Ammonia,nitrite issue

[cwwallis]

Here's the sit rep
Tank is a year old. .2 ammonia. 4 nitrites 50 nitrates
Nothing is dead or dieing I have no clue what on earth is going on. This tank has been a issue sence day and it never gets right. What could it be

 

[splunty]

Hi again, cw. This may sound like my response to your previous thread.

If you have measurable ammonia and nitrites in your tank, that means excessive food is entering the ecosystem vs it's ability to cycle. That could literally be fish food. It could be a dead fish left in the tank. It could be that you're feeding properly, but have too much bio-load (typically too many fish) for your tank. It could be that you simply don't have any surface area for beneficial nitrifying bacteria to do their job. But I'd be willing to bet that you're dosing phytoplankton to excess such that they are dying and/or decomposing in the water column.

Here's the kicker and should help you understand what's been going on with your tank:

Nitrites interfere with nitrate testing. If you have measurable nitrites in your water column, your nitrate tests will show excessively high numbers. There is no reason to test for nitrates while you have nitrites in the water. You'll receive erroneously high readings every time. Ignore nitrate test results until you no longer detect nitrites.

That leads to one of three possibilities: You're overfeeding the tank (food, phytos, whatever it may be) regularly and to excess, you have too many fish for your tank size and rockwork, or the tank is simply not properly cycled yet. The latter seems improbable to impossible especially since you are detecting nitrates.

Here's what I would personally do:

1) If you haven't already, remove that GFO.
2) Stop dosing phytos. Zero.
3) Feed the fish lightly, daily. For a 2" clown, think five 1mm pellets for the day.
4) After no phytos for 2-3 days, and feeding this lightly, then test water before feeding.

If you are still detecting ammonia and nitrites, something has gone horribly wrong with your tank. If you detect zero ammonia but still detect nitrites, your tank is half-cycled but safe for fish. If you detect zero ammonia and nitrites, you've solved your problem.

Sorry if this sounds like a broken record. It might help if you post a picture of your tank.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Fish are always pooping and food always rotting, there is always a trace amount of ammonia being added to the water, the nitrification process always keeps going. The test kits today are good enough to pick up the trace amounts. Honestly you shouldn't even test those 2 unless you have a problem, otherwise it just causes confusion.

 

[zerozero]

Having Ammonia at all in a one year old tank is a bit odd.

What test kit are you using?
What are the tank inhabitants?
Has something died (CUC)?
Is there a lot of uneaten food?

 

[cwwallis]

Hi again, cw. This may sound like my response to your previous thread.

If you have measurable ammonia and nitrites in your tank, that means excessive food is entering the ecosystem vs it's ability to cycle. That could literally be fish food. It could be a dead fish left in the tank. It could be that you're feeding properly, but have too much bio-load (typically too many fish) for your tank. It could be that you simply don't have any surface area for beneficial nitrifying bacteria to do their job. But I'd be willing to bet that you're dosing phytoplankton to excess such that they are dying and/or decomposing in the water column.

Here's the kicker and should help you understand what's been going on with your tank:

Nitrites interfere with nitrate testing. If you have measurable nitrites in your water column, your nitrate tests will show excessively high numbers. There is no reason to test for nitrates while you have nitrites in the water. You'll receive erroneously high readings every time. Ignore nitrate test results until you no longer detect nitrites.

That leads to one of three possibilities: You're overfeeding the tank (food, phytos, whatever it may be) regularly and to excess, you have too many fish for your tank size and rockwork, or the tank is simply not properly cycled yet. The latter seems improbable to impossible especially since you are detecting nitrates.

Here's what I would personally do:

1) If you haven't already, remove that GFO.
2) Stop dosing phytos. Zero.
3) Feed the fish lightly, daily. For a 2" clown, think five 1mm pellets for the day.
4) After no phytos for 2-3 days, and feeding this lightly, then test water before feeding.

If you are still detecting ammonia and nitrites, something has gone horribly wrong with your tank. If you detect zero ammonia but still detect nitrites, your tank is half-cycled but safe for fish. If you detect zero ammonia and nitrites, you've solved your problem.

Sorry if this sounds like a broken record. It might help if you post a picture of your tank.

 

[cwwallis]

There's a pic of my tank it has 13 fish as follows
2 tangs
3 damsels
3 clowns
1 engineering goby
1 coral beauty
2 wrasse
2 pj cardnial

 

[cwwallis]

Also I changed my filter floss today and cleaned my skimmer out

 

[splunty]

There's a pic of my tank it has 13 fish as follows
2 tangs
3 damsels
3 clowns
1 engineering goby
1 coral beauty
2 wrasse
2 pj cardnial

Your tank is beautiful and your bio-load and rockwork look appropriate. There's just no way your tank isn't cycling nicely at one year. So that leaves three problems:

1) From your previous post, your phosphates are zero and you're running GFO. That's not healthy for the ecosystem for several reasons and needs to be corrected. Ignoring the future problems this will cause, you're primarily concerned with uncontrollable nitrates. Most organisms that consume or control nitrates for you also consume Phosphates. If you have zero Phosphates, you're effectively starving those organisms and your nitrates will forever rise. You may temporarily prevent algae growth like this, but you're heading down a path to disaster.

2) You have detectable nitrites. The presence of nitrites will cause your nitrate test results to skyrocket. This is just making numbers up, but consider if in reality your nitrates are at 5 and your nitrites are at 5. Your nitrates test result will probably read 55 at that point because the nitrites are interfering with the test.

3) You have detectable ammonia. Like Mojo said, fish are always pooping, food is always rotting, and ammonia will always be in the tank. The big thing is that it should be consumed so efficiently by nitrifying bacteria that you should never, ever see numbers like .2 once the cycle is healthy. That basically means excessive overfeeding the tank is going on.

It also looks like you only have one powerhead. You might consider getting more flow in the tank, but I'm absolutely not an expert.

To summarize, it sounds like your nitrates are actually fine. The issues are zero Phosphates and overfeeding.

 

[cwwallis]

I'm sorry I'd like correct something my phosphate is .1 and ph is 7.9 sorry for the confusion I get the 2 mixed up often

 

[splunty]

I'm sorry I'd like correct something my phosphate is .1 and ph is 7.9 sorry for the confusion I get the 2 mixed up often

.1 is fine ... Much better than zero.

pH is borderline low but ok. Really your issue is ammonia/nitrites being introduced too quickly.

As far as your total numbers go they look good. Your nitrates are not as high as your test is saying.

 

[cwwallis]

Would dr tims turbo start or whatever it is or waste away help any

 

[splunty]

Would dr tims turbo start or whatever it is or waste away help any

Turbo start and similar additives will do nothing beneficial for your tank.

Everything you have posted here indicates that your cleaning and husbandry practices are on par and your numbers are good with the exception of high ammonia. Your tank is frankly very nice. There's really no explanation here except over-feeding the tank. There are more organics going in than can be efficiently consumed before breaking down into waste.

If you are uncomfortable reducing your broadcast feeding, you could consider adding a strong copepod population to the display to help remove uneaten organics.

Sorry I've got no other suggestions for you, but others might.

 

[cwwallis]

Having Ammonia at all in a one year old tank is a bit odd.

What test kit are you using?
What are the tank inhabitants?
Has something died (CUC)?
Is there a lot of uneaten food?

The test is spin test
Fish and coral
Everything is accounted for that I can tell
No uneaten food as I only feed every other day.

 

[cwwallis]

Turbo start and similar additives will do nothing beneficial for your tank.

Everything you have posted here indicates that your cleaning and husbandry practices are on par and your numbers are good with the exception of high ammonia. Your tank is frankly very nice. There's really no explanation here except over-feeding the tank. There are more organics going in than can be efficiently consumed before breaking down into waste.

If you are uncomfortable reducing your broadcast feeding, you could consider adding a strong copepod population to the display to help remove uneaten organics.

Sorry I've got no other suggestions for you, but others might.

Thank you very much for the kind words and advice I appreciate it very much and will keep everybody posted if anything changes or I somehow figure out what's going on

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I would not assume there is any problem and I’d personally do nothing but your routine maintenance. It should not be a goal to drive ammonia as low as possible, and nitrite isn’t worth measuring.