Ammonia found in my saltwater tank - Help please

HI everyone,

I have a Coralife 29 Biocube with 20 pounds of live rock and 20 pounds of live sand, that I let cycle for 2 weeks with just adding 1 and a half cube of frozen mysis shrimp, by the end of the 2 weeks I had 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and close to 0 nitrate. My LFS advised me I could just add 3 red legged hermit crabs which I did, a week later I tested again my water and it had 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 5 nitrate, so I added a 2 inch clownfish occelaris, he has been living there for 16 days now and he looks pretty healthy, maybe with the exception that his poop is rarely a string, and it is usually more like a lot of small blobs of poop that disintegrate rather fast in the water, it looks kind of like a poop explosion (Still not sure if this is normal or not). I just feed him NLS 1 mm for the most part, flakes sometimes and once mysis shrimp. He always eats any of those three really fast.

Anyway this Saturday I tested my water and it was between 0.25 and 0.5 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 10-20 nitrate (closer to 20 it seems). I just tested it again and it is still between 0.25 and 0.5 ammonia, 0 nitrite and I believe nitrates are now at 20. Salinity was low too at 1.019, I believe this was because I removed some salt water and just kept refilling with fresh water, so now I am topping off with salt water instead till I get to 1.024.

All I have in the tank is 3 red legged hermit crabs, 4 nassarius snails, 1 peppermit shrimp and 1 clowfish occelaris. They are all pretty active and healthy, but I am worried the ammonia might get to them, also my nitrates seem rather high for such a new tank, I have not done a single water change though, and I get my water from my LFS.

In total the tank has been running for 5 weeks, 2 weeks with the clownfish occelaris, 1 week with the snails and the peppermint shrimp and 3 weeks with the hermit crabs.

Is this something I should be worrying about?, what can I do to reduce the ammonia?, I read that I should not change the water now, since the tank is still new is this true?, should I do a water change?. Is my tank still cycling?.

One very important note, the Thursday before the ammonia test on Saturday, I completely removed the Stock biocube filter, and replaced it with the in tank media basket running, chemipure elite, purigen and poly floss, could it be that there was a lot of beneficial bacteria in the filter I removed?.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Oscar

 

HI Oscar - when you get a minute fill out your aquarium info. It helps other members diagnose any potential issues with the tank and they don't have to ask the routine questions over and over. Go here: , scroll down, enter info, hit save at the bottom.

Not sure if I've asked you this, do you have live rock in this tank? Was that stock biocube filter the primary filter? If so, you may have removed most of the good bacteria that would process ammonia. Are you running a skimmer on this tank?

So the inhabitants don't suffer I would do partial water changes daily and use prime to keep the ammonia at lower levels until the bacteria population re-establishes itself.

 

HI Oscar - when you get a minute fill out your aquarium info. It helps other members diagnose any potential issues with the tank and they don't have to ask the routine questions over and over. Go here: , scroll down, enter info, hit save at the bottom.

Not sure if I've asked you this, do you have live rock in this tank? Was that stock biocube filter the primary filter? If so, you may have removed most of the good bacteria that would process ammonia. Are you running a skimmer on this tank?

So the inhabitants don't suffer I would do partial water changes daily and use prime to keep the ammonia at lower levels until the bacteria population re-establishes itself.

HI Mike, thank you for the tip I filled all my information now =). Yes I have live rock in this tank, I have 20 pounds of fijI live rock and it is pretty porous, I also have 20 pounds of fijI live sand. No the biocube filter was not meant to be my primary filter, but maybe it did have quite a few bacteria and I did not know about it (it has been there with the rock since day one). I am not running a skimmer, is that good or bad for ammonia?.

I haven't used any type of product in my tank, so Prime would be my first. I read the description and it seems pretty useful, are there other products that I should have for my saltwater tank?. I would order from amazon but even paying the 3.99 would only bring it to me on Wednesday now, so I think I'll just go to my LFS tomorrow and buy one, as for the partial water changes how much water should I change?

 

Not running a protein skimmer means that you will have to do more frequent partial water changes to keep the nitrates and phosphates down or you will wind up with algae issues. The skimmer will completely remove dissolved organics from the water column before they get a chance to break down. They can increase the dissolved oxygen levels too.

Until the ammonia readings go away I would do 5 to 10 gallon water changes every day on a 29 gallon tank.

 

HI Mike, thanks for the information, I just got the seachem prime on the bottle it says 1 drop for every gallon, but that sounds lije way too much, how much should I use to reduce ammonia?

 

I would follow their dosage recommendations on the bottle.

 

I would follow their dosage recommendations on the bottle.

Ok I think I will do that. I tested the water today it seems like ammonia is now at about .10 ppm only, nitrates still at 0, I have not done a water change either, so I guess the bacteria is growing again. Should I still use prime?