Sudden Nitrite spike

Hi

" nitrates ranging from 40-80."

Even if the nitrites are 0, your nitrates are too high for a tank with only a starfish. You are probably overfeeding.

How often and what are you feeding?

Also, I agree that if the nitrites where that high, everything in the tank would be dead.

Lastly, next time you read your ph and is that low... do a water change... your tank is 15g... a water change of 5 gallons would probably do a lot more for the ph and will be less impacting to the animals than using a commercial ph up...

I bet that your readings are normal and that something affected your strips... perhaps the ph up solution...

Try taking the water to the LFS as was suggested here.... Maybe another test kit will show a different thing...

Also do a small water change... It will not hurt anything and should not be much of a hassle in such a small tank...

BTW If your ph is not exactly the same (+/- .2 units) as freshly prepared SW, then something is wrong with the tank... It should not go down in a tank like that... just my 2c


I hope everything turns out OK... So that you can add more things to your tank and continue learning... This is a wonderful hobby...!
 
Well the Nirtrites are almost at 0 now with the amonia barely noticable, but the Nitrates are around 80-120ppm (if there was any nitrites it would explain the high nitrates) , and the starfish is back to its normal appearance, meaning no curled tentacles and its still eating (i hand feeding it tubifex worm cubes about twice a week). If something was damaged then it looks like it regenerated the damage. Also those small marine organisms seem to be feeding off the mucus the starfish leaves after it eats something. I have had it for about 2 weeks now.
 
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Ok, let's rewind here... Start from the beginning. Tell us from day 1 how your tank came about... Start with "I bought a tank, filled it with water, then........." Something is wrong way back, otherwise, this is the most bizarre tank in history. 120ppm of nitrates doesn't happen in 2 weeks from a single star fish. How did you cycle the tank? How much liverock? How much livesand? Did it have other critters that have died and not been removed? Details, we need details.
 
Unless all your test kits are no good...


Twice a week feeding sounds OK, but it should not have raised the nitrates that high... Unless they where high to start with...

Or again, you may have probelms with your test kits.

I am baffled... :confused:
 
Well from the start i am using the old aqurium gravel and rocks/decorations from my old SW aquarium. We moved so i had to set it up again, non of the decorations or the biowheel filter wher ekept wet, so it dried out. After 3 weeks it was set up i put a lion fish in it, but the amonia was too high (tested it after it died, then again the LFS had just opened and thier SW tanks wernt cycled yet).

Currently The only thing that can be considerd live rock is the dead coral pieces, which equals to around 3 or 4 lbs. The bottom consists of 3" crushed coral (from the old setup) with 1" of live sand on top of it. The only filtration is a penguin 170 biowheel, and there is no protein skimmer (thier too big for a aquarium my size).

The tank has been running for almost 2 months, and the nitrates have stayed at 40-80 pretty much the whole time, ammonia around .05ppm. Recently i added a PH buffer powder, which might have produced a false reading on the test strips, as the LFS tested it and it had hardly any ammonia and nitrite where in it. The first thing in the aquarium was a lion fish, but the ammonia killed it. Then i put some Damsel fishes into it, they lasted around 4 days then got stressed out and died. Then 3 weeks later another Damsel fish was added and it died in 2 weeks. Then i put a Turbo Snail into it and it was in the aquarium for 2 weeks without showing any signs of bad health, its currently in my moms 29 gallon aquarium, and is doing fine. The starfish was added at the same time the snail was in there, but i moved it to the 29 gallon as the starfish kept on trying to eat the snail.
 
So you have gravel from an old tank that dried out--was it cleaned before you started this tank up? If not, most likely bet would be there's a ton of organic 'stuff' in the substrate from it's previous setup, and that stuff is now decomposing. This means high ammonia, nitrites and nitrates, as this stuff breaks down much faster than the bacteria can process it. The additional deaths on the live rock from the toxic levels is contributing to the problem.

Re-using substrate that's dried out requires complete cleaning. Ditto for any filter media that's dried out, or sat for too long without a stable food source. I would pull out all of the gravel and replace it with a deep layer of sand. Recycle the tank, using an old cocktail shrimp (return the star or find it a new home), and don't add anything until you have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and have done a water change to reduce nitrates to less than 20 ppm.
 
Ok, now we are getting somewhere. Some of this might sound harsh, but you'll thank me later... On with the beating =)

1.) Your ammonia spike probabaly came from the rotting gunk in that gravel. Doesn't matter if it was dry or not, it was still there.

2.) The lion didn't help matters as they poop their own weight daily, or so it seems.

3.) A 2 week old tank is HARDLY capable of supporting a few damsels to cycle with, much less a lion fish. Your LFS should be ashamed for selling you that fish. I'm going to assume you set the tank up and THEN learned what cycling is all about, right? You did learn what cycling is about, right? See below ;)

4.) The ammonia spike you had resulted in that nitrite and now the nitrate. The fact that your tank processed all that nitrite so quickly tells me that the substrate didn't completey go south on ya. It is processing the pollution as best it can right now. You need to help it out with lots of water changes.

5.) Throw that buffer powder as far as you can. Worthless. Your salt mix and water changes will maintain your pH for you.

6.) So you know, ANY ammonia is too much ammonia. The presence of ammonia indicates your tank is out of balance. More waste is being produced than your biological filter can handle. This is known as "bio-capacity" and you are beyond yours right now. This is a residual effect of the decaying junk in your tank, and it will fade away slowly, but it will accumlate as nitrate. This is where the water changes come in. Nitrate can go away in one of 3 ways... Water changes, nutrient exportation via macro algae or a thriving deep sand Bed (DSB).

Since you have no live rock, I have to assume you are doing this on a budget. That's ok, we all started somewhere and yer far from doomed. Here is what you need to do.

1.) Find a home for that star fish. Either permanent or temporary if ya want him back.

2.) Tear down that tank, give it a good scrub.

3.) Throw that old gravel away, as we don't do gravel anymore.

4.) Head to Home Depot and buy enough Play Sand to make a 4" thick layer. This stuff is cheap, like $4 for 50lbs.

5.) Buy some dry base rock either at a local nursery or from the web. You can get it for about $1/lb and you need about 1ln/gallon. ONLY get Lace, Tufa or an aragonite based rock like the kind found here

6.) Fill the tank up, mix the salt and get your parameters perfect. Specific gravity should be 1.022 - 1.023, temperature should be ~78

7.) Once it is stable, head to Kroger and get some cocktail shrimp. I use 2 for a 55, so scale accordingly. Get fresh if you can, but frozen works too.

8.) Throw those bad boys in there and hunt a nose clip, cuz it's gonna stink for a couple days. As you do this, get a nylon bag (the toe of a nylon panty hose works great) and put some of your old gravel in there. It has good bacteria you need and it will help kickstart your cycling. This is the same concept as those bottled products, only this actually works.

9.) Wait till your ammonia reads zero, your nitrite reads zero and your nitrate starts to go up. Once established, that DSB will take care of the nitrate for you. Remove the nylon bag full of gravel and discard.

10.) You notice I didn't mention hardware? That's cuz you need very little hardware. You need enough circulation to turn the water volume over 5-10 times per hour. Powerheads are the key here. Put one on each end of the tank, aimed towards the front center and you'll be good to go. If you must use a power filter, remove the media from it and just use it as a glorified power head.

That's pretty much how to fishlessly cycle a new tank on a budget. If you can add some liverock after the cycle, you'll greatly enhance you tanks bio-diversity. Doesn't take much, one or 2 little chunks. Adding a lb or 2 of live sand will be a good thing too.

We all make mistakes. The trick is to learn from em. I guess it wasn't that harsh after all =)
 
Everything was washed off before it got put into the aquarium, as well as scrubbing down everything well, i threw the coral gravel into a strainer and sprayed it with a hose for a good 30 minutes while mixing it up, nothing was left on it. As for the starfish the LFS wont take anything back once thier baught unless its donated, which would put me out $8, and theres no one around who has a SW aquarium (in fact they seem to be having alot of fish dieing as well) so i'll probably keep onto the starfish for now, and if it dies then i plan on putting in just sand and a undergravel filter as well,or if it still lives to slowly convert the tank to an all sand bed (already has around 3lbs. of live sand in it)
 
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