how could my cured rock become uncured when it hasn't been out of water longer than 16 seconds? :confused:

Maybe it isn't the rock that's causing the problem, but something must have died in there to have ammonia at 8 ppm :eek:

alot has died but i got the dead stuff out right away, or so i thought. :confused:

Hope along with the rock and water you moved over, I hope you also moved over established filter media. I’m meaning sponges that came from your main tank that are covered in bacteria (longer then 3mths at least). Also having water flow is also a factor as well. If not it would be like your cycling a new tank. The un-established water would create a spike becoming unbalanced water chemistry and as soon as that happened your rock would have a little die off (inverts, algae doesn’t tolerate ammonia) and WHAM a HUGE ammonia spike!

Remember the smaller the tank the less room for error. :sad:

i recently cleand my Eheim filter i was running, so it doesn't have any bacteria anymore. I did, however transfer established water, and i have the eheim running again on it now.
And i saved all my crabs at least! :neutral: i'm just letting the little tank cycle now. i'll test levels tomorrow and see whats happening.

a wad of cheato might help, well if you ammonia is the consistancy of urine it won't but it might suck up some trace nitrates.

When cleaning any filter media, remember to use outgoing changewater. This will preserve the beneficial bacteria in the media. Also there is almost no bacteria in the water from an established tank.

I know a lot of people dont buy into the idea of pre packaged live sand but if you buy a bag of that Aragolive or similar product it will help. It won't seed your sand bed with worms etc but it WILL help with the bacteria colonization.

Doug