water quailty is bad

[machine646]

I have a 20 g long,its four months old,my water quality has went to dirt my ammonia is at 1ppm nitrites .50ppm and nitrates 40ppm ,I use ro water period,do weekly 5 g wc,I'm stumped on the water being bad ,my fish hermits snails and coral seem fine,I've been trying to figure out why thing are testing bad,any ideas I'm lost ,have been doing research for over a month,I'm stumped,

 

[Krish]

At this point you really shouldn't read ammonia or nitrites. Are you sure your test kits are good?? I'd double check them to be sure. Can't see your corals and inverts especially doing well with the presence of the two. May just be false readings. Atleast that's my first thought going on the fact that you said everything is doing well.


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[Faciosity]

Krish is right, after 4 months any amonia or nitrites should be going away by now, and I would also be suprized to see corals doing good in those conditions. Are you overfeeding or did anything die and sit in the tank for a while? If those readings are accurate, it's only a short matter of time before everything starts going downhill. Either get new testing equipment, or bump up your water changes for a while.

 

[BigAl07]

Anytime I get a test result out of the "Norm" I will immediately re-test it. If I get the same result again I get help. Depending on time of day and what day of the week depends on what help I get.

A) Take sample of water to LFS and ask them to run the tests but get SPECIFIC numbers not "It looks fine to me" or "all tests are in normal range"

B) Have another reefer come over and bring HIS test kit. Have him test it to help eliminate "procedural error".

 

[machine646]

I have tested it a few time with two different test kits and at the lfs,I can't figure out what is causing this,its also feeding the hair alge that I've been pulling out,I bought a coralife skimmer that broke on my from cl

 

[BigAl07]

With those water parameters either something has died, you're over feeding the tank, or the tank is over stocked for it's current bacterial capacity.

What are you feeding, how much and how often?

What fish do you have in there?

How much sand and Live Rock do you have in there?

Are you running any additional filtration (hang on, canister etc)?


Just be warned that Ammonia is very toxic even at lower levels so be prepared to do some larger water changes to help protect what livestock you do have in there.

 

[machine646]

I have one small clown,5 reef hermits,2 bumble bee snails,small toad stool,two med size Kenya tree,I feed the fish once everyother day I feed him just what he eats,he gets frozen brine shrimp that are rinsed ,small bit of spritla flake,if I see anything left over I remove it but I feed pretty light,hoping that would help,my whole set up is 20long 2x24w t5 10000k and 420 antic,two 700 gph phs,30 lbs of lr,1-1/2 sb,fluval hob c5 filter,100w heater,use only ro water,instant oceans salt. I figured ill tell Ya what all I have,maybe some how it would help.

 

[BigAl07]

More information is always better when talking "Reef Tanks".

Honestly everything sounds spot on. I can't understand why you have any level of NH3/NH4 or NO2 in that tank. Honestly if you had given me your tank specs, stocking, and equipment list and asked me to "guess" your tank parameters I would guess ZERO on NH3/NH4 and NO2 because the canister filter (once established) is super efficient at converting those 2 along the cycle quickly.

I'm stumped at the moment because like I said it sounds like you're covering all the bases and doing it correctly.

 

[machine646]

The filter isent a canister,its hob,has a sponge and biomedia I'm also confused,I spend so much time reading and trying to figure this out,I get so I'm ready to get rid of it but not the type to quit,plus the tank is a memorial to my mother that passed,the corals open up nice and the fish and cuc are very active,I also turkey baster the rocks daily

 

[Zoanthrope]

Machine, I have a tank roughly the same age as yours (25G) and had similar problems with nitrates, but not the ammonia, despite several water changes. some hair algae but mostly cyanobacteria. I was able to get things under control with 3 changes to the tank. 1. got a reef octopus skimmer with a surface skimmer attachment but it took 3 weeks to break in. this replaced my canister filter. 2. reduced amount of food i put in the tank. 3. dosed with brightwell microbacter7 for a week. not sure what really did it but the microbacter showed the most immediate results (clearer water and less cyano growing back after stirring the sand). good luck!

 

[estanoche]

i'd try larger water changes! a clownfish, and a handful of hermits do poop - and probably poop more than your system is taking out through filtration!

It is a simple solution - and worth a shot... there is nothing wrong with a 50% water change

 

[Peppie]

i'd try larger water changes! a clownfish, and a handful of hermits do poop - and probably poop more than your system is taking out through filtration!

It is a simple solution - and worth a shot... there is nothing wrong with a 50% water change

+ 1 on this approach, salt mix is relatively cheap. Do a 50% every other day. Be sure to match your sal, temp, and PH,