Sudden Ammonia spike need help

[chrisely24]

Hi, i am relatively new to the hobby. I set up my 60g around Thanksgiving 2014. I went through a complete cycle and all my parameters and fishies were fine until today.
I came home from work and my Flame A was on the bottom breathing heavy. he passed away about 3 hours after i noticed him.

I did some research and saw that a lot of people used Prime to help out so I went out and bought some and did a 10% wc (Thats all the RO/DI water I had already to go)

In the tank i have 2 (2") clowns and 1-1/2" yellow tang, 1 Flame Angel (r.i.p), 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 brittle star, several snails and hermits maybe 20 total

I am running a sump and a protien skimmer with HOB overflow

My ammonia was reading 0.25-0.50 with API test kit. I also bought a seachem in tank Ammonia thingy a few weeks ago and it is reading safe.

My nitrites have been at 0.25-0.50 for about 2 weeks with Ammonia at 0 and Nitrates at 0 also.

The other fish seem fine at the moment.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, Thanks. Chris..

 

[pegasus]

Welcome to the forum, Chris. Sorry for your loss. Once a tank has cycled, Ammonia and Nitrite are not normally an issue unless there are several new additions made to the system. Many people, myself included, don't even check for those levels. We only check for Nitrate. It's a fairly new system, but if your Ammonia and Nitrate have been reading 0 for two weeks, it typically takes something dying and decaying to cause an Ammonia spike. Of course, large feedings with leftover food could cause an ammonia spike as well. I believe it would take a considerable amount of food (depending on food type) to cause a big enough spike to kill your fish. I would highly suggest you trash the API test kit and invest in a quality kit. API is a cheap kit, and depending on it's age, it can be terribly inaccurate. It's unusual for Nitrites to be high, and Nitrates to be zero. The Nitrogen process goes like this: Ammonia is converted to Nitrite. Nitrite is converted to Nitrate. This is where the cycle stops for many people, so they have to do water changes to remove the Nitrate. For those that have plenty of live rock and a deep sand bed, much (if not all) Nitrate is converted into Nitrogen gas which escapes into the atmosphere. My point is that once the system has cycled and you introduce livestock, the bacteria to break Ammonia into Nitrite populates the system fairly quickly. Then the bacteria to break Nitrite into Nitrate follows. It's hard to have a spike on one part of the Nitrogen cycle without it showing up in the following cycle. High Nitrite is usually preceded by an Ammonia spike... and followed by a Nitrate spike.

I also find it strange that it would only affect one fish. If there was a lethal spike in Ammonia, the other fish should have shown some signs of stress. Since they appear okay and your water parameters are "okay", I'm leaning towards believing that there was a problem with the Flame Angel. I could be wrong, but based on the info given, it seems to be the only logical explanation.

 

[pegasus]

A multi-part question I didn't ask: How long have the fish been in the tank... were they introduced at the same time... have there been any new additions recently?

 

[chrisely24]

The 2 clowns were introduced about a week after the tank was cycled and all readings stayed the same. maybe 3 weeks I added the flame and the tang. and just last weekend the star went in.
Maybe it was just a problem with the flame but being new to the hobby i had to think it was something I might have done wrong lol.The little seachem disc is still reading white so maybe it is the test kit. I have seen the individual test for sale on the web which brand is good for Ammonia and Nitrates.

Thanks for the reply, My father-in-law started and owned Tru-Vu aquariums many years ago but, he has been out if the business for ten years now and has forgotten a lot of stuff but he helps out when he can.

 

[kirshman]

I'd think with ammonia and nitrite that high the first things to die would be the cuc, especially the star and the shrimp.

 

[chrisely24]

Hmmm, they are doing fine it seems. I guess if they are all ok in the next day or so it was just the Flames time to go.

 

[chrisely24]

So far as of 5:30 P.m. est the rest of the fish and inverts seem fine.