Is this normal?

[Mystichrome]

Alright so quick synopsis. 10 gallon tank.

 

Started tank September 6th. Was running with dry rock and HOB filter. 

Did Turbo start + ammonia 1 week later. I got my ammonia spike obviously, saw my nitrites and had some nitrate but nothing too high. Everything went to zero then.

I waited until yesterday to add some cleanup up crew - snails and hermits.

 

After adding the CUC, I had what seems to me as  a bacterial bloom, tank was milky cloudy for 24 hours. Clear this morning. I added some seachem stability not sure if it does anything but I did.

Current testing done just now - ammonia 0.5, nitrite 1.0, and nitrate somewhere in between 5-10. 

 

Is my tank going through another mini cycle? 

 

Since my tank was running at zero on the test kits and what seemed to me as being pretty stable, I ordered some easy soft corals that are supposed to come next Friday, which I had planned to be a little more than a week after adding the inverts. I could postpone that if need be.(GSP, xenia and some zoa frags)

 

I have another bottle of Turbo start sitting in the fridge if someone thinks that would be a good idea to throw in? 

 

 

BASICALLY - should I just ride this out for a few days? I have yet to do a water change on the tank. After reading online, I made the decision to start off with some soft corals and let the tank run for a while with that and then add 1 or 2 fish later on.

[j.falk]

If your tank were fully cycled you shouldn't have any nitrite showing.  

 

Did you add the water the CUC came in to your tank?

 

Put some more Stability in there if you have any left...that is live bacteria that will help break the ammonia and nitrite down into nitrate.

[Mystichrome]

Hmmm. No i didn't add the water. They came with minimal water in the bags. I scooped them out and put them in. 

 

Should I do a water change or will that just make things worse/prolong it? I added some stability. 

 

This morning I did find that atleast 5-8 of of the snails were dead, so I took them out of the tank, that may have contributed to it, Im guessing.

[j.falk]

Good.  Never add shipping / fish store water to your tank.

 

The dead snails are more than likely causing the ammonia / nitrite spike.  If you find dead things in your aquarium you want to remove them asap so they don't pollute your water.

 

A small water change would help dilute things down / clean things up but the stability might already be taking care of the issue for you.  I would wait until tomorrow and do another test and see how things are looking.

 

 

[Mystichrome]

Yeah, my first time adding CUC, and I honestly wasn't sure what was "Dead" or not until this morning when some of them were just white and coming out of the shell. 

 

Alot of the snails are moving around and the hermit crabs seem to be unaffected, theyre not as active as I had thought but that may be because they're new.

 

Ive had african cichlid tanks for a while and only ever done the fish-in cycling with cheap yellow labs back in the day when I started lol, and I never really tested that much. Those fish were so hardy.

[Mystichrome]

This morning.

 

Ammonia 0.25-0.5 (so hard to really pick a color but I'd say closer to 0.5)

Nitrite 0.5

Nitrate: 10-20

 

Added another dose of stability this morning

 

I think I'm going to see what it reads tomorrow and then if it the ammonia and nitrite arent at zero - maybe do a WC?

 

I hope the hermit crabs aren't suffering too much...

[mcarroll]

On 9/26/2020 at 9:13 AM, Mystichrome said:

Ammonia 0.25-0.5 (so hard to really pick a color but I'd say closer to 0.5)

Nitrite 0.5

Nitrate: 10-20

It doesn't make sense to me that you said your tank was cycled (had ammonia, then later had nitrates....right?) but is now showing ammonia and nitrite.

 

Unless you had a big disturbance in the tank (eg. huge salinity spike) there isn't too much out there than can "un-cycle" a tank.

 

For the snails, are you sure they were "merely dead" (ie bodies still in-shell) or had they been eaten by your scavenger crew (ie hermits) and the shells were empty?

 

It's highly unlikely for snails to rot into ammonia in the presence of hermits.  Hermits don't tend to allow that.  (Arguably it's what they are there for.  Likewise if you had any nassarius snails.  Hermits and nassarius are the the carrion crew of the reef.)

 

Something doesn't add up in this thread.

 

Do you think there's any chance your test results are incorrect?

 

Do you get predictable results when you use the same test kits to test a different source such as tap water?   (I'd guess it should be zero for all nitrogen forms, unless you're living in farm country.)

[Mystichrome]

19 hours ago, mcarroll said:

It doesn't make sense to me that you said your tank was cycled (had ammonia, then later had nitrates....right?) but is now showing ammonia and nitrite.

 

Unless you had a big disturbance in the tank (eg. huge salinity spike) there isn't too much out there than can "un-cycle" a tank.

 

For the snails, are you sure they were "merely dead" (ie bodies still in-shell) or had they been eaten by your scavenger crew (ie hermits) and the shells were empty?

 

It's highly unlikely for snails to rot into ammonia in the presence of hermits.  Hermits don't tend to allow that.  (Arguably it's what they are there for.  Likewise if you had any nassarius snails.  Hermits and nassarius are the the carrion crew of the reef.)

 

Something doesn't add up in this thread.

 

Do you think there's any chance your test results are incorrect?

 

Do you get predictable results when you use the same test kits to test a different source such as tap water?   (I'd guess it should be zero for all nitrogen forms, unless you're living in farm country.)

 

Whatever this was, was more than a month ago lol

The water has been crystal clear and everything doing well. Tests have been zero ammonia and nitrite. 5-10 nitrate usually. Didn't change anything really, just did my normal weekly water changes and maintenance lol