New tank syndrome? No2 spike!

[Gabbone]

Hi guys,

I am a bit confused and I am looking for help.

I cycled my 32g tank a month ago and I have in my tank about 18 inverts (small hermits, small crabs, small snails, a sea star and a sea urchin); no fish, no corals. All happy, active, eating a lot, etc..

I was checking the water parameters carefully and I had all water parameters in good condition but in the last three-four days something weird happened.

- My cleaner shrimp died (he had a big isopod tho)
- I called the fish store that sold me the shrimp and they told me to bring some water to check the parameters.
- Nitrites results were high (0,18ppm) and they told me the shrimp died because of that and not for the isopod or a combination of both events.
- They suggested performing a 30% water change to remove part of the nitrites from the water + remove part of the sand bed because I really had too much sand. I put 16kg of sand and I removed 8kg. So now I have 8kg. All good.
- When removing the sand I made a mess, the water was grey, but after a couple of hours, the water was crystal again all the inverts were happy and fine again and... my skimmer finally started producing a thick foam... I had nothing for a month!
- I performed a 30% water change. Check the nitrites and were down from 0,18ppm to 0,13ppm.
- This morning (after almost 1,5 days from the water change) I checked again the nitrites and the result was 0,24ppm.
- FYI, I also have live copepods so I am dosing phytoplankton every day in the tank.
- I have Hanna checker nitrite ULR (Therefore results are in ppb. I multiply x3,29 and then /1000. to get the actual result in ppm.)

What should I do now? Is this a new tank syndrome?

- Should I add some nitrifying bacteria?
- Should I use some No2 reducer such as sera Nitrite-minus?

All the creatures look fine and happy tho.
On the other side, I read a lot about @Lasse and @Randy Holmes-Farley about the non-toxicity of NO2 (also the written article) but I am a newbie and I constantly get different information from fish stores, the web, and forum).

Thanks for your help!

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

According to this article, nitrites are not harmful to marine life. Nitrite of .18 is very low anyway, I don't agree this is is the issue. Stop checking nitrite, we don't test this as it has no value.

https://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php

What is the nitrate level? This is very important to know.

New tank syndrome refers to the algae battles you will have for the next few months,

 

[Gabbone]

Thanks. I read that article a few times to convince myself I have to stop testing nitrates.
I just checked No3: I am at 22,2ppm.

Last week no3 were at 30ppm. I guess the water change lowered the value.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

yes, water change will reduce according to the water change. If nitrate is 30, then 50% water change will being nitrate down to 15 (50%). I like to keep my nitrates below 20-25.

Since the tank shows steadily increasing nitrate, it means the tank is cycled and working as its supposed to. Don't worry about ammonia and nitrite anymore.

 

[Gabbone]

Ok! Any tips tho? One more small water change to push the nitrate down?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

with your nitrates at 22, I would make a plan for a water change sometime this weekend.

 

[Paul B]

Why are you dosing phytoplankton? Wait until your tank matures a little more and pods will naturally grow and you never need to dose Phytoplankton. You have nothing in there anyway that eats pods.

Pods need a more mature tank so I doubt the Phytoplankton will do anything except raise the nitrates. Your nitrates are very low anyway.

Just give this tank some time. The tank is little more than 4 weeks old and you have 18 inverts in there. Don't add anything for a while. Also it is to early to add a sea urchin and he will probably starve as they eat a lot of algae.

 

[Fijiblue]

I personally would not do any water changes for a bit until your nitrates are steadily increasing. Any water changes will dilute which is not what you want (peaks are needed to move on to the next cycle phases). You probably had a mini cycle or "adjustment" happen when your shimp died and you cleaned the sand. It caused a larger ammonia spike then what your established tank bio was able to handle (a clean up crew will not produce a large bio). Regardless of adding good bacteria - if your system is not producing enough ammonia/waste to sustain it, it will die off. Hope this helps

 

[Lasse]

Nitrites results were high (0,18ppm) and they told me the shrimp died because of that and not for the isopod or a combination of both events.

First - 0.18 ppm NO2 is not especially high in saltwater and I doubt that this is stressful enough even in a combination with an isopod in order to kill the shrimp. But I do not know. There is rather few reports that I know of that have deal with nitrite and shrimps. As I know it - most shrimp species to not use iron based haemoglobin - instead they have copper based hemocyanins. This make the question of nitrite toxicity a little bit more unsafe. However this link seems to support that nitrite is fairly non-toxic in salt water even to shrimp

If you have a halt in the nitrification process that end up in elevated nitrite concentrations you may do something. See this thread for ideas. 0.24 is an elevated concentration - especially because you use the ULR marine checker - normal in established reef aquarium is around 0.05 ppm. I´m interested in NO2 concentrations because I rather sure it is an stressor in at least salt water fishes. The link above mention a seldom noticed pathway for NO2 uptake - the intestine. I have seen articles there it looks like the chloride block does not work in the instantine uptake of nitrite but the nitrite level in the blood stream is lower than expected. Some inverted function of the chloride cells in the gills was mentioned as a possible source for outward transport of nitrite - if it is that way - it needs energy and that is a stress factor. I am sorry - but I can´t find the article again.

As Paul state above - the nitrate concentrations is not very high but your feeding will rise them. small WC will not be effective. What are you feeding with - if you can specify what and how much in gram you feed with/ day - I can try to do a calculation of how to do your WC in order to have a stable NO3 concentration

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Gabbone]

First of all, thank you guys for answering my question.

Right now, my tank hold around 100 Liters of net water. I am preparing 25 Liters water change for tonight which is one quarter.

Regarding the feeding, I am feeding 2 times a day (morning, night).

I am using very small pellets for inverts + frozen food such as brine shrimp, mysis, mussels, krill...

I am just putting a tiny pinch in the tank but I can tell you they eat everything. They all run to the food.

However, the largest inverts I have are a 5cm mitra mitra and a 5cm tiger cowrie. The sea urchin and the sea star I have are very very small. The urchin is big as a finger nail.

Another issue I've found is that water surface movement is not that strong and sometimes I see the animal poops not flowing in the back sump because there's not enough flow and at the end stays back in the display tank. Thats probably why the skimmer is not really picking up something. More than a tick foam is boiling water. But they suggested in another post to order an extra power head to give more flow to the water surface.

 

[Lavey29]

I agree with all the above posts. Get a fish or two in there to produce some ammonia for your tank to cycle. Inverts produce very little so the only ammonia your tank gets is left over food. Rehome the urchin and starfish until your tank matures 6 months to a year or they will die.

 

[Gabbone]

What do you mean by cycle? I cycled the tank a month ago.

 

[Lavey29]

What do you mean by cycle? I cycled the tank a month ago.

Tank needs ammonia to feed and grow your beneficial bacteria. The most common ammonia source in a tank is fish. You have none so you essentially have no ammonia source for your good bacteria other then left over food basically. This can cause problems with your tanks cycle. It's not critical but it would behoove you to add a fish or two now that your tank is ready.

 

[Gabbone]

Ok and what about the water change?

 

[Lavey29]

Ok and what about the water change?

Weekly water changes 10 to 15% on new tanks are essential most of the first year. Parameters will be unstable and weekly water changes help bring back stability balance while also allowing for manual removal of nuisance algae. You will have a variety of ugly phases in your tank the first year.

 

[Lasse]

You get the ammonia you need from the bacterial breakdown of food that's not be eaten and by metabolism from your inverts. you do not need another ammonia source for the time being - IMO. About the WC - let us say that you feed with an amount that correspond to around 300 mg dry food a day. Let us say that the protein content in this food is 40 % - you feed with around 120 mg protein/day. -> 16 % of this is N - you feed with around 19 mg N a day. Your animal will use around 25 % of this into biomass and in worst case it is around 14 mg N a day that will be converted into NO3-N 14 mg NO3-N is 4,43*14 mg NO3 a day - 62 mg NO3 a day - this in 100 L will be a rise of around 0.62 mg/L a day - in worst case. You have 20 mg/L NO3 today. You do a 25 % WC and get 15 mg/L NO3 - 7 days with rise of 0,62 mg/L NO3 a day will give you around 20 mg/L again - a new 25 L WC needs to be done. This in worse case and theoretical.

I'm not too fond of heavy water changes in the first months because the water should be biologically "active" before you start changing the water properly. I would do a 25% WC first but after that maybe change 5 L a day instead - in this you will compensate (and a little bit more) for worst scenario.

I would also maybe add some living stones or living sand as described in the thread link earlier

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Gabbone]

@Lasse

- After reading what the other guys said, I am also concerned about the sea urchin and the Red Linckia Sea Star I have. I got them a week ago and they seem to be fine. I do not have any algae in the aquarium but they do move around to eat leftovers on the sand and rocks. Also, I am keeping my light at the minimum intensity to avoid algae bloom and I still haven't got any. (Just some very light diatoms at the beginning) Should I maybe raise the light intensity again? And then, should I re-home the seastar and the sea urchin and maybe take a clownfish?

- My sand is living sand so I do not need to add any. Maybe I should get some real living stones since I've used the fake dry purple ones? I have already over 10kg of fake rocks in the aquarium. Should I substitute part of them with the real one?

- Besides, I am gonna do a 25 L water change now as you suggested. I'll test then No3 level.

 

[Gabbone]

Tested No3 after 25 L WC and from 22,2ppm lowered down to 16.0ppm

 

[Lavey29]

Tested No3 after 25 L WC and from 22,2ppm lowered down to 16.0ppm

10 to 20 nitrates is fine for a reef tank especially when you start adding corals. Nitrates and phosphate are nutrients for coral.

 

[Uncle99]

Tested No3 after 25 L WC and from 22,2ppm lowered down to 16.0ppm

Seek stability in the number rather than focus on a number.
Most test kits are not that accurate anyways.