When and how many to add fish

keith10

New member
My reef has stabilized after the fish killing ammonia spike. I lost 5 out of 6 fish. The lone survivor was my wrasse. I have have zero ammonia for several days. I'm wondering if there are any opinions about when I should add fish and how many to add at one time. I don't what the wrasse to go crazy, then again I don't think I should increase the bio load dramatically at one time.

My reef in a year old.

Any thoughts?
 
Why an ammonia spike in the first place?
Something big die?

You should slowly add critters when you know your water is stable..
Are you measuring any nitrites?
 
I second mcgyvr with a tank a year old i wouldn't think you should see a ammonia spike at all. Unless something major happened as mcgyvr suggest.

What are your parameters?
 
honestly I think I got some bad water from my LFS. I never had an issue with ammonia. But I could have over fed but I don't think so. All I know is one day everything was great the next day fish started dying. After the first one died the ammonia just went crazy. I couldn't get it out of the reef and before you know it all my fish were dead. Except wrasse. My parameters now are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, nitrates are about 30 (high i'm sure because of the ammonia break down) .15 on phosphates. 8.5 ph. Salinity 1.026
 
With that kind of spike and sudden die off of multiple fish, is it possible that some of your bio-filter was killed off somehow? It seemed like the death of that first fish sparked a chain reaction that your tank should've been able to handle, but couldn't.

I would proceed very slowly.
 
id do some decent sized water changes for a few months before you add anything. you don't just get a ammonia spike for no reason.
 
Back
Top