Help a newbie please

[Thresher's Reef]

Alright, I hate to be the noob with the issue this time, but I have to admit my lack of knowledge even after research. My tank has been up and running for almost 4 weeks. When I first started cycling, I accidentally dosed too much ammonia from algaebarn and I think it killed off at least half of the fritz turbostart 900 that I added at the time. To try and remedy that mistake, I did a 50 % water change and which lowered the ammonia enough that the bacteria kicked in ( I assumed) because the next day the ammonia was almost zero even though it was down to around 2ppm after the WC.
I then had another mistake happen where I wanted to add copepods to help out my bacteria but there was a miscommunication between me and Dinkins about the dosage of their phyto and I ended up pouring the entire 16 oz bottle of phyto into my 25 gallon lagoon (as you can imagine, that didn't go well). They said it would still clear up overnight when I contacted them, however it didn't and so I finally did another WC to rid the tank of its green coloration.
Shortly after the phyto incident I noticed my ammonia was showing 0 and do was my nitrite and I had around 50 ppm nitrates. I did a test to see if the tank was truly cycled by dosing ammonia to 1 ppm and within 24 hours, then ammonia was almost at 0 so I assumed the tank was cycled. Since then I have added some corals, a clean up crew consisting of snails only, and a peppermint shrimp due to having aiptasia on one of my frags. P.S. I didn't add the clean up crew until I saw diatoms growing on my rocks.
Here is my situation now:
Since adding the cleanup crew and the algae showing up, my ammonia hanna checker has been showing my ammonia slowly creeping up and not slowing down.... the first day it was at 0.06ppm, second day was 0.07ppm, and after adding snails it was at 0.20ppm yesterday and now today it is 0.27ppm. What have I done wrong? PLEASE KEEP IN MIND IM COMPLETELY NEW TO THIS WITH A FEW MONTHS OF RESEARCH BEFOREHAND! I realize I am going to make mistakes and that I've probably made one here and I'm trying to fix it so please take it easy on me. It's taking a lot for me to post on here and ask for help so any help would be greatly appreciated! I also forgot to mention that my alkalinity is staying in the 6-6.8 dKH range. I'm assuming this may just be the algae and corals using it up? Do I need to start dosing alkalinity even with just 8 small frags of coral? Sorry if it is a stupid question, but again I'm just a beginner my knowledge is not vast. Again, thank you for any help!

 

[DrDirt]

Alright, I hate to be the noob with the issue this time, but I have to admit my lack of knowledge even after research. My tank has been up and running for almost 4 weeks. When I first started cycling, I accidentally dosed too much ammonia from algaebarn and I think it killed off at least half of the fritz turbostart 900 that I added at the time. To try and remedy that mistake, I did a 50 % water change and which lowered the ammonia enough that the bacteria kicked in ( I assumed) because the next day the ammonia was almost zero even though it was down to around 2ppm after the WC.
I then had another mistake happen where I wanted to add copepods to help out my bacteria but there was a miscommunication between me and Dinkins about the dosage of their phyto and I ended up pouring the entire 16 oz bottle of phyto into my 25 gallon lagoon (as you can imagine, that didn't go well). They said it would still clear up overnight when I contacted them, however it didn't and so I finally did another WC to rid the tank of its green coloration.
Shortly after the phyto incident I noticed my ammonia was showing 0 and do was my nitrite and I had around 50 ppm nitrates. I did a test to see if the tank was truly cycled by dosing ammonia to 1 ppm and within 24 hours, then ammonia was almost at 0 so I assumed the tank was cycled. Since then I have added some corals, a clean up crew consisting of snails only, and a peppermint shrimp due to having aiptasia on one of my frags. P.S. I didn't add the clean up crew until I saw diatoms growing on my rocks.
Here is my situation now:
Since adding the cleanup crew and the algae showing up, my ammonia hanna checker has been showing my ammonia slowly creeping up and not slowing down.... the first day it was at 0.06ppm, second day was 0.07ppm, and after adding snails it was at 0.20ppm yesterday and now today it is 0.27ppm. What have I done wrong? PLEASE KEEP IN MIND IM COMPLETELY NEW TO THIS WITH A FEW MONTHS OF RESEARCH BEFOREHAND! I realize I am going to make mistakes and that I've probably made one here and I'm trying to fix it so please take it easy on me. It's taking a lot for me to post on here and ask for help so any help would be greatly appreciated! I also forgot to mention that my alkalinity is staying in the 6-6.8 dKH range. I'm assuming this may just be the algae and corals using it up? Do I need to start dosing alkalinity even with just 8 small frags of coral? Sorry if it is a stupid question, but again I'm just a beginner my knowledge is not vast. Again, thank you for any help!

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

If you're feeding excess amounts than that could be what's causing it, also waste produced by CUC, did one of the inverts die recently? What are your nitrites? If you still have any nitrites than your tank isn't cycled


EDIT: Could be confusing for beginners but here's a rough rundown of the cycle. First you have the rise in ammonia, then you have bacteria which convert ammonia to nitrites, which IS NOT the same as nitrates, nitrite is very toxic like ammonia, so your tank isn't cycled until there is zero nitrites, then there is the bacteria that converts harmful nitrites into nitrate. Keep in mind that po4 and nitrate in excess amounts can convert back to ammonia

 

[DrDirt]

My advice would be to do a WC to help alleviate the immediate concern of increasing ammonia levels. The increase in ammonia levels suggests that your biological filtration is not quite where it needs to be yet in terms of its capacity to convert ammonia to nitrate. A couple of ways to address this is to make sure you are getting enough aeration of tank water and increase the total surface area in which nitrification is happening (i.e. add some more rock).

Also might want to slow down just a bit. Four weeks is not a very long time in this hobby, and you have been adding lots of changes in a relatively short period of time..

 

[Thresher's Reef]

If you're feeding excess amounts than that could be what's causing it, also waste produced by CUC, did one of the inverts die recently? What are your nitrites? If you still have any nitrites than your tank isn't cycled


EDIT: Could be confusing for beginners but here's a in depth rundown of the cycle. First you have the rise in ammonia, then you have bacteria which convert ammonia to nitrites, which IS NOT the same as nitrates, nitrite is very toxic like ammonia, so your tank isn't cycled until there is zero nitrites, then there is the bacteria that converts harmful nitrites into nitrate. Keep in mind that po4 and nitrate in excess amounts can convert back to ammonia

So I did a quick nitrite test and it looks like you're right. Somehow my cycle may not be complete ( picture included of test results).... so what should I do now to get this tank cycled? Do I have to completely restart? What should I do about the inverts and corals? Should I create a 10 gallon temporary quarantine tank to keep them in? Sorry for all the questions, I'm just trying to fix my mistakes.

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

So I did a quick nitrite test and it looks like you're right. Somehow my cycle may not be complete ( picture included of test results).... so what should I do now to get this tank cycled? Do I have to completely restart? What should I do about the inverts and corals? Should I create a 10 gallon temporary quarantine tank to keep them in? Sorry for all the questions, I'm just trying to fix my mistakes.

What kind of corals and inverts do you have?

 

[Thresher's Reef]

What kind of corals and inverts do you have?

I have 2 hammers, a frogspawn, 5 zoa frags, snail cleanup crew (astraea, trochus, cerith, naussarius) and a peppermint shrimp that was meant to take care of an aiptasia problem

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

I have 2 hammers, a frogspawn, 5 zoa frags, snail cleanup crew (astraea, trochus, cerith, naussarius) and a peppermint shrimp that was meant to take care of an aiptasia problem

Definitely set up a temporary holding, I'd do a 5-10 gallon and frequent, 2-3 times per week 100% water changes, that will restart the cycle and keep ammonia zero. I'm mainly concerned about the torches and frogspawn, as they are very sensitive corals. The zoas might be unaffected by the nitrites but the snails and shrimp would probably end up passing away. Also keep in mind that the specific brand of test kit you're using gives weird readings with ammonia. I recommend Red Sea test kits, it's what works best for me


EDIT: Forgot to mention that peppermint shrimp have about a 50/50 chance to pick at corals

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

nitrite is very toxic like ammonia,

This is not accurate!!

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Keep in mind that po4 and nitrate in excess amounts can convert back to ammonia

This is also completely false

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

This is also completely false

Misspoke, my bad. If you add exess of organic material than it will spike ammonia before converting to po4 and no3, and will of course raise your nutrients

 

[Thresher's Reef]

Definitely set up a temporary holding, I'd do a 5-10 gallon and frequent, 2-3 times per week 100% water changes, that will restart the cycle and keep ammonia zero. I'm mainly concerned about the torches and frogspawn, as they are very sensitive corals. The zoas might be unaffected by the nitrites but the snails and shrimp would probably end up passing away. Also keep in mind that the specific brand of test kit you're using gives weird readings with ammonia. I recommend Red Sea test kits, it's what works best for me


EDIT: Forgot to mention that peppermint shrimp have about a 50/50 chance to pick at corals

I agree I'm worried about my hammers, frogspawn, and zoas mostly. I want the snails and shrimp to make it too so what would be the most efficient way to setup a holding tank? I could feed the shrimp pellets to keep him off the corals for the time being maybe. Also I only use the api nitrite test kit because I do not have another yet. All others are either red sea or hanna. When I restart, do you think I need more rock? I thought I had plenty in there?

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

This is not accurate!!

Nitrite is more toxic than ammonia*

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

I agree I'm worried about my hammers, frogspawn, and zoas mostly. I want the snails and shrimp to make it too so what would be the most efficient way to setup a holding tank? I could feed the shrimp pellets to keep him off the corals for the time being maybe. Also I only use the api nitrite test kit because I do not have another yet. All others are either red sea or hanna. When I restart, do you think I need more rock? I thought I had plenty in there?

It's not the rock, that's a good amount for a tank that size. I'm not the best person to ask about the holding tank process

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

So I did a quick nitrite test and it looks like you're right. Somehow my cycle may not be complete ( picture included of test results).... so what should I do now to get this tank cycled? Do I have to completely restart? What should I do about the inverts and corals? Should I create a 10 gallon temporary quarantine tank to keep them in? Sorry for all the questions, I'm just trying to fix my mistakes.

All this means is that your nitRATE probably isn't as high as the test indicates. The presence of nitRITE makes nitRATE results higher than they actually are. If your inverts aren't dying, your ammonia is not too high. It's possible that a snail died and decayed in the tank, raising the ammonia temporarily. A water change is your best defense right now. It will immediately reduce ammonia.

A quarantine tank will be just as likely to accumulate ammonia since it definitely won't be cycled.

Take a breath, you're doing fine. If your ammonia is creeping up, do a water change. If you're really concerned, add some Fritz Turbo Start or Biospira. DO NOT ADD PRIME OR OTHER "AMMONIA DETOXIFIER"; they will make your test results meaningless.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

I agree I'm worried about my hammers, frogspawn, and zoas mostly. I want the snails and shrimp to make it too so what would be the most efficient way to setup a holding tank? I could feed the shrimp pellets to keep him off the corals for the time being maybe. Also I only use the api nitrite test kit because I do not have another yet. All others are either red sea or hanna. When I restart, do you think I need more rock? I thought I had plenty in there?

Unfortunately, hammers and frogspawn aren't good beginner corals. They generally require a more mature/stable tank to do well. That being said, the presence of ammonia and/or nitrite is not a problem for corals - they use ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate as food.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Nitrite is more toxic than ammonia*

WRONG!!! This is true for freshwater, NOT saltwater.

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

WRONG!!! This is true for freshwater, NOT saltwater.

Then I am using outdated info or knowelage from my freshwater past, my bad

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

It's not the rock, that's a good amount for a tank that size. I'm not the best person to ask about the holding tank process

I'm sorry to be rude, but based on the information you've posted on this thread, you aren't the best person to ask about cycling either!

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

I'm sorry to be rude, but based on the information you've posted on this thread, you aren't the best person to ask about cycling either!

Honestly you're probably right on that one, was just trying to give basic knowelage and advice. Apologies if I am accidentally giving misinformation