You sghould see these phosphate products becoming available in stores and online in the US very soon.

I ordered some to try too ;)

Thanks for the kind words!

Our pleasure!

I’ll see what I can do :)

For the most part, you are not skimming particulate fish waste from your system. Your filter socks may get some. But the little you have mostly just drops directly to the corals and substrate in your tank.

makes perfect sense

I am not a chemist or a biologist, but I'm pretty sure we are talking mostly about ammonium in the water column (I think).

Yes you would. It’s the same premise. Coral food is high in phosphate in general.

🤣

First thought, have you used a second test kit, to verify the reading? Either a second Salifert or a competitors? Most "ammonia" test kits read "total ammonia", which is both NH3 & NH4+. However, it's a pH dependent reaction where NH3 + H2O < - - > NH4+ + OH- (it's also temperature dependent). What that means is your pH determines the relative ratio of Ammonia to Ammonium. At a pH of 8, NH3 is something like 10-15% of that reading. At pH 9, NH3 is roughly 50% (Lou hinted at this with his graphic). So second thought, what's your pH?... 2 ppm total ammonia is more than a bit high. If you're at say 8.0 pH, then your free Ammonia (NH3) reading is really 0.2 ppm. Which may put you at ease. But remember, at 2 ppm, your off Lou's chart. For context, that number would set off an ammonia alarm, such as a Sachem Ammonia Alert badge. (I'd personally grab something like that to validate your test kit). Not to go too deep in the weeds: ammonia toxicity is most damaging due to it's ability to degrade hemoglobin in red blood cells. It destroys bloods ability to carry oxygen, that's the mechanism which goes first in a complex animal. Fish have blood and hemoglobin's; but many invertebrates do not, they utilize hemocyanin. Corals do not have either, they have no respiratory or circulatory systems, and absorb oxygen directly from the waters around them (that's why flow is so important). Which is why they will survive low levels of ammonia just fine, when fish will not. I can't diagnose why your tank is having issues, attempting to do so here would be irresponsible. But, saying the coral went and the fish didn't, disqualifies ammonia toxicity as the reason. 2 ppm is a very high number for fish in 8pH to still be breathing. It's likely something else? Or worse yet, a bad test kit? That's my 2 cents. But, I'm happy to defer to others.

Thank you so much for your insightful response. With 2 different ammonia/ammonium salifert test kits reading between 1.0-2.0 ppm the pH was bottoming out around 7.6 Lower pH in this tank has been a chronic problem. Saying that I would have never tested for ammonia as the tank showed no signs of some underlying problem. My LFS elected to test for those rudimentary water parameters. The only thing that did change and May have effected anything would be my addition of adding raw frozen whole clam in attempts to feed a copper band. Correct me if I’m wrong, It looks as though this is ammonium that is being detected and not ammonia considering pH ? Thanks again for all your help

Nah, this kind of trouble-shooting is fun. What's the point of studying & learning science, if you can't apply it? But at the same time, I'm trying not to read into anything and go straight off what you're saying... Ok, a 1.0 ppm "total" ammonia (NH3 & NH4+) reading from the test kit. At 78 degrees F: pH 7.6 - your NH3 is 0.02 ppm pH 7.8 - your NH3 is 0.03 ppm pH 8.0 - your NH3 is 0.05 ppm pH 8.2 - your NH3 is 0.08 ppm If you're hitting 2.0 ppm total ammonia with a test kit, those are basically doubled: pH 7.6 - your NH3 is 0.04 ppm pH 7.8 - your NH3 is 0.06 ppm pH 8.0 - your NH3 is 0.1 ppm pH 8.2 - your NH3 is 0.16 ppm Any NH3 level under 0.02 ppm can be tolerable to fish. NH3 0.02 ppm to 0.05 is most likely harmful long-term, but not always lethal long-term. NH3 0.05 ppm to 0.2 is where long-term harm is expected, and will likely kill fish long-term. NH3 0.2 ppm to 0.5 ppm is likely to kill fish inside of a week, usually within 2-3 days **However, most of our understanding of that comes from freshwater species like Koi and Trout, not Marine fish. This means your might vary. The source I'm referencing is a publication for freshwater aquaculture. The original source is Dr. J. Alleman at Purdue. My own assumption was that your Reef was well over 8 pH. Your suppressed pH is actually helping you in this case. But natural sea water is usually between 0.002 & 0.5 ppm Total ammonia (NH3 & NH4+) I'd still throw an ammonia alert badge into the tank until you stabilize it. But things you should think about are: verifying your source water has low ammonia, boosting your Nitrifying microbes in the tank (perhaps dosing a small amount once or twice, if you suspect that community was harmed), recalling if you've used a broad spectrum antibiotic recently that may have disrupted microbial community's, or ya identifying odd inputs like food that may be an extra source of ammonia. Clam feeding could be doing that. If it's happening because of an input from you. It should lower after you stop doing that thing. If you crashed the microbial population, to use the hobby term: you are re-"cycling" the tank and adding Nitrifying bacteria could speed that up (within reason). That about all most of us can help with in a comment. I with you luck 😊

Thank you so much for this info.Youve been a huge help and restored my faith in humanity. Much appreciated! @@dusk1947

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qtiUn5CSyNbNdKM.html ENJOY! I love this system!

Low

Not sure.