Hi, I'm new to owning an aquarium and stocked my aquarium a little bit early.
I had set the 52L tank up for 6 weeks prior to putting fish in (3 trochus snails on week 6, 2 oscellaris clowns on week 7). Tested along the way and had 0 ammonia, 0.25 nitrites for weeks and thought it'd be fine.
Last week I put my two clowns in and after 2 days it was clear the cycle wasn't properly completed. I've since been battling cycles of ammonia and nitrite spikes, one day its down to 0, next its back up at 0.5/1ppm. Have been doing daily water changes (20-40% depending on how bad it is) and dosing with seachem prime/stability daily.
Past 2 days have been great on the parameters, 0.25ppm or lower so I stopped doing daily water changes but just kept dosing prime daily and checking parameters 1/2x daily. This morning however I woke up, checked and had highly elevated levels 1ppm ammonia - 1ppm nitrite. So did a 40% change and was watching my fish closely.
The smaller of my two clowns seems to be sick, his mouth has been open all day, gills are flared/puffy, has long white stringy poop and appears to be breathing a little heavy. He isn't swimming at the top of the water gasping for air, has been eating enthusiastically (pellets 4-6 daily) and otherwise seems to swimming/acting normally. I rang my LFS today and they said to do a fresh water dip and observe for a day or two, am worried I should be dosing for internal parasites/infection.
Current Water Parameters after 40% change
PH 8.0 (tends to drop to 7.8 but put in marine buffer occasionally)
Nitrates 10-20ppm
Ammonia 0????
Nitrites 0.25
Confused how it dropped so quickly after the water change, did remove quite a lot of detritus off the bottom (may have been overfeeding fish cause LOTS of poop)
What should I do about my sick little guy? I feel guilty for putting them in too early and certainly don't want them to die.
I had set the 52L tank up for 6 weeks prior to putting fish in (3 trochus snails on week 6, 2 oscellaris clowns on week 7). Tested along the way and had 0 ammonia, 0.25 nitrites for weeks and thought it'd be fine.
Last week I put my two clowns in and after 2 days it was clear the cycle wasn't properly completed. I've since been battling cycles of ammonia and nitrite spikes, one day its down to 0, next its back up at 0.5/1ppm. Have been doing daily water changes (20-40% depending on how bad it is) and dosing with seachem prime/stability daily.
Past 2 days have been great on the parameters, 0.25ppm or lower so I stopped doing daily water changes but just kept dosing prime daily and checking parameters 1/2x daily. This morning however I woke up, checked and had highly elevated levels 1ppm ammonia - 1ppm nitrite. So did a 40% change and was watching my fish closely.
The smaller of my two clowns seems to be sick, his mouth has been open all day, gills are flared/puffy, has long white stringy poop and appears to be breathing a little heavy. He isn't swimming at the top of the water gasping for air, has been eating enthusiastically (pellets 4-6 daily) and otherwise seems to swimming/acting normally. I rang my LFS today and they said to do a fresh water dip and observe for a day or two, am worried I should be dosing for internal parasites/infection.
Current Water Parameters after 40% change
PH 8.0 (tends to drop to 7.8 but put in marine buffer occasionally)
Nitrates 10-20ppm
Ammonia 0????
Nitrites 0.25
Confused how it dropped so quickly after the water change, did remove quite a lot of detritus off the bottom (may have been overfeeding fish cause LOTS of poop)
What should I do about my sick little guy? I feel guilty for putting them in too early and certainly don't want them to die.