ammonia and nitrite issues

jjbene2 · 09-25-2008, 10:07 PM

OK so I have a 55 gallon freshwater malawian cichlid tank, I have a fluval 305 filter, a uv sterilizer. I cycled the tank for a week and a half all levels were at zero, didnt put the uv sterilizer in until I put the fish in. Added a few fish at a time levels stayed at zero all is good until today. I woke to find my tank cloudy and my ammonia at 1.0 and the nitrite at 0.25, Ph was 7.8. So I did a 25% water change and this evening my levels of ammonia and nitrite are the same 1.0 and .25 but my ph is down to 7.4. SO now what? Do I do another water change tommorrow? Typically everytime I do a water change it automatically raises my Ph but not today, I am not a novice I have been keeping cichlids for 5 yrs with a 1 yr break to try my hand at salt.. which sucked.
HELP I dont wanna lose my fish!
PS No none of the fish have died which is what I expected at first.
THANKS

LiVe4fIsH · 09-25-2008, 10:57 PM

Hey jj, I didnt see you list your nitrate levels. When you wrote all levels were at zero, did that include nitrate levels? IMO it seems as if your tank was not completely finished cycling when you released your fish into the tank. With having nitrite and ammonia issues and no nitrate levels, it seems so far that the cycling process is still on its way. As will as having cloudiness inside the tank. There might be a process of rapid growth of baterial inside of your tank to try and keep up with the waste that your fish are producing. Which makes sense that the coudiness didnt take action until your fish were introduced. I do not know your circumstances with an extra hospital/spare tank that you could house your cichlids in while the tank finishes cycling. If you need to keep them in the tank that they are in now, your best bet IMO would to keep up with the partial water changes and avoid over feeding your new little guys and as the tank matures/finishes cycling, the bacteria should catch up and the cloudiness in the water should decrease/go away.

-Izzy