Nitrite/Ammonia Spike after adding new fish... Help!

[BigGimp77]

I recently added a 2 Clown fish, a shirmp, 5 small hermits, and a couple snails to our tank this week. The tank was completely cycled and had been for 2.5 months. All fish/creatures seem fine to this point.

However, due to the addition of the new live stock (and probably some over feeding on our part) our nitrite and Ammonia levels are both at .25 after 3 days. I cleaned up most of the overfed food off the sand today.

Now I've read some post that say its better to let the biological system handle the levels as long as they remain so low. However, I know the usual corse of action is to do a water change.

So what should I do? Monitor it and hopefully the biological system (40 pds of live rock in a 37g DT and 30g sump) or do a water change?

[MCCOOL]

Prime will help short term, but that's really too much to add at once to such a new tank. I'd avoid feeding anything at all for a couple of days.

[MandM]

The cycle is not something that happenes once. The big one occurs when you start up a new tank with fresh live rock. Dead and decaying tissue on the rock cause a spike of ammonia that gets converted to nitrite then nitrate in a continuous nitrifying lifecycle. Once the tank settles in, fish poop and leftover food decay and make ammonia. The nitrifying cycle continues without the large spikes.

Adding a group of fish or a new chunk of live rock add new sources of ammonia and the nitrifying bacteria need to go into overtime again. Try not to add a large bio load (pooping fish) in one shot. One fish at a time is all I would do with the tank size you have. What did you add?

[BigGimp77]

Originally Posted by MandM

What did you add?

It's in the original post, but 2 Clown fish and some CUC members.

Also how long can they go without eating?

[DustinB]

They can go a fair amount of time, but maybe just feed lightly every other day.

You can try some amquel plus or some other additive to remove ammonia. The live rock will catch up shortly. Even if the tank cycled, without a constant source of poop/etc... the bacteria in the rock will die off a bit after the cycle is done. You should have just added a CuC, but just do as suggested and you should be fine.

[BigGimp77]

Originally Posted by DustinB

You should have just added a CuC, but just do as suggested and you should be fine.

That was the plan, but me and my wife are currently on very opposite work schedules so finding time to make the 60-80 minutes drive to the only decent fish store in the area is hard. So we got the CuC and the fish in the same trip.

I was just gonna buy the CuC online a couple weeks ago, but I thought buying 20 dollars worth of snails/hermits and then paying 30 dollars shipping for such a small order was a little silly.

Hopefully the LR will catch up and this will be a non-issues in the future!

If nitrite/Ammonia levels keep increasing, at what point do I say "ok enough waiting" and do a water change?

[MandM]

I would probably be a good idea to do a water change.