Not enough nitrifying bacteria or a faulty test kit?

[grantmy]

So I decided to set up a small tank in my office. I attached a picture. It’s a 7g cube there’s one clown in it and two peppermint shrimp. The peppermint shrimp are in here because I have a maroon clown that kept attacking them so I put them in this tank.

For some context, I have a waterbox 25 that has been up for one year, and I also have an Evo 13.5 which has been up for about 8 months. Both tanks are doing really well. Auto water changes changed my life.

Anyways, to start the new office rank I took 2lb of rock out of each tank. I also took sand out of the Evo and took about 1lb of media from each of the tanks. And by media, I just mean bags of crushed live rock so in total there’s around 6lbs of live rock. I thought that there would be enough bacteria to process the ammonia right off the bat, but apparently that’s not the case.

So I set up the tank, let it run for a day so all the dust from the sand could settle and then put the clown and shrimp in the next evening.

Put him in the tank on Friday and now it’s Thursday so it’s been six days. Anyways, every day by about 6pm the ammonia shows about 0.5ppm. He stops swimming up/down like clowns do, keeps his dorsal fin down, and starts breathing rapidly, so I know it’s time for a water change. After the water change he’s back to normal.

So for the past 6 days I’ve been doing a 5 gallon water change every evening, which is probably 85-90% of the water volume. Making sure to match salinity and temperature to minimize stress.

I tried adding 3ml of prime a couple days ago to detoxify the ammonia, but he seemed more agitated by the lack of oxygen than by the ammonia so I changed the water a few minutes later just to be safe.

Thankfully, the tank is in my office so I can keep an eye on him all day so I can always do a water change when needed.

i’m probably just gonna get the IM 15 gallon cube for him to live in because I feel kind of bad with this tiny little tank. Seems like it would be kind of boring if I was living in there.

The only test I have for ammonia is made by Fritz by the way I always assume that it’s accurate but I guess it could definitely be off. I use salifert for everything else, but I just never bothered buying a nice ammonia test kit because I’ve never had an issue with it.

This morning, I fed him, and then a few hours later, he started like breathing fast and darting around the tank so I was getting ready to do a water change, cause I figured the ammonia was high. And by the time the saltwater was finished mixing, he looked completely fine, swimming around with his dorsal fin up, not breathing fast, head bobbing up and down.

So maybe the ammonia was processed just delayed… not really sure

What would you do in this situation and why?

Should I go to the fish store and buy more live rock?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Prime apparently does not do anything useful for ammonia, but 0.5 ppm total ammonia is also not a big deal and the breathing may be something else, such as low O2 or a disease or just anxiety.

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

Clownfish can and will be clowns. Take that as you will.

 

[grantmy]

Prime apparently does not do anything useful for ammonia, but 0.5 ppm total ammonia is also not a big deal and the breathing may be something else, such as low O2 or a disease or just anxiety.

Oh ok good to know thank you

 

[KrisReef]

I would lower the feedings, every other day, and/or smaller portions, literally one or two bites with nothing not eaten until the tank is a few more weeks old.

They can survive on tiny amounts of food for a long time, but large portions in new tanks is a pollution problem.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

If the ammonia is not enough to kill or bother the shrimp, then the fish should be fine IMO.

Personally I find a way to increase the surface agitation to help with oxygenating the water, the surface is too flat for me.

 

[grantmy]

If the ammonia is not enough to kill or bother the shrimp, then the fish should be fine IMO.

Personally I find a way to increase the surface agitation to help with oxygenating the water, the surface is too flat for me.

good point thanks

 

[grantmy]

I would lower the feedings, every other day, and/or smaller portions, literally one or two bites with nothing not eaten until the tank is a few more weeks old.

They can survive on tiny amounts of food for a long time, but large portions in new tanks is a pollution problem.

ok thank you for this advice ive been feeding 5 pellets of tdo chromaboost every other day

 

[Subsea]

If the ammonia is not enough to kill or bother the shrimp, then the fish should be fine IMO.

Personally I find a way to increase the surface agitation to help with oxygenating the water, the surface is too flat for me.

I agree, you have a gas exchange problem that requires more circulation.

 

[winxp_man]

If your inverts are okay ammonia is not of issue, as was stated above.