well, I got a turbo snail....

I added a turbo snail to eat all the algae my other snails and hermits were not keeping up with and he ate like half of it in two days and the Nitrate level sky rocketed. I think it caused my raccoon Bttfly fish to almost die, he is laying on the bottom panting. I checked and Nitrate and it is up to like 15 ppm today, so i did a water change lowering them to pretty much 0. Params>before water change: N02 =0 NO3=15 Nh2/Nh3=0 PH=8.2 -----

You think he will make it? The tank has been up and running for over 30 days.... My Diamond Goby and OC Clowns are acting fine and swimmin around normal....

 

30 days including the cycle?

 

You stocked your tank WAY too quickly. 30 days is too fast for a pair of clowns and diamond goby, let alone a raccoon butterfly. Butterflys are sensitive fish compared to the others. That's likely why he's sitting on the bottom panting.

Also, if you had 15ppm of nitrates, and did a 50% (gigantic) water change with RODI water, you'd still have 7.5 ppm nitrate; definitely not near 0. That's assuming pure water and not tap water with conditioner - which could be another cause of the butterfly no doing well.

 

about 45 days total including the cycle... All the levels zeroed out after about 3 weeks....

 

how long ago did you add all of these fish and what size is your tank?

 

crap, ... @Blackraven.
Well, I will slow way down and let the tank catch up. Hopefully I can save the raccoon... :-[

thanks for the info

 

I added the clowns and the goby about two weeks ago, My LFS told me it would be ok... So much for them, ha ha. ( and my wife wanted more than one fish..>) I just added the raccoon about 4 days ago, he is really small like 1 inch...

 

IMHO still a bit soon. Many fish, corals and inhabitants require a well established eco-system to properly function and survive. The hardest lesson is patience. The best thing you can do is to hurry up and wait. Give your tank a good 4-6 months to ensure your params are reading consistently.

PS- Welcome to 3reef!

 

Thanks all,
Yeah, I just retested the water and the nitrate level is still like about 10 ppms.
my other fish are still looking good right now.... I will learn from my first casualty best I can... he is still alive so far, kinda moving... hopefully that is a good sign.

 

And i do have RO/DI water!!