Ammonia day after feeding

[Willba200]

Hi, my tank finished its cycle on Saturday. I have added two clowns on Tuesday. I fed them yesterday using a quarter of a frozen cube. Today I did a test and my ammonia was reading 0.25. Is this because not all food was eaten and it turned to ammonia and would of eventually turned to nitrate?

 

[Tmar]

Possibly. I always feed little bits at a time to my clowns, make sure they eat it all. After they have had enough and stop eating what i put in, I am careful to scoop the uneaten food back out with my net
It will eventually turn to nitrates yes, most likely within 24 hours..... but can kill your fish faster than that

 

[Willba200]

Do I need to do a water change or will my live rock quickly turn it into nitrates?

 

[MacDracor]

Water change ASAP, please. Even a cycled tank will do this with a drastic change in bio load. Seems maybe your tank wasn't quite ready for two fish. No worries, just dilute the ammonia as quick as you can, and the bacteria should catch up to the increased load quickly. But just as stated above, be careful of over feeding.

 

[mr_X]

It doesn't matter if fish eat the food or it hits the bottom uneaten, it's still going to do what it does. If your bacteria colony can't process it, it will show up on your test kits. I would bind the ammonia with something like prime or amquel and wait it out.

 

[MacDracor]

It doesn't matter if fish eat the food or it hits the bottom uneaten, it's still going to do what it does. If your bacteria colony can't process it, it will show up on your test kits. I would bind the ammonia with something like prime or amquel and wait it out.

Absolutely true, Doug. But if there's enough food that they won't finish it, that's more bio matter to create ammonia.

 

[Willba200]

Water change done ammonia back at nil. Will see how it goes. Thanks for help