Saltwater test level— need help.

[eraserhead187]

A lot of people rely on one or two fish to cycle the tank. Chromis, damsels and Clowns are all hardy fish that can handle a little ammonia. It's not great for them but is not immediately deadly. You don't want to see any more ammonia than you currently have though. If your nearest fish store has some live rock for sale that might be better than adding bacterial products. If you can get a big fat piece with a lot of porosity and surface area, that is best. Hopefully they are honest and will sell you the oldest piece they have. Live rock contains the bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrite, nitrate to nitrate, and for the larger pieces, even anaerobic bacteria that convert nitrate to gaseous nitrogen. The catch, though, is it has to stay wet during transport, ideally submerged in tank water. As a bonus, live rock usually has other critters that can be beneficial for your tank. 6 fish is a lot to cycle a tank with. But if you keep on top of water changes, detoxifying the ammonia with Prime as it accumulates (Prime supposedly still makes the ammonia available to bacteria but prevents it from harming your fish), the fish should be okay. Keep a close eye on fish behavior. Heavy breathing and fish ha gong near the surface of the tank are major warning signs. Gill burn from ammonia can kill quickly or slowly. Are you planning on adding corals, invertebrates, etc? If so, definitely hold off for quite some time until you are fully cycled, which will take a few months probably. Best of luck. This can be a touchy situation, but you can win this.

 

[eraserhead187]

May sound a bit harsh but leave the chromis in if you return the others. I cycled my 180 with Chromis. Cheap.

I did mine with a pair of stubby maroon clowns. No issues. Still fat, healthy, and mean as all get out three years later.

 

[Arod0416]

Daily water changes. Monitor ammonia daily. Follow the instructions on your bacteria bottle and just hope that the cycle will not last long. Also I would hold off on feeding right now so you are not increasing your ammonia levels.

Thank you so much. I just ordered the one and only dr tims product. So, while waiting for it, I will do the daily water changes.

 

[Arod0416]

A lot of people rely on one or two fish to cycle the tank. Chromis, damsels and Clowns are all hardy fish that can handle a little ammonia. It's not great for them but is not immediately deadly. You don't want to see any more ammonia than you currently have though. If your nearest fish store has some live rock for sale that might be better than adding bacterial products. If you can get a big fat piece with a lot of porosity and surface area, that is best. Hopefully they are honest and will sell you the oldest piece they have. Live rock contains the bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrite, nitrate to nitrate, and for the larger pieces, even anaerobic bacteria that convert nitrate to gaseous nitrogen. The catch, though, is it has to stay wet during transport, ideally submerged in tank water. As a bonus, live rock usually has other critters that can be beneficial for your tank. 6 fish is a lot to cycle a tank with. But if you keep on top of water changes, detoxifying the ammonia with Prime as it accumulates (Prime supposedly still makes the ammonia available to bacteria but prevents it from harming your fish), the fish should be okay. Keep a close eye on fish behavior. Heavy breathing and fish ha gong near the surface of the tank are major warning signs. Gill burn from ammonia can kill quickly or slowly. Are you planning on adding corals, invertebrates, etc? If so, definitely hold off for quite some time until you are fully cycled, which will take a few months probably. Best of luck. This can be a touchy situation, but you can win this.

Thank you so much. This was very informative. My lfs I seen live rocks with algae on most of them. I don’t know if that is a good thing because I have read there can be parasites that can harm the fishes. I am going to hold off on the corals and invertebrates. So, I am going to get the prime, dr tims and do the water changes and hope for the best. I will keep this thread updated.

 

[krash7172]

How is it going? I just added a few corals and thought of your tank.

 

[Arod0416]

How is it going? I just added a few corals and thought of your tank.

What kind of corals did you had? I appreciate you thinking about my tank and reaching out! So far, I have made the 20 percent water change and did not feed my fishes today. I ordered dr. Tims one and only and phosguard and a salifert ammonia test. They are arriving tomorrow. I am buying phosguard because my phosphate level is at 1. So I need to reduce it based on my other threads that I made about phosphate levels.

 

[eraserhead187]

What kind of corals did you had? I appreciate you thinking about my tank and reaching out! So far, I have made the 20 percent water change and did not feed my fishes today. I ordered dr. Tims one and only and phosguard and a salifert ammonia test. They are arriving tomorrow. I am buying phosguard because my phosphate level is at 1. So I need to reduce it based on my other threads that I made about phosphate levels.

Sounds like you are on the right track!

 

[krash7172]

I went to the store for supplies. I made the mistake of bringing my wife and she spotted a nice frogspawn. I got jealous and got a couple ricordea mushrooms. Lol

 

[Arod0416]

Hello everyone,

So, I received my dr tims one and only and I put the required amount for my tank. Also, I added prime to my tank as well. Before, I added these products. I tested the water. I bought the salifert ammonia kit and for some reason is said 0.15... it was very close to white white. But, then on my API test it still reads 0.25 ppm...I retested both, same results.

So, I still ended up putting the new solutions for the tank. I am going to hope for the best and update this thread in a couple of days.

 

[krash7172]

Water changes are critical while you get your bacteria established with as many fish as you have. Gotta get the ammonia out until the tank can do it on it's own. Don't focus on what one test reads vs another at this point.

 

[Arod0416]

Water changes are critical while you get your bacteria established with as many fish as you have. Gotta get the ammonia out until the tank can do it on it's own. Don't focus on what one test reads vs another at this point.

I did a water change this morning. How often do you think I should do a water change knowing how my tank is?

 

[TriggersAmuck]

From my experience (see my build thread) I had no luck with Dr. Tims One and Only (tried two different bottles from two different dealers/date batches) and only saw a drop in ammonia (24 hours later) after using the refrigerated Fritz-zyme Turbo Start 900. Many have reported success with Dr. Tims, so by all means try it since you have already ordered it, but if you don't see that level coming down pretty quickly I would recommend the other.

When you cleaned your live rock and sand, presumably you left it dry(?) in which case you lost all of your bacteria on it. Scrubbing it and any other cleaning activities would also have had a negative effect. If that is the case, then the 2 months of sitting did no good to help establish a new colony of nitrifying bacteria as there were no new food sources nor bacteria starter cultures (whether it be on a fish, in a bottle of bacteria, on live rock/sand, etc). So the tank is truly sterile and brand new at this point and will go through a cycle, potentially killing any sensitive fish.

Of the fish you mentioned, you might want to hang on to the clowns and Chromis (if you have no other options) and ask the dealer if they can either hang on to or refund your tang and goby, since they will be the most likely to succumb to ammonia poisoning. Fish can handle relatively high levels of both Nitrate and Nitrite (for those that don't believe the latter look up the Randy Holmes-Farley article on Nitrite citing various studies).

I think almost everyone has gone through making mistakes with new setups at some point, so you have my sympathy, but I would not be adding any additional livestock (corals or otherwise) until you get the basics under control.

 

[Arod0416]

From my experience (see my build thread) I had no luck with Dr. Tims One and Only (tried two different bottles from two different dealers/date batches) and only saw a drop in ammonia (24 hours later) after using the refrigerated Fritz-zyme Turbo Start 900. Many have reported success with Dr. Tims, so by all means try it since you have already ordered it, but if you don't see that level coming down pretty quickly I would recommend the other.

When you cleaned your live rock and sand, presumably you left it dry(?) in which case you lost all of your bacteria on it. Scrubbing it and any other cleaning activities would also have had a negative effect. If that is the case, then the 2 months of sitting did no good to help establish a new colony of nitrifying bacteria as there were no new food sources nor bacteria starter cultures (whether it be on a fish, in a bottle of bacteria, on live rock/sand, etc). So the tank is truly sterile and brand new at this point and will go through a cycle, potentially killing any sensitive fish.

Of the fish you mentioned, you might want to hang on to the clowns and Chromis (if you have no other options) and ask the dealer if they can either hang on to or refund your tang and goby, since they will be the most likely to succumb to ammonia poisoning. Fish can handle relatively high levels of both Nitrate and Nitrite (for those that don't believe the latter look up the Randy Holmes-Farley article on Nitrite citing various studies).

I think almost everyone has gone through making mistakes with new setups at some point, so you have my sympathy, but I would not be adding any additional livestock (corals or otherwise) until you get the basics under control.

Yea I put the dr tims today and going to hope the best with tomorrow update on how everything is.
And when I scrubbed my previous live rock from my old tank, I didn’t let it dry. I put it in my new tank right after cleaning it. What I should’ve mentioned in the beginning of my thread is that I bought live sand and saltwater from the box that comes “set up” already. I didn’t mix salt with water. But, of course I added salt to reach the proper salt level for my tank.

I used imagitarium Pacific Ocean water. ( I know it is probably bad, I read about it later and should’ve done research deeply on it beforehand but, I saw several good reviews on it and decided to do it this way). And I used caribsea sand. These are the two products I bought to set up my tank and put my previous rocks from my old tank that I had for 3 years.

Thank you for all of this information by the way. I am gradually learning and seeing what is working the best for my tank.
So far, my fishes are doing great. Swimming around, eating and not showing any signs of discomfort.

 

[krash7172]

If you make sure your mix water is good, you can change water frequently - like daily. Do you have plenty of salt for WC? I know you have a long drive to your lfs so we want to help you succeed. If your fish still look good then you are probably OK. A sterile tank takes time to establish life (bacteria) but it will happen eventually. Your 2 month old tank isn't sterile but it didn't have enough to support 6 fish. It had very little bacteria but your fish are alive and your ammonia didn't shoot way up. This is a "mini cycle" IMO. You increased the bio load too fast and the tank is adjusting. I think you'll be fine. Stay the course.

 

[Arod0416]

If you make sure your mix water is good, you can change water frequently - like daily. Do you have plenty of salt for WC? I know you have a long drive to your lfs so we want to help you succeed. If your fish still look good then you are probably OK. A sterile tank takes time to establish life (bacteria) but it will happen eventually. Your 2 month old tank isn't sterile but it didn't have enough to support 6 fish. It had very little bacteria but your fish are alive and your ammonia didn't shoot way up. This is a "mini cycle" IMO. You increased the bio load too fast and the tank is adjusting. I think you'll be fine. Stay the course.

Thank you, I appreciate all of this. I hope I will succeed on my second go-around. And yes I had a box of salt delivered to me today since I am determined to take time and do water changes. If I do frequent water changes like every 2-3 days for the next month, controlled feeding and stabilizing my levels to decrease or maintain. How long do you think it will take my tank to be successful like being fully cycled?

 

[scubasteve020]

Api kits are terrible. Questions, did you start off with live rock or dry rock ? Did you ghost feed to start the cycle , live sand and bacteria supplement starter like biospira ? Sounds like you didn’t cycle the tank fully. Your ammonia should have spiked from ghost feeding. And then break down into nitrites then to nitrates. Your ammonia level is too high. What are your phosphate levels at ? If you have enough phosphates you can dose nopox to bring the nitrates down. What type of filtration are you using ? Also heads up If you plan on having coral I recommend 10 percent water change once a week

 

[Arod0416]

Api kits are terrible. Questions, did you start off with live rock or dry rock ? Did you ghost feed to start the cycle , live sand and bacteria supplement starter like biospira ? Sounds like you didn’t cycle the tank fully. Your ammonia should have spiked from ghost feeding. And then break down into nitrites then to nitrates. Your ammonia level is too high. What are your phosphate levels at ? If you have enough phosphates you can dose nopox to bring the nitrates down. What type of filtration are you using ? Also heads up If you plan on having coral I recommend 10 percent water change once a week

I started off with rocks from my previous tank. I did a thorough cleaning on my previous rocks before putting it in my new tank. No, I did not ghost feed my tank. I just let water flowing for a couple of months. I didn’t know I had to since I put in live sand from the company caribsea. Also, imagitarium ocean water. My phosphate level is at 1. I ordered phosguard two days ago and it is coming tomorrow. I am using a canister. Also, I just did a water change about two days ago and I will do one tomorrow as well. I did my testings today. After adding dr tims and prime yesterday, my reading today is:

API test kit:
Ph: 8.2
Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 20 ppm (reduced from 40 ppm)

Salifert test kit:
Ammonia: <0.15
Phosphate: 1.

how can I tell if my tank is cycled?

 

[Arod0416]

I started off with rocks from my previous tank. I did a thorough cleaning on my previous rocks before putting it in my new tank. No, I did not ghost feed my tank. I just let water flowing for a couple of months. I didn’t know I had to since I put in live sand from the company caribsea. Also, imagitarium ocean water. My phosphate level is at 1. I ordered phosguard two days ago and it is coming tomorrow. I am using a canister. Also, I just did a water change about two days ago and I will do one tomorrow as well. I did my testings today. After adding dr tims and prime yesterday, my reading today is:

API test kit:
Ph: 8.2
Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 20 ppm (reduced from 40 ppm)

Salifert test kit:
Ammonia: <0.15
Phosphate: 1.

how can I tell if my tank is cycled?

there is some colorations forming on the dry rock. But, if u look carefully on the live rock, there is like a white flowy thing on the rock. I had this happening on my previous tank and even trying to scrub off as much as possible, it still followed me to this tank.
I assume it is pineapple sponge?

 

[Arod0416]

If I were you...

I would remove all fish and read up on how to do a fishless cycle.

But if you are adamant on keeping your fish, add the Nitrifying Bacteria product. Keep an eye on ammonia and do water changes daily to keep it low.

Hey I just wanted to let you know that I bought a Salifert ammonia test and it was reading <0.15. But, my API was reading 0.25 ppm. I tested both of them twice, same results.... Also, on the same day- Monday- I put the required dosage of dr tims one and only and the next day (Tuesday), my nitrate level went to a 20 ppm. But, I didn’t wait 24 hrs to test it, it was more like 10. Nitrite is still at 0. And ph is at 8.2 as well. I will do another update on my water parameters in a few hours.