Need help fish died

[jclark21310]

hello everyone i am new to this forum. I hope i can get some help.
I had a 20 gallon tank that has been going for around 6 to 7 months. I started out with 20 lbs of crushed coral for the bottom and 22 lbs of live rock in it. We got a ocellaris clownfish and a six line wresse. we also have a emerald crap a pepperment shrimp unknown amount of snails and hermit craps from the beginning. A few weeks ago we bought a cortez stingray and put it in the 20 gallon tank. When we did we took about the crushed coral and replaced it with 20 lbs of live sand. It did great in there ut didnt have much room to swim. So we desided to take our 44 gallon tank and make it the saltwater tank. We took out the fish the ray and all the life things in there. then we took a old 5 gallon tank and filled it up with water from the 20 gallon tank to put the life rock in it. We then put the sand in the other tank and added another 20 lbs of live sand. We took all the water from the 20 gallon tank and add it to the new tank. We then finished filling up the new tank with new water and had the right levels of everthing. so we add the rocks first and then we added the fich and ray and everthing else. We also bought a bubble tip anemone for the clownfish. We also bought a blue green demsel at the same time we switched the tank. The fish had seem to be fine. The next day the cortex stingray and the sixline wresse was dead. We tested the water and the nitrite and amnonia levels were skyrocketed. The nitrite color wasnt even on the card. and the amnonia was between 1.0 and 2.0 ppm. We bought API stress zyme to try to lower it. In one day the level has gone down. the nitrie is .5 ppm and the amnonia is at .5 to 1.0 ppm. the nitrate level is at 0 ppm the ph s at 8.0 and the salt level is at 1.024.
The clownfish, demsel, emerald crab, the shrimp, anemome, and hermit crabs seem to be fine still. we did lose one or two hermit crabs. Im not sure if the snails are dead or not.
Why would these levels skyrocket like it did? I know they get high when a new tank is going do to the nitrogen cycle but should have ours been so high with we used all the water from the 20 galloon tank in the new 44 gallon tank? What can we do about this concern?
Please help

 

[nikesb]

couple of things here...
1. a stingray shouldnt be in such a small tank. even a 44g is too small for a stingray. ud need something almost 10x as large. minimum would be something with a 4' x 4' foot print
2. you may have disrupted something the sand bed when transferring. usually transferring a sand bed usually requires a thorough washing, or using new DEAD sand
3. stingrays have a HUGE bioload. so while he didnt die in a 20g, the bacteria was good enough to keep up with his waste levels.
4. having no nitrates indicates that you had no bacterial cycle going on
5. water barely contains any bacteria for the nitrogen cycle
6. anemones shouldnt be added until at least 6 months maturity of a tank
theres more but this should answer some your questions.

 

[jclark21310]

THe person at thepet store said that the ray would ok in the 20 gallon tank for like a year because it was just a small on. the disk was about 4 inchs maybe 5 inchs wide. They said we would have to get a 125 to 150 gallon tank down the road for it. So we thought the 44 would b ok for now for it.
just tested the levels again and the nitrate is about the color of 5.0 pp. al the other levels are about the same

 

[meowzer]

Man your fish store lied to you....I had a cortez ray in a 225G and got rid of it after a year cause it was too big for my tank
if at all possible, I would take your livestock out of that tank and let it re-cycle......you have some crazy readings going on and adding chemicals will only put a band aid on it,

 

[smartorl]

If you can't return the stock, I would start large daily waterchanges to keep the levels in check. This will slow down your cycle, but make the water more habitable for the fish.
Meowzer's ray was ginormous to say the least.
Also, just a word of advice, when you make a radical change, like an upgrade in tank size of moving a tank, always monitor your parameters like a hawk and do water changes as neccessary. Allow the system ample time to recover and the biofilter to be handling the current bioload before adding other inhabitants.
This is for sure a hobby of patience. Many of us learned through trial and error before forums such as this one were common.
What type of lighting do you have? Anemone's require halides or strong T-5's to survive in addition to needing a stable, pristine tank to live. I would consider returning it because it will most likely die. Anemone's death can be pretty toxic in your tank. That comes from experience! They can foul your water pretty bad.