The nitrite spike, a noobies tale

[houstonhobby]

The tank was setup I suppose mid-July (too bad I don't remember the date). It has three damsel fish, five snails, and three hitchhikers from the live rock that I have seen. A hermit crab, a small starfish about 3/8ths of an inch wide, and something that looks just like a snail but has no shell. I started keeping a diary on the tank on August first. For a long time the tank has had about 20 ppm nitrates, and I am having a little trouble keeping the alkalinity and pH high enough.

The following was cut/pasted from Word, and all the formatting is gone. Hope it is readable.

August 13th, 2013
Blew my Magnesium titrate test by refusing to believe the final color was it. The final blue appears to have just a bit of purple in it to my eye. But the Magnesium value was no more than 1250, and perhaps several ticks below that.
On the Alkalinity test, the result turned completely clear at 0.7 mark. I was looking for yellow and continued on to dispense the rest of the titrant but got no other changes. Assuming clear was my goal, that would mean 3 meg/L. Seawater is about 2.5 meg/L.
Borate alkalinity was 1 meg/L. Meaning carbonate hardness was 2.0 meg/L, 2.002284606 ppm.
Seachem recommends borate at 1.5 to 2 meg/L, with total at 4 to 5 meg/L.
And so, it goes on, Jeeves.
Installed my two macro algaes and my mangrove propagule today around noon. This evening, I think I discovered that the white lights have never been on, just the actinics! Maybe I’ll get a little algae now.
I saw a new animal. Don’t know if it had just been hiding or if it came with the macro algae order. It looked like a snail without a shell. Or maybe it had a little cap, like a yarmulke, but it did not cover much of its body. It moved too fast for me to unlimber the camera and try for a picture. It went under the rocks on the left side.
Did my 90ml magnesium and 25ml Reef Carbonate.
I’m really leaning heavily to getting three more clowns this weekend, one orange and two blacks, except that my orangest one is rubbing himself against the sand occasionally, so I want to see what that is about. He looks perfectly healthy and is eating well.
The dipstick shows that we’re still around 20 ppm nitrates. I’m thinking about starting the sulphur denitrator from scratch. New refugium should help, and I should have all the pieces to put it together this weekend.
Alkalinity looks better on the stick though! But the pH still shows very red and not a hint of purple so that is too low.
Was looking at a kit that I could get on live aquaria, reef cleaner packs, Caribbean pre-built r3eef cleaner packages, Caribbean reef diversity pack . . . if only I could get the nitrates down to zero. And so I hooked up the unused sulphur denitrator, using as much of the unused sulpher as I could and only a couple of cups of used, plus about all the carbonate chips I could get my hands on. I know these things kill alkalinity. Even though I had a new pump I had to use a Tom’s go get a flow going into the refugium.
August 14th 2013
The dip tests look about the same. I think the alkalinity and the pH might be improving, but certainly not by much. The denitrator is dripping about the right speed but the valve is full open and it takes both the eheim and the Tom’s to make it go.
Did a calcium test. This time only 22 drops, 440 meg/l (ppm).
August 15th, 2013
First, a dip-stick test showed pretty high nitrite! I got pretty worried about my clownfish. No more until after labor day. It was probably somewhere between 1 and 3 ppm. Probably a combination between way overfeeding last night and starting up the denitrator. Nitrates are not down any either.
Which I had some temporary measure like a purigen reactor or zeolite or something.
The clowns seem perfectly happy so far. I sure hope they stay that way.
I installed the 10 gallon aquarium mud flat today. I will probably also use this as an opportunity to do a water change. At the least, this will allow me to dilute by about 10%. (ended up changing about 3.5 gallons of water, in addition to the other measures).
Lessons from the experience. First, the 10 gallon glass is sooooo thin. I’d probably feel better with a tank I made myself from double-thick glass.
I put the first hole too near the top, so that the bulkhead could not fit flat but was crooked from the outside of the plastic lip. When I tightened it down it cracked the glass on both sides of the hole. Fortunately, these cracks will be above the final water line.
The other lesson is to put the hoses on the barbs before you attach that piece to the glass. It takes too much pushing back and forth to get them on with such thin glass. Way too much stress. Heard another big crack at this time but It was just the original crack, probably getting wider.
The crack is wide enough to drip thru now, but it is an inch and a half below the normal water line.
Honestly I haven’t ever seen the clowns so happy and zooming around, but I don’t know if it is because they are happy or if this is some kind of response to the nitrite and they are seeking escape. To outward appearance, they seem very happy since the 10 gallon refugium (with probably around 7 gallons of water) came on line. Although, by dip stick, the new water seemed to make no difference in nitrite or nitrate levels. Ammonia is zero though, so I guess that is something at least.
More I think about it, the more it seems like the signature of the sulpher denitrator starting up. Oh, the things I can do once my nitrates are zero-zero-zero.
August 17th, 2013
Last night I did some water changes. I’m not sure how much I have done in water changes lately but I made 25 gallons of Reef Crystals water the other day and I only have 10 gallons left. Made another 25 gallons so my total reserves at this point are 35 gallons but I have no salt.
So far the clowns are acting like nothing is happening.
Morning dip stick . . . still fighting low pH although alkalinity looks better, maybe 180. Nitrate is still 20 ppm. Nitrite is definitely less than 3 ppm but more than 1 ppm. This is down. Yesterday I was wondering how much over 3ppm it was. Could have gone as high as 5ppm.
Temperature
The temperature of the tank had been 28 C lately. In the beginning it was always 27 C. There is no day/night swing. I don’t have enough light to heat it up. The 210 has also been steady at 27 C but the 125 shows 29 C. It may be hotter, or this may be a difference in the AZoo Micros on the 90 and the 210, vs a strip of LED crystals on the 125. The room temperature as I write this is about 82 F, which is about 28 C.
There is a bubble algae strand behind the rock holding the fluffy algae. It failed to get thrown into the refugium. It is part of what Andy gave me. I notice that it has grown quite a bit, has a lot more “grapes” on it than it has. Makes me very happy. I have not been able to identify any growth on the two macro algaes I bought a while back. And it is practically impossible to see into the small refugium because of the light blocking cardboard.
August 18, 2013
This morning the nitrites were all gone. Completely white square on the dip stick (I find the lower end of the color chart to be wrong on nitrite and nitrate both. Never seen that yellow cast. Zero is stark white) I was hoping the nitrates would go with it, but I guess we have more steps to go thru. I think the nitrates are a little lower than 20 ppm.
And nobody died. The fish all seem fine and even the hermit crab and the snails made it thru. That weird shell-less snail I only saw once, so I’ll probably never know if it is alive or dead.

[houstonhobby]

Now today I find out that nitrite is practically inert in saltwater. Clown fish have been known to be just fine after long-term exposure to 330 ppm. I was worried about 3.3 ppm.

Lesson learned. Forget about nitrites. Salinity detoxifies it. Ammonia is still murder, worse than fresh water. 1 ppm is too high. Nitrates are not as bad as in freshwater. For fish they are basically not an issue. For inverts, staying below 20 ppm will keep you out of trouble.

[MHG]

Way to much to read. Was there. Question?

[JCole524]

Don't forget about it especially if you're doing any corals. FOWLR it isn't as much of an issue but still shouldn't be forgotten. It won't necessarily kill fish but it will def stress them out and reduce life span

[Kyle918]

That was way too much to read without proper formatting but from quickly skimming it, I would say that you are not done cycling and I would highly suggest against adding more clownfish. You already have two and adding three more will lead to them fighting most likely. Clownfish are damsels and as thus are on the aggressive side. In regards to the nitrites though, if your tank is fully cycled, you shouldn't register any ammonia or nitrite on a tester. The fact that you just registered zero nitrite means that you are nearing the end of your cycle. The salt content in the water didn't detoxify anything. This is the nitrogen cycle nearing the end that you are witnessing. Your nitrates will begin to stabilize over time as well but that will take more time.

I would suggest you replace that 10 gallon refugium if it has a crack in it...cracks only get larger and it already grew larger two times on you installing it.

As a general note, posting the colors of the dip sticks doesn't help us much. We don't even know what dip sticks you are using...they all have different color scales. Post the actual readings to get more accurate help and guidance. What dip sticks are you using? I hope you are not dipping the tester into the actual tank water...??

[houstonhobby]

Over on reddit (never go there, it will damage your machine) we have a saying.

tl; dr;

And I can see that I broke that rule. Still, I got some good responses and thoughtful incites, which proves what a good community Reef Central is.
Thank you to everyone who posted.