Help asap please amonia nitrite and nitrate spike

Samanthabea · Apr 25, 2021

So here's the story I had a amonia and nitrate spike a few days ago did a 20 gal water change in my 55 gal(had added snails and 5 macro algae plants) and dosed with prime levels went back down amonia 0 nitrate 10 2 days later just tested again now my levels are as follows ph down to 7.4 amonia up to .25-.5 not sure leaning to .25 but nitrite up to .5 never had it high before last test done it was 0 nitrate spiked back up to 40 do I do another water change and dose again or will it make it worse

tjohnson3 · Apr 25, 2021

How old is the tank? If new, it’s still cycling and this is normal. Another 20 percent would be fine or just leave it be for a few weeks until it balances out. The ph is way low also.

Samanthabea · Apr 25, 2021

It's about a month and a half in now I was hoping to gradually get the ph back up with the weekly water changes because originally before all this happened it was at 8 and thought the prime must have lowered it

Samanthabea · Apr 25, 2021

It's got 2 fish in there now a trigger, a snowflake eel and snails and hermits if I wait it out I'm worried it will hurt them but didn't want to do the water change or dose again if it could make anything worse the trigger is happy as a lark though so at least he's fine for now

tjohnson3 · Apr 25, 2021

Still fairly new... so you’ll have those issues. how often and how heavily are you feeding? Over feeding can cause big ammonia and nitrate spikes. You might try some Red Sea reef pro salt or instant ocean reef crystals on your next water change. It’s got a ph already of 8.3

Azedenkae · Apr 25, 2021

Samanthabea said:
So here's the story I had a amonia and nitrate spike a few days ago did a 20 gal water change in my 55 gal(had added snails and 5 macro algae plants) and dosed with prime levels went back down amonia 0 nitrate 10 2 days later just tested again now my levels are as follows ph down to 7.4 amonia up to .25-.5 not sure leaning to .25 but nitrite up to .5 never had it high before last test done it was 0 nitrate spiked back up to 40 do I do another water change and dose again or will it make it worse

All those levels are fine. 0.25ppm ammonia is not rare, especially if you read it with the API ammonia test kit. Even minute amounts of ammonia seems to cause this reading. Nitrite at 0.5 is not bad (yet). Nitrite is short term non-toxic to marine fish: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php, so fret not.

My recommendation is now that you have dosed Prime, stop doing water changes and all that, just keep up with the tests and more importantly, visually check your fish' health. So long as they look healthy and ammonia and nitrite remain around there you are good. Really, even if nitrite reaches 10ppm you are still fine, so don't fret.

Nitrate readings can be affected by nitrite, and is also quite natural because well, nitrite is oxidized to nitrate by nitrifiers.

All in all, nothing to fret about yet. ^_^

Actually, except for pH, that is lower than where you'd want it to be, but otherwise everything else is good.

Samanthabea · Apr 25, 2021

2x a day for the trigger the eel comes to eat once or every other day depending on how much he ate last I feed the trigger till he just looks at it and leaves it I clean up all the bits I can but that's why I got more snails and hermits even though the trigger will probly eat those to thanks for reassurance that it's not as bad as I thought I use instant ocean salt so with the prime I might just get a ph up and watch the other levels both fish seem fine and active the trigger still insists on flipping snails and going after my hand when working in the tank until I bring the net in then he hides I just freaked when I saw everything going up especially after I just had them lowered back down could I have just caused a mini cycle with the large water change

WVNed · Apr 25, 2021

That many animals in a new tank that size will cause what you are seeing. I would test for ammonia twice a day and cut way back on feeding for week at least. Keep the Prime handy and let the biofilter catch up with the load. Read all the directions on the Prime thoroughly. You can use a lot of it if you have to.

Samanthabea · Apr 25, 2021

I do admit I made the mistake of adding to many new snails at once I was trying to prevent an amonia spike but ended up causing one the rest I waited on and slowly introduced hermits eel then trigger but that still makes sense I was testing even more for that exact reason I'll let the trigger go a little hungry(from me I know he'll hunt) for the week on a side not I did use api saltwater master kit

WVNed · Apr 25, 2021

The filter in a reef tank is mostly living things that eat what's left over from feeding and what the bigger animals excrete. At the bottom of the food chain are bacteria that live on and in rocks and stuff in the tank. When something new is added there is more food for these bacteria and their population will increase but it takes time. This will always be true as long as you keep a tank.
It's just with new tanks the diversity of bacteria isn't their yet and it seems to take little longer. If you have several fish in a tank and add another there are a lot more bacteria already there to make more than in a new tank also.

Samanthabea · Apr 25, 2021

Again makes sense most all tanks I've done before where freshwater and it was multiple at 1 time from the same place after time(on a small scale) but that was that nothing added after that let alone too many at 1 time too soon after adding(probly too quick even though I thought it wasn't, but I really needed more cleanup crew though trigger was a lot messier than I thought and planned for)