Am I doing something wrong?

Sirduckington · Feb 18, 2017

My 40 breeder was fully cycled, I added 2 clownfish. They both refused to eat, 1 died, returned other one to store. Tested my water after dead fish. There was some nitrite, like 0.2 ppm. Now it's at 1 or more ppm and its been like this for around a week. What happened? Did my tank re cycle? I've been ghost feeding but the nitrite won't go away. What should I do?

wherenext · Feb 18, 2017

If you are having nitrite show up, it sounds like it is recycling, or that maybe you added something too fast where the biological filter is going through a mini cycle to catch up. Just adding 2 clown fish shouldn't do that though. How long did you cycle for? Added anything else like new live rock or anything?

Sirduckington · Feb 18, 2017

wherenext said:
If you are having nitrite show up, it sounds like it is recycling, or that maybe you added something too fast where the biological filter is going through a mini cycle to catch up. Just adding 2 clown fish shouldn't do that though. How long did you cycle for? Added anything else like new live rock or anything?

I probably overfed by desperately trying to get my clowns to eat. The tank was fully cycled for 2 weeks before clowns added, ammonia and everything. No new live rock.

wherenext · Feb 18, 2017

Hmm, well maybe someone else would have some better Insight. But my suggestion would be to keep up with water changes until it finishes recycling, you can try some live bacteria to speed up the process. Yeah, if you were that aggressively overfeeding it could cause an ammonia spike which led to a nitrite spike as the biological filter is trying to adjust too fast to a bigger bioload from all the excess food in the tank. I would suggest in the future to set up a small 10 gallon quarantine tank, easier to address any problems your new fish might have in a quarantine tank rather than causing potential problems in your display tank.

wherenext · Feb 18, 2017

Also do you know if the clowns were eating at the store? Or did they just stop eating when introduced to your tank?

Sirduckington · Feb 18, 2017

wherenext said:
Also do you know if the clowns were eating at the store? Or did they just stop eating when introduced to your tank?

The store had gotten the clowns the day I purchased them, the owner and I concluded that me being basically a helicopter parent stressed them out so that they didn't want to eat.

wherenext · Feb 18, 2017

Lol yeah that could do it. How long did you have the clowns before the one died? My guess is he died from an ammonia spike caused from the overfeeding which led to your current problem of a nitrite spike.

Sirduckington · Feb 18, 2017

I had the clowns for a little less than a week before the one died.

wherenext · Feb 18, 2017

Yeah, that sounds like enough time to cause an ammonia spike from aggressive overfeeding. But clowns are typically very hardy. I had a bad ammonia spike that got up to 1ppm and lasted 2 weeks and my clowns made it through just fine.
So my best guess from the information I have is that the overfeeding initiated another cycle. If you are at the point where nitrite has been rising, I would guess that in another 3 weeks or so the cycle should be complete. Just keep up with your water changes and testing.

Sirduckington · Feb 18, 2017

wherenext said:
Yeah, that sounds like enough time to cause an ammonia spike from aggressive overfeeding. But clowns are typically very hardy. I had a bad ammonia spike that got up to 1ppm and lasted 2 weeks and my clowns made it through just fine.
So my best guess from the information I have is that the overfeeding initiated another cycle. If you are at the point where nitrite has been rising, I would guess that in another 3 weeks or so the cycle should be complete. Just keep up with your water changes and testing.

Would something like bio spira help this go faster.