Weird water params...???

So I thought my cycle was over, It's currently week five and all of my params were perfect...zeros across the board...and reef params were perfect...I added my CUC and today I tested the params..and ammonia and nitrite are at .25 each...nitrate is 0 still.

Is this normal?

Please advise and thanks in advance!

 

btw...my CUC has only been in there for a lil less than a week...just fyi

Any advise is greatly appreciated....

 

are you running a skimmer? how big is your tank? what did you add? although CUC has very little bioload, but too big of a CUC could still cause some parameter spikes, you probaby gave your system a shock

 

Running a Tunze nano skimmer (works great), 24 gallon aquapod, I added on the first day: 3 small nassarius snails, 4 dwarf hermits (tiny), 4 astrea snails, two margarita snails, all small...two cerith snails, (all small) then three days later, after params all seemed perfect I added a small turbo snail because none of my CUC was going after the GHA.

The turbo is doing a great job of cleaning...(Probably better than all the others put together)...

I wanted to do a WC but I was advised not to until about week 12 or 14...so what's goin on

 

You added livestock....which creates waste. Your bacterial count needs to catch up in terms of the ammonia and nitrites. Be careful of cucs. They can nuke a system. Personally, I wouldn't have purchased a cuc quite yet. Let your tank mature. And I don't think your tank is really done cycling yet. Eight to twelve weeks is the norm. Here is a case where numbers can actually be misleading IMO.

 

how can a cuc nuke a system?

Posted via Mobile Device:
Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3

 

They can secrete a toxin if they get really, really stressed or mad. A member was just mentioning that his Cuc got caught in a powerhead and presto, no more tank.

I have a sea apple, a type of cuc. It actually has not one, but two defense systems that will nuke a tank. It only gets attitude if other fish nip at it or params get sooooo out of hand it can't deal anymore. Dying is not a problem. No release of toxins on normal old age death. But don't make them mad. Kind of the incredible hulk of the aquarium world. So just be aware. Knowledge is power. And negative Karma to that individual who sold you the cuc without warning you.

 

snails and hermits can release toxins as well?

Posted via Mobile Device:
Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3

 

John,

When he says cuc, he means Clean Up Crew and not sea cucumbers

 

LOL thanks for clearing that up inwall...I was so confused...

Second question: I retested my water...and my ammonia is now at zero...and nitrite is still at .25...but doesn't nitrite go down next per the bacteria?

Does the time of day affect test readings?? The reason I ask is because there is always more bubbles coming from the LR and LS during the day than during the night time...