Ammonia and nitrite spike

[briedenauer]

My 65g tank has been cycling for about two and a half weeks now. I have about 35 lbs of live rock. 40 lbs live sand and recently added a lion fish. The ammonia spiked way up today after doing a water change the night before. I have 3 other fish coming in Thursday. Blue hippo tank, white cheek tang, and yellow tank. Is it safe to add them.

 

[morpheas]

Cycling for only two weeks, adding three fish at once (hard ones too) you have a lot of odds stacked against you...

How did you start the cycle? Will you QT?

 

[CodyRVA]

+1 @morpheas, every system is different, but my old 46G for example cycled for a month before any livestock was added. Those are awesome fish you selected, but you're about to add a very large bio load of very delicate fish to a VERY immature system. Not to be a debbie downer, but you're setting yourself up for failure. :(

You should be quarantining these fish regardless of how well your display is doing. My advice is to put them in QT for at least 4-6 weeks, this should give your system time to beef up its bacteria population while treating your new fish.

 

[brandon429]

Double post

 

[brandon429]

If you streamline your measuring variables you can easily get a hold of any supposed cycle. Agreed with fish statements due to quarantine thats a guaranteed ich outbreak

The rule in tracing out low level ammonia is you cannot use API to measure nitrite or ammonia and then take action based on those readings due to known factors/confounds with those two tests when reading low levels

To find out how much bioload your tank can take, use salifert ammonia.

Don't use API for this decision, you are better off halving your fish bioload and doubling your live rock if guessing is the mode. The actions and items that make those two test kits among test kits read false levels are detailed in searches using API false reading terms. Since it was a quicker fish start, they just need backed off IMO and the larger system can just proceed. You'll get more support starting with a smaller fish load.

If you weren't posting API, get a second reading to compare from another kit and also post the reading 24 hours apart we need the dual readings 24 hours apart to know the bacteria in the tank...no readings can be API

 

[briedenauer]

Whoa thank you all for the responses but please remember im somewhat new to this so alot of what you say sounds foreign to me. Im learning tho. My father in law owned all fish except for the white cheek. He has had them in a 180 gal fish and coral tank for about 8 months now and has been helping me set mine up. We used his water to help the system cycle faster. We also used some of his rock. Not to sure how that is working now with the tests spiking. I have the lion in now and he seems to be doing really well. I am using a c - skim 1800 red sea skimmer and it seems to keep everything pretty clean. Actually very big for this tank.