test results and im perplexed

hello once again all,

so i just finished testing my water and before i go into the results here is my setup

tank: 180 l (48 g)
recently added a 20 l (5 g?) sump with refugium and a non live rock (this might explain the later results..)
4 t5s 2 days 2 nights
1 200l capacity skimmer
1 heater
2 flow turbines
2 power heads

Live stock

1 6 liner
2 percula
2 skunk shrimps
1 peppermint shrimp
2 yellow tale damsels
1 flame angel fish (one im most worried about seeing my results)
several snails (8 to be exact)

Results

Ph 7.6 already added the doses needed to bring this back up...if interested ill keep you up to date
NO3 10mg/l
NO2 0.04 mg/l (this is what scares me the most, tested it twice with 2 different drop tests)
NH4 0,01 mg/l
Mg + Cal. 1180 mg/l
Salinity 30 ppt (low?)

now iv been reading up on NO2 poisoning and the symptoms the fish give off, i have been looking closely at my fish NONE of them breath fast, dont move, dart around or go up to the surface to breath (aside my percula who seem to love sleeping up there) so im confused is the poisoning a really slow process? also to contrast the lack of oxygen intake i used one of my powerheads to generate air bubbles in the tank to raise the oxygen levels.

what do i do? water changes, really? wont that eliminate the useful bacteria that will balance my tank? if i can avoid using chemicals i would very much like to do so. anyway any help is welcome

 

NO2 poisoning is a fairly slow process at lower levels. If it climbs much higher though, it will begin to damage the gills.

Water changes do not affect your bio-filter. The bacteria are not free-swimming, but rather, colonize on your rocks.

 

got it, so im looking at changing 60 l of my tank? roughly over 30 %

 

At least 30%.

 

how old

just a question?how old is this setup?when i first set my tank up i went 3 months of just looking at live rock and water.waiting for the tank to cycle.

 

same here 2 months and a half (10 weeks), think my mistake was adding bio load too quickly

 

test results

hi,even after 2.5 months things may still go up and down,i would wait a bit longer before introducing any livestock.i know its hard to do but ,all good things come to those who wait?lol

 

yea it was hard mais bon whats done is done, im for sure not adding anything else till i get those N02 levels down

 

your salinity is Low. 35 PPT.

 

Follow up

after an 80 l about 40% WC, i was able to bring my No2 down radically (from 0,4 mg /l to 0,1mg/l) however they are still around the values of 0,05-0,1 mg/l

looking back and trying to find out the source of the problem i have boiled it down to these 2 probable sources.

my mistake was adding fish 2 rapidly (on weekly basis and not testing the water before hand)

and

my families mistake was thinking that i was "starving my fish" since i feed them only about 2-3 times a week, so they went ahead and dumped a large quantity of shrimp pellets in my tank (-.-). i cleaned up the extra food and my cuc took care of anything i missed but ever since i have not been able to get them lower than 0,1 mg/l despite daily water changes

im almost starting to think that something is dead in my tank (a snail perhaps) and that is the source of the problem.

on another note, my shrimps have started molting again and i consider that to be a good sign. These past 4 days iv found 2 skunk shrimp shells and 1 peppermint shell. im not sure if shrimp growth is anyhow related to No2 levels but yea....

so what do you recon i should do next? will the tank settle itself with these levels of No2 or should i keep up my 20% daily WC?

thx -jeff-

oh yes and one other thing, i cant seem to be able to get my PH past 7.8 its somewhat annoying, salinity is at about 33-34 ppt