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I just had a big ammonia spike in my reef tank, killing just about $200 worth of fish/coral...not a good day at all... ....Its been running for almost a month an a half, and the tank was already cycled...plus when i detected that the ammonia was shooting up, i tried everything...doing a 20% water change, followed by another 20% water change, followed lastly, by a 60% water change. Still no dice, cuz 3 hours later, 4 of my fish died, leaving 1 by itself. but it looks like it isnt gonna make it cuz the ammonia reading is still ridiculously high...(6.0 ppm) and i added like...an entire bottle of "cycle: nitrifying bacteria", 3 times the amont of ammo-lock to try to lower it, but no luck. still high. I'm running out of ideas and I'm very discouraged. With 35 lbs of live rock in a 29 gallon tank.

I have no idea what caused it. The readings were high this morning, and everything was still alive so i dont think it was caused by a decaying fish/coral. I give minimum food to keep decaying matter low in the tank.

I guess my question is, what the heck caused it and how am i supposed to lower the ammonia levels during an ammonia spike. And of course, what can i do so this wont happen again.

Grrr....I'm so mad, it was starting to look nice and everything. What a waste of money...

here is the timeline of what happened:

10:45 am - woke up and noticed my "ammonia alertby seachem" was on "alert" (safe, alert, alarm, and toxic are the measurements)
10:55 am - did a water test, 6.0, maybe higher ppm of ammonia
11:15 am - did a 20% water change and added lots of "cycle: nitrifying bacteria" and lots of "ammo-lock" hoping it would go down
12:30 pm - did another water test, still 6.0 ppm of ammonia
12:45 pm - did another 20% water change and added lots of "cycle: nitrifying bacteria" and lots of "ammo-lock" still with hopes it would go down
1:30 pm - left for work
9:30 pm - came home from work to see 4 of my 5 fish dead and almost all of my coral looking like they have most of their tenticles already in the coffin.
9:45 pm - scrubbed down every live rock piece i had, thinking that they may be the cause of ammonia spike initially. did a 60% water change, and added lots of "cycle: nitrifying bacteria" and lots of "ammo-lock"
11:30 - finished all that stuff, retested water...STILL 6.0 ppm of ammonia!!! ARGH!!!!!!!!
12:25 - giving up on trying to reduce ammonia...saying goodbye to my last fish...will be very surprised if he survives the night... so sad...

Wouldn't a water change help? Certainly wouldn't hurt............

lots of data
not much that helps me

large ammounts of ammonia can only come from large dead things decaying, such as dead fish, uneaten food, or uncured live rock

small ammounts of ammonia are produced
as fish breathe and urinate

kind of wish you had called earlier

I would have done a hundred percent water change
which is normally not suggested but you had an emergency
...the reason for that is you can only put dry salt into an aquarium with no animals in it...
therefor you need to make the saltwater in a seperate container
...let the salt dissolve for at least 2 hours
we usually have large ammounts of saltwater already made if you ever notice an emergency again

1st of all did you buy cured live rock?
Did you buy the rock from us?
How long had the tank been running?

also: where did the ammonia come from?
we might be dealing with a different poison problem...
poison killed a coral, some rock or some fish...
the dead coral rock or fish caused the ammonia...
the ammonia killed the surviving livestock...possibly

anyway, what I'd do now is

make some new saltwater in a bucket
put the live rock in the new saltwater
drain the tank 100%
refill the tank with freshwater & salt mix
get the pumps going again
after the salinity is correct
put the live rock back into the tank
....try again with caution

check environment for possible poisons...
examples:
a penny in the tank
copper-based fish medicine
room freshener spray
windex spray
soap from your hands
dead sea cucumber
dead cowfish
dead pufferfish

frustrating I know