Help! Help! Nitrites Rising

[sidneybrooksjr]

I did a water change last night. before the change my water numbers were : nitrate 40, nitrite 0, ammonia 0, ph 8.2. the tank initially had 2 fiji damsels 1", i added 1 harlequin tusk 2", 1 clown trigger 1.5", 1 blue line trigger 2" on thursday. this morning my nirate 40, nitrite 30, amonia .25,. what could be causing the sudden rise in numbers? please help. my tank is a 46 bow.. i'm thinking that i need more lr.. also i noticed that my skimmer hasn't been skimming to much.

 

[moggyhill]

You have too many fish in that small tank. Get your new inhabitants back to wherever they came from. You added too many fish too fast for your tank to absorb all of their waste.

 

[sidneybrooksjr]

moggyhill, i plan on taking the blue line and the two damsels to the lfs today? that will leave just the clown and the harlequin? Is that sufficient enough or do i need to empty the whole tank?

 

[moggyhill]

the clown alone will soon well outgrow the tank. It will literally be as big as the tank when full grown and will grow to an active 6 inches easily in one year

 

[LRS078]

not to mention the clown will likely turn violent one day and stands to injure or kill his tankmates. I would export the clown trigger and shop a larger tank. You have a nice collection...w/o the clown and maybe either the blue line or harley you have some time. The tusk will also outgrow the bioload of the tank soon. He doesn't get super long but he does get chunky and bioload typically follows fish mass not length. (why a 10" puffer is a poo machine vs a 10" angel) Shop a larger tank first, if that absolutely isn't an option do a bunch of research and figure out what you can keep there longterm (not much).

The best rule I have found for figuring gallons to fish is the "inch/gallon" method. A puffer or similar is at least 5 gallons per inch (including tail) A tang or similar gets about 2 gallons per inch of fish. (this is bioload only, does not account for swim-room) Hope this helps....

 

[sidneybrooksjr]

i plan on purchasing a 190 at the end of may? does that buy me some time?

 

[LRS078]

If you have everything ready to go for May you could probably get away with it. Just remember the warning on the clown trigger...gets big and can be quite mean. Yours may not but only time will tell for certain.

Also...If you have the $$$ to not only do the 190 but the sump, pump, skimmer, bioballs, tops, lighting, heater, rock/aquascaping, stand, salt, etc... You have to calculate the cost of all the other parts of the system as well. If you are good to go on all of it for end of May you can limp along with weekly 25% water changes.

Plus getting and putting together all the stuff for a tank that size is just the beginning, it still has to cycle.