marcaharding
New member
Hey everyone, I have a 55 gallon tank set up and running for almost 4 weeks now, I bought the tank from someone and it cam with two hang on the back 30-60 filters a protein skimmer, 55# of live rock. I transferred all the water in 5 gallon buckets and I assume that the live rock would have been ok for the hour it was out of the water. Got home and cleaned the tank and added NEW 35# of live sand from LFS and added the water. All the test were good and the two clown fish and starfish that came with the tank were put back in. I know I was stupid but i added a small fox face and yellow tang to the bit thinking that all was good. Boy was I far from the truth. Since about two weeks ago I have lost the tang, foxface and starfish. I have got the two clown fish in a qt tank with sand and 10# of rock that I got from an established tank and changing water in that 10gallon every other day )+(50%) just to keep the two clowns happy. Now the Big 55, my ammonia level was off the chart and still is, my ph has stayed at 8.0 my nitrites are in the last two days starting to climb to almost 5.0 and the nitrates are around 80ppm and akleinity is 1.024 and has stayed that way from the start. At first I was doing alot of water changes with the fish and ammonia and adding prime, but since 3 weeks ago I have nothing but live rock and sand in the tank with temp at around 82 and I have not turned the lights on due to not trying to grow algea. My question comes to you guys on whether I should be doing water changes and how much or do I let it ride and let it equal out until ammonia and nitrites are at 0. I probably shocked the tank and I can only blame myself, but I have learned a valuable lesson from this all. I was under the understanding that the nitrates would not rise until the ammonia level was a zero. guess i was wrong on that as well. thanks for any input you may have.