Urgent Nitrites spiking / cloudy water

Hello all,

I set up a 20 gallon reef tank about 5 weeks ago and the cycle had finished a few days ago. My pH was 8.1, Ammonia was 0ppm, Nitrites were 0ppm, Nitrates were 0ppm, the sg. was 1.024., and the temp was 79 degrees. I put 2 clown fish in last night and today the nitrites have shot up to 2ppm and the water is now very cloudy. Thanks for the help

 

I did a 25% wc about 2 hours ago which seems to have helped with the water clarity a little bit. It does not seem to have helped with the nitrite levels though as they are still at 2ppm. The pH, ammonia, and nitrate have remained at the pre-fish readings.

 

Any update on this? I'm not sure what would have caused the water to turn cloudy after you added fish but I am interested to find out if you figured it out.

 

Your tank is not done cycling. You should have nitrate as an end result that can really only be removed by water changes. You have enough bacteria specific to ammonia, where you haven't seen that value rise, but the tank is still establishing a nitrite specific bacteria.

The cloudiness is an over abundance of bacteria.