I am still having trouble with the ammonia levels, but levels have certainly improved since yesterday.  Today ammonia clocked in between 0.25 and 0.35 ppm, which is still high, but is to be expected at this point in time.  I didn’t treat the water with anything, but I did skipped the fish feeding and attempted to feed the anemone.

This was the first time I have successfully fed the anemone.  Every single day, I have been trying to get it to eat frozen silverside that I purchased from Captain Nemo’s, but always end up throwing it out.  It was pretty cool watching the anemone slowly wrap its tentacles around its food.  I was worried the the clownfish might end up pulling the silverside away, but the clown tried to no avail!

In other news, I have been trying to track this starfish I saw on the first day I got the Fiji live rock, and I finally found it again.  If anyone has any ideas on what it may be, please let me know!

Yesterday, I treated the tank with a small amount of Prime (about 1/2 dose by tank volume) due to an increase in ammonia levels.  I did the same thing tonight after learning that the levels were still high (<0.50 ppm total ammonia).

According to Seachem, Prime dissipates from the system 24 hours after treating it, and ammonia tests are accurate again.  I don’t know how true this statement is, or if Seachem just wants you to use more of their product, but as of right now I see no signs of increased ammonia in the water in my fish.  I have an API salicylate-based ammonia testing kit, which you can apparently use with Prime as long as you take the reading right away.

…so far so good!

Yesterday, I noticed the ammonia levels rose to around 0.25 ppm.  I was concerned but was warned that this would happen around this time.  Today, they rose slightly above the 0.25 mark, and I decided to take action.

My aquarium has been officially open for eight days now, and in light of the increase of ammonia, I decided to do a partial water change.

I ended up completing a 10% water change and added a very small amount of Prime by Seachem.  The recommended dose of Prime is 5 mL per 50 gallons of water.  I read that using this kind of detoxifier can cause problems reading ammonia levels in the water, so I decided to keep it at a minimum.  Instead of preparing it for all 10 gallons (1 mL), I put less than half a milliliter in a gallon of water, and poured about 3/4 of a gallon into my tank.  The second measure I have taken is an immediate reduction in food.

If anyone has any suggestions or sees any problems with what I’ve done here, please by all means let me know.  I’m still learning so any advice would be beneficial.