Ammonia and nitrate - can’t lower

[LianB]

Need a little help! MARINE TANK - FISH ONLY - Our ammonia is sitting at 3.00, PH 7.5, NO2 5-10 and NO3 80. We have increased water change to twice a week, added the colony bacteria recommended by the aquatic shop. We are running a FX6 canister filter and we have a hang on skimmer. Seaschem Chart has been sat on alert for 5 days. Only have BobLee our porky puffer in there. What more can we do to get our levels right? The fish seems perfectly happy but I know it can’t stay like this!

 

[Qasimja]

how long has the tank been setup?

 

[LianB]

3 weeks, the guy in the aquatics shop told us to get RO water and all the salt and minerals, have that going for 3 days add ATM colony in and add the fish 24 hours later? The tank is 500 ltrs, followed what he said to the T.

 

[Qasimja]

i believe your tank isnt fully cycled thats why you are seeing ammonia do you have any live rock in the tank?

 

[Bramzor]

Your tank is cycling and you shouldn't have put fish in it the first month or so. People with a lot of experience (clean rock and ways to import bacteria) can cycle a tank faster but if you put a lot of dirty things in it (uncycled rock, food, ...) it will cause an Ammonia spike and people prefer to do that before they put fish in.