Drastic attempt to get things under control?

I have a tank that is about 5 weeks old... one cute little clown, and a few snails and crabs for clean up. But, my Ammonia is currently staying pretty high at 0.5 (which I think is pretty high... no?). Over the last few weeks, I have had trouble getting the Ammonia stabilized. I think there are two major things to blame.

[1] I have some rocks I took from the ocean (no protected zone) which have a lot of bio debris on them. I think all that stuff is not helping but causing lots of problems.

[2] I took sand from the ocean floor. This is fine, but I have little skills at cleaning tanks with sand on them (can't seem to get the knack of it).

So, with lots of bio debris coming off the rocks, and my lack of skills to clean it up in the sand, here is my idea:

[A] Switch the sand to gravel (which I know how to clean)
Take out all the rocks, clean them, sterilize them.

Thus, I will be left with one clown, gravel, sterilized rocks, and a cascade 80 filter. I was thinking that that filter should be able to handle one clown, and perhaps live rock is not necessary for this small tank (10 gallon).

So, I would appreciate your thoughts on this. It would be a rather delicate process to do, but I think it could be done... else I think I may end up with one dead clown -- when I bought the clown, I named him Jeremiah. For those who know biblical literature... unfortunately his fate is becoming true in my tank

-Adam

 

Was your tanked cycled? It sounds like your tank was not done cycling. Taking rocks and sand from the ocean in ok if you qt them properly. I would suggest at least 2 weeks with no light. If you did not cycle your tank completly before adding stuff, it will take forever and you will probably kill everything. Maybe you could take your clown to the lfs for safe keeping.

 

first your tank is only 5 wks old mine took 6 wks this was starting with small amout of semi cured rock and a shrimp. and i dint add 1 fish for another 3wks after that or so.

second never take rock from the ocean, alot of things are dying off that cant survive during those high parims, hence keeping the parims high. along with the pollution that could be held up in it from being collected near a shore line(most likely populated?)

you could cure it in a seperate bucket or buy some cured stuff.

ither way you shouldnt have the clown or inverts yet!.


key is to go slow and ask questions.

and i wouldnt go with gravel is a detritus trap.

hope i wasnt being rude, just the slower go and more you know. the better sucess you will have. trust me im learning with a big fat hole in my wallet.

 

you need to do some more researh before you jump right in. The tank needs to cycle through Ammonia to nitrite to nitrate. What you have in there is ok except the fish. Let it go and it will cycle but the fish my guess is will die. But wait at least a few more weeks till your paramiters get to zero before you get anything else.

Dont use gravel the sand will be ok. I dont even touch my sand when Im cleaning. I just do water changes and watch my media.