Please help! water help please!

[monkeydad]

Hi all, I'm Erich, VERY new to reefing...

 

14g BioCube

Fiji live rock

Live sand

hermits (started with seven, down to four...?)

1 fire shrimp

1peppermint shrimp

1 featherduster

1 emerald crab

1 YT blue damsel

1percula

1 circular plate coral (LPS)

2 above sand snails

2 burrowing snails (down to 1...?)

 

I waited almost two weeks watching my water chem to cycle, and levels went to zero. started adding livestock.

 

I overfed the fish with huge amounts of brine shrimp....rookie mistake...

I then had an amonia and nitrite spike to .25-.50 and .25-.50 respectively.

 

I did several water changes two gallons at a time with a few hours between each to let temp stabilize, totalling ten gallons. Water tested perfect last night.

 

This morning, the chem is

Amonia .25

Nitrite .50

Nitrate 0

pH dropped from .8.2 yesterday to .78 today

 

Please, please! What is happening, and how can I investigate the cause and make corrections????

Edited March 19, 2010 by monkeydad

[Happyfeet]

 

 

This morning, the chem is

Amonia .25

Nitrite .25

Nitrate 0

pH dropped from .8.2 yesterday to .78 today

 

Please, please! What is happening, and how can I investigate the cause and make corrections????

 

Whats your dKH? That can cause your PH to drop.

 

I agree with Ctenophore below, water changes and get that Amonia and Nitrite down to 0 than you can see about the PH

Edited March 19, 2010 by Happyfeet

[ctenophore]

Welcome to WAMAS!

 

Sounds like the cause is too much food with too little nutrient processing capacity in your new tank.

 

The remedy right now is near-100% water changes. Ammonia will kill all coral and inverts, and stress those fish badly. You need to get them in clean water asap.

 

Good luck!

[bshriver]

Agreed. The amonia cycle lowers pH.

[Brian Ward]

Agreed.. your bacteria colonies aren't large enough to handle the decaying food matter along with your livestock waste output. This is causing your NH4 and NO2 to spike. Both are very bad for the fish and inverts. As Justin said, you need to do very large water changes - 80% is not too much - any time you have even a trace amount of NH4 (no more than daily). Be sure to warm the water up before you add it, but the fish can handle the temp swing much easier than the NH4.

[Hilary]

With all of these water changes are you making your water or buying it from an LFS? If making it, be careful to wait after mixing it (I wait 48 hours). Using newly-mixed water can also stress the livestock.

[Jan]

How much rock do you have? What are you using for circulation? Do you see all your livestock? Could anything have died? I'd also increase circulation, add chemi pure elite and maybe use a HOB filter with filter floss (changing floss once a day) until everything stabalizes. Like Hilary said make sure your water is aged a little.

 

Hi all, I'm Erich, VERY new to reefing...

 

14g BioCube

Fiji live rock

Live sand

hermits (started with seven, down to four...?)

1 fire shrimp

1peppermint shrimp

1 featherduster

1 emerald crab

1 YT blue damsel

1percula

1 circular plate coral (LPS)

2 above sand snails

2 burrowing snails (down to 1...?)

 

I waited almost two weeks watching my water chem to cycle, and levels went to zero. started adding livestock.

 

I overfed the fish with huge amounts of brine shrimp....rookie mistake...

I then had an amonia and nitrite spike to .25-.50 and .25-.50 respectively.

 

I did several water changes two gallons at a time with a few hours between each to let temp stabilize, totalling ten gallons. Water tested perfect last night.

 

This morning, the chem is

Amonia .25

Nitrite .50

Nitrate 0

pH dropped from .8.2 yesterday to .78 today

 

Please, please! What is happening, and how can I investigate the cause and make corrections????

[Coral Hind]

The time of day the test was taken would effect the pH reading some and may explain some of the shift. Keep the lid open to allow good O2 exchange for now.

[monkeydad]

I don't know what my dkH is. Hmm I don't know what it IS either...

 

I am buying my water from a lfs I have ten gallons at my disposal. I don't have a way of heating it....I will add two gallons at a time and let temp stabilize between changes.

 

I obviously stocked too quickly and overfed...

 

Should I stop feeding for xx number of days? If so, how many days?

Should I return the fish?

 

How old should a tank be before adding livestock? I was under the impression that after the LR and LS cycled I was safe to stock up.

 

Thank you!

Erich

[Coral Hind]

What general area do you live in? You may want to update your profile so members close to you can offer help.

 

The tank readings you show are not overly high and can be dealt with. Just keep the water aerated and do water changes. I would pick up an alkalinity or dkH test kit. Read the link below when you can.

 

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/may2002/chem.htm

[monkeydad]

Great Falls VA

 

LS about 1&1/2 in

SR about 1/3 of tank volume (14g BQ)

 

Stock bio cube. Added one sm circ pump and a Fluval digital heater set to 78 (down from 82).

 

I tried a protein skimmer, a bio cube model, that I was unable to adjust very well and made more water than bubbles. I went back to the stock filter (matt with active charcoal).

 

Last night I "blew" a lot od detritus into suspension so the filter could snag it up. It did. Would this add amonia and nitrites?

 

I did have some deaths. Hermits were disappearing. One was murdering them. I thought I plucked him out, but I may have plucked the wrong one because two more are KIA as well as one of my burrowing snails.

[monkeydad]

Coral Hind

 

Wow..that's a read and a half. I took one chemistry class in high school twenty five years ago!

 

I've been reading about water chemistry in several threads and all are beyond my understanding at this time, and honestly, I didn't get into the hobby to be a chemist...or a light spectrum analyst...

 

I can test stuff, and follow directions.

 

Perhaps I chose the wrong hobby.

 

I'm a KISS method man...

[Coral Hind]

Maybe a local reefer or the store can hold the inverts/coral for you until the tank stabilizes some.

 

Make sure you clean the prefilter mat/foam out every couple of days until you get the tank cycled since you have livestock in it. Rinse it in some of the old water you are getting from the water changes. Using tap water will kill the bacteria you are trying to get established on the filter media.

[Jan]

Stirring up the sandbed, depending on how deep it is, and blowing detritus around may also create an ammonia spike. cleaners; snails, shrimp, and the like are very senstive to ammonia. If they die off they'll create an ammonia spike too. You should only blow off the detritus and stir the sandbed, if it's not deep, while doing water changes . If you don't have enough cleaners while digging all that stuff up it has no where to go.

 

I can tell you from experience that a nano and a pico are the most difficult systems to work with. Their size makes it very difficult to stabalize the parameteres. I came back into the hobby after 20 years with a 24 gallon nano thinking it would be easier. It was also a challenge becaseu i was told i couldn't be successful with such a small system. I always had problems adjusting the skimmer. after several months of unstable PH and nitrates I gave up on the skimmer and converted one of the compartments into a fuge. I though i was over feeding, but i wasn't. I could never get my PH up or my nitrates down. After creating a refugium everything stabalized.

 

Don't feel so bad i don't have the head for the chemistry involved in this hobby either. It can get very techinical. I'm with you on the KISS method. I'm very simple in my approach to keeping a reef; water changes once a week. after my system is established a while I dose pre mixed B-ionic 1 and 2, Kent Marine Tech M (magnesium) and I add few drops of Lugols Iodine. My parameters are always spot on. At the beggining after a cycle (I'd wait 1 week- 10days after the params are stable) and after the diatoms start to clear up, I look for signs of life; amphipods and copepods on the glass, worm tunnels in the sandbed, etc.. then I'd start with hardy fish and cleaner crabs and more sensitive livestock as i go along. Water changes are key in the success of a healthy thriving system. I checked my parameters once a week for the first 3 months. Now I don;t check them at all unless I see slight signs of distress in my more sensitive livestock.

 

 

the skimmer was icadd the ammonia

Great Falls VA

 

LS about 1&1/2 in

SR about 1/3 of tank volume (14g BQ)

 

Stock bio cube. Added one sm circ pump and a Fluval digital heater set to 78 (down from 82).

 

I tried a protein skimmer, a bio cube model, that I was unable to adjust very well and made more water than bubbles. I went back to the stock filter (matt with active charcoal).

 

Last night I "blew" a lot od detritus into suspension so the filter could snag it up. It did. Would this add amonia and nitrites?

 

I did have some deaths. Hermits were disappearing. One was murdering them. I thought I plucked him out, but I may have plucked the wrong one because two more are KIA as well as one of my burrowing snails.

[monkeydad]

Just finished 2g water change (14g total cap)

Rinsed filter media (tap....my mistake....tank water from now on)

Rinsed bio balls in removed tank water

 

Coral H

Thank you very much, I will call my lfs and see if I can do that.

 

My rock/sand cycled in about two weeks. I then started stocking.

 

How long should a tank be settled before adding livestock? Right after the cycle, or wait xx days/weeks?

 

 

Jan

Thanks for encouragement-I was hoping someone would chime in with some! ;-)

 

I have seen some worms. But not anything else on the sand....maybe I should add some more live sand?

 

Thank you all so much!

Edited March 19, 2010 by monkeydad

[zygote2k]

This hobby is very much KISS based, especially with a small tank.

Your main problem is that you've overstocked the tank and you didn't wait for it to properly cycle. After the 1st month, you should've only put 1 fish plus a snail, then waited for another few weeks and if the water was fine, add another fish, and so on. IME with a 12g Aquapod, I used it as it came out of the box and took some of the filtration out. Adding another powerhead made it too hot. It stays a constant 77 degrees with the light and the return pump.

Do some water changes and don't add anymore livestock and you should be fine. If you do 10% weekly water changes and don't overfeed, you should be fine.

[Jon Lazar]

monkeydad,

 

IMO the biggest reason new aquarists should wait a while before ramping up the numbers of fish and corals is to let them gain more experience. If you take things slow, and have few fish and easy corals, your system has more ability to absorb the fallout of these rookie mistakes and glitches as you get more familiar with your equipment and learn its peculiarities.

 

Sure, you can add tons of fish and corals within a few weeks or a month or two, but then when you screw up (and we all do!), the results are more severe. Who wants a tank that sits right on the tipping point of total disaster? Take it slow and give yourself lots of time to learn.

 

Read up and really understand the nitrogen cycle for aquariums. It's more than a one-time recipe of steps to eliminate ammonia. It's a concept of balancing ammonia production vs. the population of your ammonia-eating bacteria, and the bacteria are always playing catch-up. Take away ammonia, and the tank un-cycles because the bacteria starve. Too much ammonia and the bacteria can't reproduce fast enough, and your fish and corals suffer. They key is to not let the bacteria get too far behind.

 

I would limit myself to one or two small fish and some hardy soft corals like mushrooms and zoanthids for the first couple of months. Maybe a nice leather toadstood or sinularia a month after that. With this sort of livestock, you really only need to worry about ammonia & nitrite, salinity, and temperature.

 

Good luck!

Jon

[DaveS]

I'm in the same area as you. Let me know if you still need help and I can swing by sometime over the weekend to help out.

[monkeydad]

DaveS,

Thanks for the offer. We are leaving town for ten days tomorrow-hence my loosing my cool this morning. I'm normally not so hysterical....I feel very responsible though because all of these beautiful creatures are 100% dependent on me.

 

zygote2k and Super-Pod,

I had a talk with my lfs guy who said the same as you two. I agree completely. Too new of a bio-system to handle what I've done so far, and also, I think my bio ball/ filter rinsing and multiple water changing is actually slowing down the process of growing a bio-filter.

 

I am aerating, and will feed very sparingly, all livestock is on hold, and I won't do a thing besides watch and wait for the next several weeks.

 

My total fish capacity will not go over three, currently two. LFS cannot house my livestock, but feels that what I have should make it okay.

 

I'll keep y'all posted, and thanks.

[Brian Ward]

Stop rinsing the bio balls - at least for now. They are extremely efficient at growing the bacteria necessary to convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrate. However, due to the abundance of available oxygen, they prevent enough bacteria from being present to break the nitrate back into nitrogen and oxygen - hence they can cause your nitrates to get out of control. But at this point, you need the nitrifying bacteria to grow, and that's what the bioballs do best. Once you get the tank under control, you will want to take them out and replace it with live rock rubble.

[Brian Ward]

btw... you're seeing right here the knowledge and generosity of the WAMAS community. You should definitely consider joining - just hit the 'Join WAMAS' link at the top of the page.

[monkeydad]

btw... you're seeing right here the knowledge and generosity of the WAMAS community. You should definitely consider joining - just hit the 'Join WAMAS' link at the top of the page.

 

SOLD! I joined with auto-renewal.

 

I feel very fortunate to live in such a vibrant area with so much breadth and depth of knowledge the many people in the DC area have on all manor of subjects.

 

I got some Cycle to help with the "good" bacteria generation.

 

My fish sitter will feed only every other day a very small amount, and I will observe and let the tank settle for the next several weeks.

 

I thought I was going slow, but "slow" is a matter of great subjectivity! Evidently my idea of slow was too fast:blush:

Edited March 19, 2010 by monkeydad

[monkeydad]

My nano reef so far

[JMsAquarium]

FWIW I like your aquascape, very nice.

And yes, going slow and patience are the key ingredients to a new successful tank (and a few other things of course). Do not hesitate to pay a visit to other WAMASers, see their tanks, chit chat hobby. There's a wealth of info and knowledge that can be passed along.

Oh last but not least, WELCOME!!!

[Origami]

Some others have struck on this already and I'll agree. From the description of things, you added too much too fast, not allowing time for your biological filter to develop.

 

You see, "cycling" is the process where you let the bacteria that make up your "biological filter" grow in your system. Of course, their population only grows to the level allowed by the food that's available. After that, the population levels out. If you've got a virtually empty tank, the bacterial population will be low. Then, if you add a bunch of livestock all at once, all of a sudden you have a bunch of creatures producing more waste than the available bacterial population can deal with. So, the first thing that happens is that there's a sudden increase in the bacteria that consume available organics converting them to ammonia. This causes your ammonia spike which is followed by the nitrite and nitrate spikes. Then, anaerobic bacteria develop (too slowly for most of us) to convert the nitrate to nitrogen gas.

 

The proper way to do this, as Rob (zygote2k) noted, is to introduce your livestock slowly (incrementally), to allow the biological filter to adapt to the increasing available waste. This will be more critical in a nano because there's less water available to dilute these intermediate waste products and because the bacterial population must typically increase more (in the percentage sense).

 

Good luck. Take it a little slower next time.