Increased ammonia after adding cuc

[Shelby2012]

I tested the water today
Ammonia - 2.0ppm
Nitirite 0
Nitrate 5ppm
Ph - 8.4
My ammonia skyrocketed. Now I'm afraid I added too many snails. I already have 2 clownfish and 1 coral banded shrimp. I feed them 3 x / day. Is it OK to suspend feeding for a day or 2 or it's better to do water change?
The tank was established 01.14.12 and I had all parameters OK to add livestock.
3 day ago I added CUC to my 29 tank:
10 Mexican turbo snails
10 Astraea snails
3 nassarius snails
3 Dwarf Red tip hermit crabs
3 Peppermint shrimps
5 Scarlet Reef hermit crabs
2 emerald crabs

 

[pciscott]

Are all the snails and fish looking ok? Did you loose any of the inverts? If they look fine I would double check your test kit and a water change and less feading would not hurt to be safe. Inverts are fragile compared to fish and sometimes some are lost when adding them and that can give you a small spike. As long as your animals look happy the numbers are a guide that we tend to chase too much.

As long as you have algae and extra organics for the CUC to feed on you can never have to many in my opinion as the fish waste and any die off is what will cause the amonia not to many snails.

 

[Shelby2012]

Yes. All snails and crabs are moving and I don't believe anything died. When the shipment arrived there were two snails dead but nothing died since then. I will cut off feeding for 1 day and retest the water.

 

[_Alex_]

how much are you feeding??? 3x a day seems like a lot for just 2 clowns?? also what are you feeding?

 

[Shelby2012]

Frozen Mysis shrimp
Ocean Nutrition - Formula two Marine Pellet
Brine Shrimp - freeze dried food
Brine Shrimp flakes

I rotate this and try to give them the amount that is eaten within a couple of minutes. Sometimes I added extra pellets that sank and the shrimps were happy with it, espacially Coral Banded. Brine shrimp that I am feeding leaves a lot of mess. It is freeze dried food and actually stays on the water for a long time.

 

[thewackyreefer]

Make sure you're rinsing the frozen mysis before feeding, this will foul your water pretty fast.

 

[caudill187]

If you follow the above advice and your ammonia is still high, dosing bacteria for a few days may help. Seachem stability or microbacter or one of the others...

 

[Shelby2012]

When I feed them with the frozen mysis, I just cut a small piece, put it to a little cup, add some tank water and a minute later pour the content into the tank in a few parts. Is there a better way to do it?

I got it. Some googling helped. I noticed I put a lof of this cloudy water together with the mysis. Now I know how to rince the frozen food. Another step to be a better aquarist!. ****! I have to go to school again !!!