Today I woke up to a major tank crash my dotty back dead and my 2 clownfish hardly even moving. I quickly took the clowns out and put them in a QT tank with an airstone and filter. I tested my nitrate/nitrite it was off the charts! The one clown died after 5 hours of being found. The spike happened sometime over night between 1am-10am. My tank is established and is a full reef tank. I've had a BTA in there for about a year. Last night I fed it a sliver side and found it rotting in the tank, also I fed my corals last night. I did a few water changes and lowered the nitrate/nitrite levels by about half. Still high but going down, have a fire shrimp and watchmen goby who seem fine. I am really worried about my one clown he's been in QT for 9 hours and has improved a bit, when he was first found he was laying on his side and could hardly swim, over the first hour he was able to upright himself and swim a but on the bottom. After 2 hours could swim to the top of the tank and has moved around quite a bit. Has anyone had a fish survive such a huge crash? She is a very strong and hardy fish has made it through an outbreak of marine ick and brooklynella. Any advice would be helpful aside from keeping my fingers crossed is there any chance my fish will make it?
Nitrate poisoning!
- Thread starter Miniblaz3
- Start date
Ammonia wasn't really as bad between 0.5 and 1.0 still high but I was able to get that down to 0.25 fairly quickly. This was just a sudden extreme spike in nitrate/nitrite levels. Haven't been exposed to high levels, everything was in check befor last night.
Forget the nitrates; that ammonia is what did in your fish. Anything north of 0.5 ppm is considered toxic.
ReefKeeper64
Wanna be a reefkeeper
.5 Ammonia is definitely the cause and Sorry for your loss. You may want to keep a bottle of prime around for such emergencies in the future.
Thank you, I did put an ammonia reducer in it right after the water change as well as nitrite out and stock piled the filter with nitrate removal media in my main system and qt tank haven't been able to test for 5 hours had to go to work. Will be home in about 3 hours. There is nothing more stressful then not being able to be with your tank when something like this happens. Time passes so slow. And it's that tossing thoughts back and forth did I do all I could or should I have done more or forgot something. Thank you for the replies it makes you feel so much better knowing your not alone.
ReefKeeper64
Wanna be a reefkeeper
We've all been there so you're not alone by any means.
Another month and a half and my new upgrade would have been done. $1600 deep into the new setup that is almost ready to be up and running now hardly any stock to put in it. I built it for them. Ohh well guess that one gets put on the back burner. Love it.
When I first discovered it at 10 am nitrite was 5.0ppm nitrate 160ppm ammonia was at 1.0ppm. After some water changes I was able to Bring down ammonia level 0.25 ppm still scares me. Nitrite is now in between 0 ppm and 0.25 ppm. Closer in color to 0ppm but still that hint of the next color up. Nitrate I was able to get it to 10 ppm. Will be doing another water change in the morning. My one clowfish has been put in a small QT tank filled with nutrisea natural seawater and some of the water he was found in. Over the corse of the day I have been doing a 10% water change so not to shock him to much, also he is in QT with methylene blue and an air stone. He is still breathing a little heavy and looks pretty dull, slime coat is intact. He swims upright at all times along the bottom of that tank on occasion coming up for a gasp or 2 of air then swims back to the bottom. All levels in QT tank are where they should be. As of 1230 am it has been 14 hours since I found him. Within the first hour of being in QT he uprighted him self and swims along the bottom and up and down the corners of the tank
sandwi54
New member
It's the ammonia that killed your fish, not nitrite or nitrate. Most marine fish are not susceptible to nitrite poisoning like freshwater fish, and can tolerate several hundreds of ppm of nitrate for a short period of time. 160ppm of nitrate may stress the fish a little bit, but will not kill him.
Anything over 0.5ppm of ammonia will start killing fish.
Wow, thing can go bad quickly. Tho had smaller tanks and current one a nano, I'm careful to skip feeds least twice a week. Catch it early and water change is a blessing.
My thought is to be cautious, feed frequent smaller feeds as grazing when I have time, system is far from starving, try to give a lag time but nothing is 100 per cent, how fragile things are!
Sorry on the loss, adjustments and sure things will snap back for you.
Not sure if you mentioned the age of your system. Tho cycle can be just a few months or less, many suggest a year or more for stabilizing.
My thought is to be cautious, feed frequent smaller feeds as grazing when I have time, system is far from starving, try to give a lag time but nothing is 100 per cent, how fragile things are!
Sorry on the loss, adjustments and sure things will snap back for you.
Not sure if you mentioned the age of your system. Tho cycle can be just a few months or less, many suggest a year or more for stabilizing.
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So what's your thought on what caused the ammo/nitrate spike? A spike of 160 no less...what ties tank is it and what will all the stuff you were putting in like ammo and nitrate stop? In my 60 gallon I have had an anthis die and I could not get to him.in 12 hours the critters completely consumed him and there was no spike of any sort.
It sounds to me like some sort of an issue with your bio filter... How much rock do you have and how old. Is your tank....?
It sounds to me like some sort of an issue with your bio filter... How much rock do you have and how old. Is your tank....?
It is a nano tank, 6 gallons so it is very small. I have had it up and running 2 years or so, I never had any kind of problems with it because I keep on top of everything. I guess I was just playing a game of Russian roulette. In the works is a brand new much larger set up. I think it was the combo of feeding my corals and the Nem expelling the sliver side. On the bright side my clown is still alive, it's been over 24 hours since I found her. Her breathing is much better then yesterday and she can swim normal although she does take breaks to rest. Also tested my water today and everything is back in safe the ammonia back to 0ppm and nitrite back at 0ppm nitrate is inbetween the the 0ppm and 5.0ppm. I have tested this with 3 different kits by different manufactures. The main system seems to be ok all my inverts and remaining fish are ok. Keeping my fingers crossed!
SushiGirl
Premium Member
3 fish in a 6 gallon is a lot. One dying can easily spike ammonia in that size tank, plus the rotting silverside. Ammonia converts to nitrite, which then converts to nitrate. So the ammonia spike caused the nitrate spike. If you must keep a fish in a 6 gallon, I'd go with just 1 fish. A 6 gallon tank with rock & sand isn't going to even actually be 6 gallons of water.
Glad you managed to save the one clown.
Glad you managed to save the one clown.
