Gullible Guy Update

[mcritter86]

It has been an eventful couple of days for me. Most of my fish have died, the only one left is the lawnmower blenny. Oh well, you live and you learn. I finally got my first ammonia spike when I tested my water sunday. It was up to 8ppm! I did a 10 gal water change on sunday too. I did not add any anti ammonia chemical to see what reading I would get today. The ammonia is still a rocket and I got my first ever nitrite reading today. I enclosed an updated pic, the water has finally cleared up. Will the tank cycle on its own with the live rock or do I need like 1 or 2 fish in there to poop and keep it going? Today's readings:

Temp: 78
Salinity: 1.028 (high, will do a small change out like a gallon later to try to get it down)
Ph: 8
Ammonia: 8
Nitrite: 2
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0.25
Calcium: 460
Carbo Hardness: 23 degrees (why so high)?

I'm excited for the week to end so I can hopefully see a zero ammonia!

 

[Washburn82]

You got fish in a cycling tank? Did i read that right? Well used too, now just a blenny in a cycling tank? poor guy

 

[Northstar24]

no, you do not need fish in the tank to cycle - in fact the fact that the tank is uncycled is the reason your fish died

slow down, and don't add anything else to the tank until your ammonia and nitrite read 0..not CLOSE to 0, 0

 

[OceanCrazy]

You need to take the blenny back to the LFS and let them hold it for u till your cycle is done.

 

[FishyReef]

Sounds like your tank is in the midst of its cycle - you don't need to do anything else to get the process started or to keep it going. You do need to get the remaining fish and any inverts out of your tank asap, they will not survive the cycle. Then you need to keep monitoring your levels. You have already seen your ammonia spike, now you will start to see those levels come down and see your nitrite spike. Then nitrite will come down and nitrate will start going up. Once ammonia and nitrite are both at 0 for a few days, then do a 25-50% water change and *then* you can add a clean-up crew and 1 fish. You need to wait about 3-4 weeks between adding fish to give the bacteria in your live rock a chance to reproduce enough to handle the waste load of the new fish. Not sure how you came to point of cycling your tank with fish in it, but if you LFS gave you this advice I would strongly recommend finding a new LFS - they will give you bad advice so your fish die and you spend more money replacing them (or else they just have no idea what they are doing).

Good luck & welcome!

 

[kevdogg]

+1 FishyReef

 

[yote]

The best way to bring the salinity down is when you go to top the tank off,remove 1 gallon of water from the tank and add that gallon back + the evaporated with fresh water.
Aslo see if your LFS sales saltwater activate.It'll help speed up the cycle some.Not the recommend choice,but since you already have fish,might as well do your best to save em.