Nitrite Spike Help

[Venator]

Alrighty, I’ll get right to it. First off, thanks in advance. Secondly, the problem: a nitrite spike WAY off the charts occurred in my 2.6 pico two days ago. I thought I remedied the problem yesterday with 4 75% water changes—guess not.
Here’s what happened. My purple/exquisite fire fish (whatever it was) somehow got into my power head. Unfortunately, rather than simply kill the fish, it was completely obliterated, so all of the remains are little tiny 1 mm ‘flakes.’ All over the tank. I took care of pretty much all of them, even got rid of all of my sand
I am legitimately stumped at how to deal with this. I have changed like 10 gallons in a 2.6 gallon tank and I still have quite high nitrates. All my livestock (save the fish) are okay, but I have a goniopora and an alveopora comin tomorrow (placed order before I knew). Any and all thoughts appreciated!

 

[IslandLifeReef]

You could try Dr. Timm's One and Only or you could add a poly-filter. Dr. Timms would add helpful bacteria which would help in the decay process. A poly-filter would remove the ammonia. I would go with Dr. Timms to start with.

 

[Venator]

Thank you, and I guess I should also note quickly that I have like no ammonia, and like 10 ppm nitrates.

 

[brandon429]

post a picture
a rip clean (beyond water changes, it rinses out live rocks and live sand) fixes every problem a pico reef can have, every one.

you've mentioned both trite and trate, and from your pics, we can see the causes of those without using test kits further here.

a nitrite issue doesn't factor at all, we don't need the info. we list the reasons why nitrite testing isn't needed in reefing in other threads, so that leaves only your nitrate


the pics will show 95% of all nitrate causes, the 5% left we can factor out in post pic questions. any form of fish use in a 2.5 pico will have elevated nitrates, and any sandbed in such a tank is the immediate prediction for location beyond standard bioloading from the waste/water ratios in a pico with fish, waste, and ongoing feeding.

how you store detritus is the sole thing we need to assess, for both the trite and the trate issues though trate is all we care about so your tank wont break out with algae.


the ammonia test is the critical one for your listed sequence of events.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Sounds counter intuitive , but both those corals will like the fish food.
Neither will care about the no3.

(Very sad loss. Condolences).

 

[brandon429]

mysids, blenderized fish, potato potahto yep

protein = all good when fresh. some of his grindage did not go to waste.

 

[Venator]

Thanks for the replies!
Sorry, I’m not home now, but everything is open and doin fine; there is no indication of anything wrong whatsoever.
Hah, yeah, I guess they would. I actually have 2 gonis in there right now, and they’re fine. Can’t be too safe, ya know. And thanks, it was a beautiful fish, even if they are in half the world’s nano tanks.
It did look a bit like protein powder...

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Nitrites are a non issue in salt water. Ammonia is, and escessive nitrates can be a problem, but at 10ppm you're perfectly fine. Sorry about the fish.

 

[Venator]

Ah, thanks. I just don’t know with such a small tank.