228 canister filter, about 30 lbs live rock, 10 small fish and about 2-3 inches live sand. It also has a powerhead injecting airbubbles as well as current. Everything except a few fish was harvested locally as I live on the water. The rock contained some sponge, which a little has started to die off. It also contained some sea grass growth etc. It appears I have have developed ammonia up to a level of 2.0 over the last week. It rose to .5 about a week ago and I did a 20% water change. A small amount of foul smelling foam has began to accumulate on the top as well. I do not have a protein skimmer. My question is how should I battle the ammonia and do I need a protein skimmer? If so, what kind of economical protein skimmer do you recommend?

Thanks, Scott

ANSWER: Hi Scott. What is happening is that since you added live rock straight from the ocean and if it wasn't cured prior to you putting it in your tank there is some normal die off going here. This is one of the main reasons most people buy live rock that is already cured. The moment you take live rock out of the ocean some of the creatures that make up the living aspect of the rock will start to die. Most of these creatures don't do well during the cycling process and when they start to die ammonia is released into the water making even more of them die do to poor water quality. Sponges can be extremely toxic when they die within the confines of an aquarium. A good protein skimmer is a must for any reef tank as it will help collect some of the dissolved organic wastes produced by decaying organisms before they turn into ammonia. In order for you to battle the ammonia you must do frequent partial water changes, Change any carbon filtration you may have regularly and do not add any more creatures to your tank. You are going to be going through the whole cycling process all over again and the aerobic bacteria should eventually be able to take care of this problem. However if you are losing a lot of inhabitants too fast then the good bacteria can not keep up with the load, and you may have a chain reaction of where the water quality gets too poor to even support the bacteria and then they start to die also polluting your tank. As for me recommending a protein skimmer I like any of the Aqua C series. The Remora pro Can handle any tank over 75 gallons and is relatively easy to install. Any good protein skimmer is going to cost you from about $200 on up and the cheaper models while good for a smaller tank may not be enough for your size tank. If you can not afford one at this price then I would recommend the red sea prizm protein skimmer. The smaller model is made for aquariums up to 100 gallons and extremely easy to maintain and will only cost you about $100. I use this one and have only a few complaints. The biggest one being that in order for it to work efficiently it must be taken apart and cleaned once a month. Otherwise a very good skimmer for the money. Whatever you decide to do you should get a skimmer on there A.S.A.P.!

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QUESTION: Thanks so much for your quick response! It is very comforting having an expert to respond so quickly during a beginners "panic phase"!I have a few more questions (if you dont mind). My PH seems to stay around 7.8. How should I raise it? I read to add baking soda, but wanted to ask an expert first. Also, about 15 percent of some orange colored sponge turned white, and has come off. The rest seems to be doing ok. It is ok to leave this piece of rock in my tank? Will it stabilize? I will do another water change today, but should i also put some of the ammonia blocker I have read about in there or is it a waste of time? Last question... I have about 5 Flame scallops and a few feather dusters in my tank. I use Marine Snow to feed them. the bottle says to put 5 ml per 20 gal. Is this a proper amount to feed them? Does it not matter how many animals I am feeding?

Thanks again, and sorry for so many questions!

Answer
Hello again Scott. You can never ask too many questions! Before adding any thing to raise your pH make sure you have tested several times a day for a few days. Your pH can fluctuate during the course of a day and if you are testing it in the morning you may be getting a lower reading than what you would get if you tested it in the evening. Try doing this for a couple of days and see if you have that fluctuation. 7.8 is not all that bad and if you are having an ammonia problem this could be what is lowering your pH since ammonia is acidic. Adding baking soda is a fine and cheap way to raise your pH however keep in mind that where ammonia is present, The higher your pH the more toxic your ammonia will become. You may not want to do anything to lower it right now and you may discover that when you get your ammonia under control your pH will go up. Like I said, 7.8 is not a cause for concern at this point. You can leave this piece of rock in your tank. If the rest of the sponge seems to be doing better and no more is dying it should start to stabilize in a few weeks. Exposing sponges to air will kill them very quickly and if you did this when you were putting the rocks into your tank that could explain why they are not doing so good. Ammonia blockers are a waste of money and time. Your good bacteria need ammonia to live off of and removing it completely from the tank will lead to a bacteria die off from lack of a food source. You would be much better off doing frequent partial water changes removing the ammonia slowly by dilution until you no longer get a reading for it. I have used marine snow in the past and you should follow the directions on the bottle. Overfeeding of this product can cause your ammonia, nitrites and nitrates to go up as if you were overfeeding your fish. Another good food source for any filter feeding invertebrate is simply using a good quality frozen marine fish food and thawing it out in some of the tank water. Feed the fish the thawed out meaty bits and your filter feeders the juices left behind. You can do this alternately with the marine snow.