I started a 36 gallon saltwater aquarium on a sunsun 304b canister not using the uv light, with seachem matrix as biomedia, with dry rock, 2 anemone, 4 clowns, 10 crabs, and 1 lawnmower blenny. One anemone found a way to get sucked into the filter. I cleaned the filters with my well water (rookie move, It does not have chlorine but has a very high TDS but was just trying to save the tank by quickly cleaning). I was trying to save my tank but in the next 24 hours all the fish died. Ammonia was high 4ppm nitrite was fine .25 ppm and nitrate 10 ppm. I removed the dead fish and moved the crabs and did a 100% water change (RO/DI water 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate). I figured I would need to cycle the tank so I tried dr tims one and only with the ammonia dosing. Ammonia goes from 2 ppm to 0 in 24 hours but nitrites are I believe 5 ppm or higher (hard to tell on the api test and red sea doesn't go that high). nitrates might be skewed from high nitrites but looks like 40-80 ppm. I have nothing alive in the tank right now. Should I attempt another 100% water change or see if the nitrite lowers naturally? I have not dosed ammonia except initial 2ppm. I am on day 5 after dosing ammonia (0 ammonia, 5 ppm nitrite hasn't changed since day 2, and 20-40 ppm nitrite, salinity 20 ppt per dr tims lecture on quickly cycling a tank, temp is 84-85 degrees and no light for now). I will also add I moved water from the high nitrite tank to a 20 gallon QT tank for my crabs and it with just micro algae (Chaeto) has gone from 5+ nitrite to 0 in a few days? Should I do a water change, raise salinity (I know that helps fish with nitrite, add Chaeto to my regulator tank, or just hold off? creating my own thread so we have a background.
Update, I upped the salinity to 32-33 added the chaeto and 4 hermit crabs and lowered temp to 78. Ammonia 0, nitrite 2ppm, nitrate 40-80 ppm. I added seachem CupriSorb as I believe my well water has a lot of heavy metals and it seems to have helped with nitrites. Will update tomorrow.
Using RODI would be super beneficial here, but you just have to give the bacteria a chance to repopulate since the nem nuked it. Gonna take a little time. Should be good within a week.
Sorry I didn't see this. I know the response is a bit late but generally I would only be concerned if nitrite appears very high (off the charts) and ammonia isn't being removed (or the nitrite never goes down) anymore. Then again, I have a lot of experience cycling tanks with customers where I worked and can typically tell a 0 on ammonia tests when others may be uncertain of the readings.
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