Am I overstocked?

[KLehman72]

Perhaps someone can lend some advice. I am new to saltwater aquatics and have a new setup with a 30 gallon bow front, LED Day/Lunar settings, Penguin Biowheel 150, Seaclone 100 skimmer, 60 pounds of live sand, and about 20 pounds live Fiji rock. The tank had cycled and Ammonia, Nitrites were zero and Nitrates were almost undetectable. I have the following in the tank:
2 Turbo Snails
5 Nassarius Snails
3 Astrea Snails
6 very small Hermits
1 Coral Banded Shrimp
2 Maroon Clowns
1 Flame Dwarf Angel
1 Royal Gramma Basslet
Feeding Ocean Nutrition Prime Reef flakes

Problem....Today, my Ammonia was at ,5ppm, Nitrites .5ppm and Nitrates were at 20-25 ppm. I immediately did a 10% PWC.

What may be the cause?
Am I overstocked?
How often/how much PWC?

Thank you guys so much....
Kevin

[hackteck]

how long has your tank been setup? did you add all that ls at the same time?

[KLehman72]

Originally Posted by hackteck

how long has your tank been setup? did you add all that ls at the same time?

Tank has been up a little over a month...livestock added over a 1 week period. I am concerned that I made a rookie mistake but don't want my fish to suffer for my mistake....help

[XxVooDooxX]

I think the rule of thumb is to add 1 fish per week and at this point all you can do is PWC's as often as needed. Just test your H2o daily and keep us updated! Good luck

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[KLehman72]

Originally Posted by XxVooDooxX

I think the rule of thumb is to add 1 fish per week and at this point all you can do is PWC's as often as needed. Just test your H2o daily and keep us updated! Good luck

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Should I be doing 10%, more?

[XxVooDooxX]

10% maybe 20% I'm not positive but if your doing it daily maybe just 10%. Hopefully someone with more experience in the matter will chime in

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[KLehman72]

Thanks... I'll wait for more feedback. I want to learn...

[XxVooDooxX]

Haha for sure! I would highly recommend it

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[mr_X]

how did you cycle the tank?

[KLehman72]

Mr X,
I setup the tank by adding my Live Aragonite sand, and Live Rock which was from my LFS and well cured. I tested daily and the Ammo, Nitrites spiked slightly and then everything went to undetectable levels. I am using a RedSea test kit which I'm told is reliable. I'm concerned that even though I was told by my LFS that my tank had cycled, that it indeed had not completely cycled. The fish appear to be doing very well...they are all very active and show no signs of stress. I will be testing again tonight and continuing with PWC as needed. Is it possible that the tank had not completely cycled?

[hackteck]

i think you just added too much livestock over too short a period

[KLehman72]

So, continue PWC's until levels even out....

[XxVooDooxX]

That's all you can do

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[mr_X]

4 fish is a lot to add all at once, but i am suspicious about buying "cured" rock from the LFS, because they only have one or two rock bins. how can they have cured rock when they are constantly adding more uncured rock to their tanks? that rock would be going through spike after spike.
hardly cured IMO.

[KLehman72]

Originally Posted by mr_X

4 fish is a lot to add all at once, but i am suspicious about buying "cured" rock from the LFS, because they only have one or two rock bins. how can they have cured rock when they are constantly adding more uncured rock to their tanks? that rock would be going through spike after spike.
hardly cured IMO.

Your advice is important to me...what is the best path forward. I don't want my fish to suffer from my ignorance.

[mr_X]

just keep an eye on parameters, and feed sparingly. fish produce waste when they process food.
keep a water change mixed up and heated, in the event of an emergency.
after a few weeks the bacteria colony should have been strengthened enough to handle the new bio load.

[KLehman72]

Thanks Doug...

[beepboop]

I don't have a saltwater tank and I don't know if this is true, but I've heard a few times that whatever quantity of fish you'd have in a freshwater aquarium (following the one inch per gallon rule), you'll want half that number of fish for a saltwater (one inch per 2 gallons).

[KLehman72]

Mr X,

Should I be doing daily 10% or 20% water changes? I did the 10% change last night and test everything again 5 minutes ago and found zero improvement.
PH 8.0
Ammonia 1 ppm
Nitrites 1 ppm
Nitrates 25 ppm

[mr_X]

if you can, i don't see a daily 10% water change to be a problem. remember- the solution to pollution is dilution.
the inches of fish per gallon rule doesn't work at all for salt water.