ammonia/nitrite level question

[mustang_gt_350]

Hello. I just added 2 false percula clowns on wed night, along with 4 turbo snails, 2 ceriths, a pepermint shrimp, and a cleaner clam.

I had thought 2 turbo's were dead. Long story short one moved, the other was upside down, so i uprighted it this morning and this afternoon it was at the same spot.

I did a water test, amm. was around .25ppm and so was nitrites, nitrates are around the 10-20 range. I have chaeto in the tank in a air grid refuge.

Anyway i did a 2.5gal water change to drop the level as i was affriad of hurting the animals. So while the water level was down i checked on the snails. 2 are dead (smell bad and bristle worms were eating them) so I removed them. The third, that was upside down about 12hr before i uprighted it I'm unsure. Its plate is covering the opening, but a brislte worm was halfway inside of the shell, so i pulled it out and put it back ontop of the LR so if it doesn't move, or grab the LR i will pull it out in the morning. Is that the right thing to do?

The tank was cycled for 6 weeks, ghost fed, and had a blue hermit that hitched a ride with the LR when bought it. he is doing fine, and i was feeding it a little heavy trying to build up the load on the tank before the fish where added. I'm Hoping that the 2 dead snails being removed along with the water change will drop my levels back down.

Any suggestions other than to keep changing the water as needed until it stabilizes?

its a 10g tank, with a HOB filter

 

[Kristin1234]

A 10 gallon tank is going to be extremely difficult to keep stabilized. It goes downhill so quick.

That being said. You should keep your hands out of the tank as much as possible. If one or more of the snails are dead, your cuc will do what it's supposed to do.

 

[mustang_gt_350]

I rinsed my hand/arm with DI and only grabed the snails and went back out, no messing around with anything else. I was worried that the dead snails would add to the rising ammonia and nitrite levels since this is the first few days with the new fish.