did something stupid?

i had my tank up and running for a day and tested water and everything was good so i thought. i went and bought a damsel, 2 turbo snails and 2 $1.50 crabs thinking id be good. i reread on how to test my water the rite way and my ammonia has spiked. damsel, 1 snail (?) and a crap still living. i didnt spend lots of money just wanted to jump start the cycle. what should i do next? leave in was still alive and take out the dead or remove everything?

 

Well, you are going to hurt your livestock, if not kill them... you're asking if you should take the dead ones out or leave them in...

Two ways to look at it:

A. If the damsel lives through the ammonia burn to the gills, the extra decaying stuff in the tank will help the cycle. If it dies too, then you can just let it all stay and cycle the tank until you have zero ammonia, then remove the remains (if any) or just add a CUC.

B. Try to save the damsel and other livestock and cycle your tank using a more humane method. Only problem here is that if there is ammonia in the tank already, you can be sure that it's damaged the fish's gills at this point, and it might not make it anyway...

If you go with option B, you'll need to do something quick, and find a safe place to take the damsel soon... you may want to do a water change in the meantime, but this isn't going to help you cycle faster.

 

well i got my ammonia spike anyways. now should i just take everything out and let it run its cycle? or by leaving everything in will make my cycle longer?

 

you need to take everything back to the store.

What size tank do you have, how much rock did you use, was it fully cured live rock?

 

lol the snail i thought was dead is now sucking on the glass. i have a 55g tank with 60lbs live sand cured and around 40lbs cured LR have a total of 120lbs of LR 80 lbs were sorta cured but was sitting around the house a couple of days before i was able to get the tank.

 

then you are going to have a massive cycle. Anything on the rock that you had died when it was out of the water for a couple days. Ammonia is going to burn the gill of the fish. People have done it but I do not believe in cycling with livestock.