Whats with my params??

So i cycled my tank for 2 months and ammonia, nitrite, nitrate gone to zero, did a 50% water change and added a clean up crew and a small mushroom rock and after then i had nothing but trouble, my ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all above 0 i did another 50% waterchange, no good.

here are the parameters for today,,


SG - 1.026
Ammonia - 0.10 ppm
Nitrite - 1.6 ppm
Nitrate - 40 ppm

What should i do? currently the mushroom has gone to my friends tank and i have my clean up crew and a brittle star in the tank.

 

Anyone?!?

 

what did you use to cycle your tank? and do you have a deep sand bed that got disturbed?

 

I only used my rock, 1'' of sand and some fish food,, after that i did play with rock work a little bit.. sand bed did not get stirred.

also, i added a piece of rock after the tank cycled, maybe it leached some ammonia/ nitrite in there?

 

Have you cleaned your glass with anything? What are you using for filtration?

 

I clean my glass with just a dish sponge that has only been used in this application.

For filtration i just have a HOB Filter with some live rock rubble i've added after the cycle,, soon to be a refugium

 

Measure your tap water and see what it shows on those params. Are you using RO/DI filtration for your tap water? Have you double checked the readings with another test kit?

 

I've probably misread or didn't wait for proper colouring but my nitrates are more like 60 ppm and not 40.


Yes i used tapwater (i know it's wrong) , however ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are 0 at my tap.

 

I find that hard to believe they are 0 if you did a 50% change and your params didn't change. Blow off all of your rock and look for areas of low circulation and remove the detritus from there. Thoroughly clean all of your equipment and do it often, every 2 weeks at the longest. Get a skimmer ASAP and do water changes often. Aerate the WC water after mixing the salt for at least one hour and overnight would be better. Do WCs often, use less food.

 

Some test kits are made for saltwater and may not work with fresh tap water. You may have gotten a false negative reading.