Help Please

[sallen]

Hi all
After 4-5 days of putting some lr and fish,shrimps and anemone, i have a spike in my ammonia (.25) and trate 5-10. I think it may be to me changing my floor from shells to sand a few days before placing my stuff in the tank. I think my tank cycled 5-6 months ago. I contacted my shop for advice and they told me to put some med in the tank, its called cycle. This stuff :help: is live good bacteria. What are ur thoughts

 

[poniegirl]

Originally Posted by sallen
Hi all
After 4-5 days of putting some lr and fish,shrimps and anemone, i have a spike in my ammonia (.25) and trate 5-10. I think it may be to me changing my floor from shells to sand a few days before placing my stuff in the tank. I think my tank cycled 5-6 months ago. I contacted my shop for advice and they told me to put some med in the tank, its called cycle. This stuff :help: is live good bacteria. What are ur thoughts
Be sure to use a light hand feeding your new tank. Do you have a good clean up crew?
I steer clear of chemicals, particularly when an issue can be helped by simple water changes. Try 20% twice weekly.
When I was a BW hobbiest it seemed that once I started with chemicals to fix something it became a roller coaster with chemicals needed to balance the chemicals.

 

[sallen]

oh ---- hopefully i missed the roller coaster. Well my tank hold 135litres and the crew is 1 x cbs 5 x glass shrimps, 6 x hermits and 10 X snails???

 

[sallen]

would adding more lr help me??? :help:

 

[keith burn]

how big is your tank?
how much l/r (lbs) did you put in, was l/r curied?
if l/r not curied will have new cycle.
how much l/r was in tank befor you added new l/r?
changing floor from shells to sand is a good thang (but you will start cycle)
placing my stuff in the tank,,, what stuff and is it in q/a tank now or in the tank?
all this new (l/r l/s livestock) you will have a cycle
slow down... one thank at a time....
are the new live stock in D/tank or qa tank?
as for med i thank no, cycle will come that will slow it down.
if livestock in q/a tank keep them there for now.
if in D tank do 25% w/c and test dayley.

 

[sallen]

My tank is a 4ft holds about 135 litres whatever that is in gallons. I only have 7.5kg of lr in it there was none before that. I do have a quarantine tank but its got uncured lr in it and the ammonia is .25 at the moment. So all my livestock is still in my tank. Everything looks fine except i have noticed the anemone has shrunk and closed up abit, what do they do when they are sick???

 

[sallen]

Is the trate and ammonia going to hurt my lr, anemone is getting smaller too???

 

[keith burn]

you are going into a cycle.
can lfs hold livestock for you?
with no curied l/r in d tank or q/a tank will be hard to keep livestock.
do 10/15% w/s to keep amo down but the best thang is not to have livestock in a cycling tank at all .
have some one hold live stock intell cycle in over.
it.s the l/r that is cycling and will be ok after it is over but livestoch i do not know...
are you runing a skimmer or fuge?

 

[sallen]

the lr is cured so why is it cycling??? Skimmer on the way dont have it yet. trate dropped today but amm still.25 did a 25% water change today so i may be right soon.

 

[namas05]

The anenome will surely die if kept in the tank with ammo's.
Get all the the live stock out of the tank, leave the live rock in.
Stop doing the water changes and let the cycle finish.
If the LR was fully cured when you got it, the cycle was probably because of all the changes at one time.
If I am calculating correctly 135 lts is about 36 gallon. and 7.5 KG of rock is about 16.5 lbs.
You should probably get some more rock in the tank. IMO
Do not use any med to speed up the cycle just let it finish.
And while you are waiting read some books on saltwater.

 

[sallen]

i understand you namas but the tank already cycled 6 months ago. the trates went down today to 0 but the amm was still .25. I think with water changes it should become good again

 

[sallen]

i tested my water agian today and the trate is down but the ammonia still reads .25

. I plan to do another water change on saturday at 25%

. Is there anything else i can do, how many water changes do u have to do???? Like i said before i have already gone through a cycle 6 months ago and this cycle is due to my stuff up ( replacing my floor and adding cured lr and live stock within a week. :help: :help: :help:

 

[scfatz]

Its rather simple imo.
The cycled is "finished" when there is enough bacteria in the tank (on stuff) too covert all of the ammonia produced into nitrates without any spikes in ammonia or nitrites.
The bacteria lives on all of the sufaces in the tank.
Your problem is two fold...
One you added to the overall bioload (added fish).Thats meanss you need more bacteria for the ineveitable increase in waste.
Two you removed the substrate which holds an a great deal of the benificial bacteria I have mentioned.....as it was there was just enough for your existing biolaod.
Just removing all of the substrate all at one time would have caused a mini cycle imo.Adding more fish about that same time is going to make it worse.
As for what to do about,follow the advice of the salty vets,as I'm new and I'm not sure what levels your pets can stand....I second the notion to feed lightly though...this will help keep the spikes (ammonia and nitrites) lower.
Hope that at least helps you understand how you find yourself in this shape.
Fatz

 

[sallen]

thanks SC
Who is the salty vets??? I have only added 2 fish in my tank and my HOB filter has still got the bact in it from the first cycle. Should i continue doing water changes till the amm reads zero or should a add some stuff called CYCLE which is live bacteria the good stuff??????

 

[seegert]

I was told that every time you add stuff or change certain stuff in your tank that it would begin another cycle, is that true? If so, that could be what is going on maybe?

 

[sallen]

probably but another fullcycle would be very bad. I am trying to combat this. Would adding more media to my filter help do u think and adding more cured lr????

 

[scfatz]

LOL sry..I meant SW veterans.
as far as the cycle product goes I have no idea if it works....Lots of products out there claim too.
The one I most commonly hear about working is call bio-spera (might be wrong on the spelling) and that one itself can be hit or miss.I should add that I know it has worked in FW...being new to SW I have no idea...maybe check google for cycle products to get a read on it.
If you decide to use it,bring a bag of ice to the store with you because it must stay cold (i think this is why some batches fail)...
As for water changes,just do them..alot of em imo.Whatever you have to do to keep the levels from harming the fish.
This will pass much faster then the inital cycle because the end result bacteria is already there..it just needs to multiply to compensate for the new load presented by the new fish as well as a great deal of the already good bacteria being removed with the substrate.
To put it another way,it takes just as long for 4 bacterium to devide into 8.....as it does for 40,000 to develope into 80,000.
HTH

 

[sallen]

Thanks
But re my last comments would adding more media to the filter and adding more cured lr help???

 

[scfatz]

More filter media will not help at all.
100% cured live rock from a stocked tank should help some imo because of the benifical bacteria that resides on/in it is what you need....I don't think you are going to avoid this minicycle though....even if you add some....but imo it may help a little.
Fatz

 

[sallen]

i dont understand why the filter media wouldnt help because there is already good bacteria in the filter so wouldnt adding more media increase the bact and therefore reduce the toxins?