New tank - 1 fish down

[emseeKAY]

Hey there,

So I'm new to reefing having moved from fresh and brackish in the past. Here is my current dilemma.

I have a 45g with about 30-35lbs of live rock. Fluval 307 running and a protein skimmer with some hydor wavemakers on either end. I cycled my tank with a O. clown and added nitrifying bacteria. The clown has been thriving. I had let the tank cycle for about 2 weeks with the clown until I saw a diatom bloom. Ammonia was 0. Nitrites were 0 and nitrates were staying low around 20ppm. This is when I added my clown and a single hermit crab - which from what I had read was okay.

Fast forward 2 weeks to two days ago, ammonia was 0 and diatom was blooming. I decided that since everything was reading okay that i could add some fish slowly. I added a few CUC members 1 snail, 2 smaller hermits and a pair of pajama cardinals. Acclimation went fine, and all was good, or so I thought.

I tested my water the next day and noticed a spike in ammonia to .50ppm. I was super confused why it would spike this much so I didn't feed the rest of the day or the next day and checked out the fish. CUC was doing fine, Clown was all good and 1 of the cardinals was great. The other seemed to be struggling. I planned on doing a PWC but thought I'd wait to see if ammonia dropped the next day. I'm using API test kits which are apparently garbage. Next day rolls around and I test. Ammonia seems to have dropped to .25ppm and I figured maybe I had just overfed (which is likely). I tested this morning and found my ammonia had dropped again. This time it was extremely difficult to read the test though and seemed to be somewhere between 0 and .25 if that makes sense. Also my more sluggish cardinal had died and was being cleaned up by a hermit crab. The other two fish are still active, alert, nothing seems to be wrong with them - they don't show signs of gasping or stress... I'll be doing a water change today and hopefully that will even out anything that is going on. Did I overload my tank? or just get unlucky with a weak fish? Are ammonia spikes common after adding new fish while my bioload adjusts? I'm super confused...

Current parameters.
Temp:78.4F
SG:1.0025
KH: 8dKH
PH: 8.2
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate:0
Ammonia: 0-.25ish?

 

[jpbeen]

Go slow with additions in the beginning. Biggest mistake is being in a rush to fill your new tank. We have all been there.

 

[sarcophytonIndy]

A bit of an oversimplification, but If your tank has cycled with one fish, then adding a couple more fish, doubles, triples your bioload, so you are likely to get another spike. That's why you need to go slowly.

 

[emseeKAY]

Fair enough, I'll give it a few more weeks and see what happens with my levels. Thanks for the quick reply!

 

[Auquanut]

First of all, WELCOME TO R2R!

From your original parameters, it sounds like the tank was pretty well cycled. The ammonia spike you experienced was probably a combination of the added bioload (really not too much to fast IMO) and overfeeding. The fact that the ammonia dropped rapidly is a very good sign. I can't explain the death of the cardinal. Could be any number of things. Ammonia poisoning is generally an all or nothing proposition. If one fish died strictly from excess ammonia, there should have at least been signs of distress in the other fish.

I would definitely stay the course for awhile and test, test, test. What confuses me is the drop in nitrate. It's not uncommon to have nitrates go down in a newly cycled tank, but to go from 20 ppm to 0 seems unlikely. Especially if your bacteria is processing excess ammonia. Are you certain of your test results?

 

[gideon2086]

A side note: in my experience API test kits will ALWAYS show a small bit of Ammonia, even when it isn't present.

 

[emseeKAY]

First of all, WELCOME TO R2R!

From your original parameters, it sounds like the tank was pretty well cycled. The ammonia spike you experienced was probably a combination of the added bioload (really not too much to fast IMO) and overfeeding. The fact that the ammonia dropped rapidly is a very good sign. I can't explain the death of the cardinal. Could be any number of things. Ammonia poisoning is generally an all or nothing proposition. If one fish died strictly from excess ammonia, there should have at least been signs of distress in the other fish.

I would definitely stay the course for awhile and test, test, test. What confuses me is the drop in nitrate. It's not uncommon to have nitrates go down in a newly cycled tank, but to go from 20 ppm to 0 seems unlikely. Especially if your bacteria is processing excess ammonia. Are you certain of your test results?

Not certain anymore from what I'm reading about API test kits lol. I may invest in salifert to compare the two results as those seem to have better reviews.

 

[Auquanut]

Not certain anymore from what I'm reading about API test kits lol. I may invest in salifert to compare the two results as those seem to have better reviews.

Salifert is pretty good. Relatively easy and accurate, and won't break the bank.

 

[gideon2086]

Not certain anymore from what I'm reading about API test kits lol. I may invest in salifert to compare the two results as those seem to have better reviews.

I have a mix of Salifert, Hanna and Red Sea. I waded through all the BRS "best test kit for this" videos and made my selections.

Salifert: Magnesium, Nitrates
Red Sea: Calcium, Ammonia (I don't know why I bought this to be honest, large tank; ammonia isn't really an issue)
Hanna: Phosphate, Alk

I cannot stress enough... get the Hanna Alk tester. The non-digital tests are painful and not even accurate.

 

[emseeKAY]

I have a mix of Salifert, Hanna and Red Sea. I waded through all the BRS "best test kit for this" videos and made my selections.

Salifert: Magnesium, Nitrates
Red Sea: Calcium, Ammonia (I don't know why I bought this to be honest, large tank; ammonia isn't really an issue)
Hanna: Phosphate, Alk

I cannot stress enough... get the Hanna Alk tester. The non-digital tests are painful and not even accurate.

Sounds good thanks for the heads up. I'm going to check out the LFS today and see what they have in stock.

 

[Aggro]

Not certain anymore from what I'm reading about API test kits lol. I may invest in salifert to compare the two results as those seem to have better reviews.

So I did my tests the other day and my nitrate was at like 40ppm I don’t have any fish only live sand which is using to bring it life. But more to my point. I ran the test and being that high I was alarmed so I took some water to LFS and had them test and it tested at 5ppm. So I went back home and retested and got a reading of 5ppm. All test were done with api drop tests. The nitrate test seems to be really delicate. So retest and be more cautious with it.

 

[emseeKAY]

***Update***

Ammonia is down to 0ppm now, everything is right in the world... maybe I purchased an unhealthy fish/overfed/using API.

I'll keep testing and see what the next few weeks bring.

Thanks for the help, much appreciated!