Should I do a water change

You say that now lol. That is what I have. I think you will be fine with what you have now, just get rid of the dead stuff and have your water tested by your LFS. Most of the time it is free anyways. Can't hurt to double check those readings. It is just interesting that you are picking up ammonia and nitrates, but not nitrites is all. You never know, you may already be cycled and not even know it lol. ;D

 

Yeah prob going there this weekend. I just realized I actually didn't have a deep enough sand bed- should i buy regular pre packaged sand and put another layer on top of the existing one after I've cleared all the debris off of it? I can probably take out some of the existing sand as well.

 

That is what I would do. ;D

 

Nitrates need to be exported for the most part. In well-established tanks that have cryptic areas you can have bacteria that will consume nitrates, and some macro algae will consume some as well, but for the most part you have to do water changes to get rid of them. It will take several large waterchanges to get it down.

I would also replace the sand, using an old sandbed is usually the number one cause of high ammonia and nitrate readings.

 

Just ordered 40 lbs of that caribbean sea live sand stuff (not sure on how "live" it is- even though they claim the bag is breathable) should be here in a few days. Should I keep a bit of the live sand I have now to seed it? and also should i not wash it as it says? I dont want to kill the bacteria I paid for, but I don't want to deal with cloudy water for the next few days either.

thanks!

 

oh and sushigirl- what are cryptic areas? Like places with no light?

 

spiking prob from the die off i would give it a week or so then do a hard water change mabe get some cheato for your sump to

 

The best way to add this sand to your system would be to drain your tank as low as you can leaving just a little water in there. Then put the sand in and put something on top of the sand (i.e. bowl, the bag the sand came in) and pour the water back into your tank. I don't know why you would rinse live sand. That kind of confuses me. I would keep maybe a cup at the most of your current sand to seed your new sand with.

 

i only asked about rinsing because i thought I heard somewhere that if you did not rinse it, it would billow up

 

I always rinse everything that isn't "live". I would think that rinsing "live sand" would rinse out all of the beneficial bacteria that is in it.