nitrite reading

[tmkx3]

My tank suddenly became cloudy. I did a water check and I have a nitrite reading of 0.25. I did a 20% water change. 20g on 120g tank. An hour after the change I still have a reading of 0.25. What do I do now???

125g,125lbs lr, pro prizm protien skimmer 6fish 3 green chromis,2 perculas, coral beauty, foxface. Tank has been up since Oct

[cmor1701d]

Please post all tested water parameters.
Prepare enought SW mix for another 20-40% PWC tomorrow, going along with the answer to pollution is dilution theory.

How often do you test your water parameters?
Did you ever notice an ammonia spike?
Are ammonia and nitrate still reading 0?
Has anything died or gone missing?
Have you added anything to the tank?
Has anyone else dumped food in the tank or have you changed the feeding schedule?
How often do you normally do PWCs?
Is the skimmer producing skimmate?

[tmkx3]

I test the water once a week. The reading the day before the tank went cloudy was Ammonia0
nitrite 0
nitrate 40
The ammonia reading a week ago was 0.05. I did a water change and it went away.
I have a prizm pro skimmer that has to be adjusted alot to get skim mate.
No one else feeds but me but I do have kids. How often should I do water changes? I usually only do one if my readings are off. Nothing has come up missing or died but today a day after my water change my brittle starfishs legs broke off. I am not sure what happened. He has only one leg left should I take him out. Will his legs grow back? he is still alive.

[tecwzrd]

With a no3 reading of 40 ppm something is terribly off if you are performing 10% pwc each week or at least 30% each month. Did all the legs come off of your star fish? It won’t be able to get food and will likely die. They do not tolerate high no3 levels at all

Doing a pwc only when your readings are “off� is a sure fire way to crash your tank. A weekly or bi-monthly pwc schedule is a must to not only maintain proper levels but also to replace needed trace elements and maintain your ph/alk. Even so once your no3 got above 10 ppm you should have done a pwc to reduce it.

You really don’t have enough fish to justify no3 readings like that even doing pwc sporadically. You are probably over feeding your tank which lead to both the high no3 readings and cloudy issues. How often, what, & how much do you feed?