what to do please help???

I would leave things alone and let the cycle finish out. You should see ammonia and nitrites at 0.
Give it time...it will happen!

 

but if i leave it i risk losing my fish wont i ??

id rather do water changes while the cycle is going.i know it will prolong it but them may still have a chance.

 

I disagree. Nitrobacters are weak and would die off in a cycle. Sometimes cycles get jammed up at this point too, nitrobacters are weak and can die off where Nitrosomonas (sp?) are stronger and thrive on the ammonia – this is why during a cycle we test for nitrites rather than skip to nitrates and assume the cycle will go smoothly.

 

Crystal, Keep doing your water changes and keep the carbon fresh. Alternatively, bring the clown back to a fish store and ask them to hang onto them for you.

 

shall i also take the 2 cleaner shrimp back?
and what if they dont take them back? my lfs are fussy
could they possably survive the cycle with the water changes?

 

If you stay on top of the changes, keep the feeding to a minimum you could see this through and save the inhabitants. Don’t add anything else for a couple weeks once you get the tank stable again.

 

ok well if they wont take them i will feed the once a day but only 3 times a week but only a small amount ive been also adding seachem garlic gaurd to there food.
and i will do a 10% water change every week.

but im now confused to whats going on??????

i just tested my water again and here are my results just incase im reading them wrong but my nitrite was inbetween 0 & 0.25 this morning now its at 0 whats going on??? does this me its nearly cycled????

 

Those readings look perfect to me.
It could mean that it has finished cycling or just about to finish since everyhting else is 0 and the nitrate is 20

 

Crystal

Inwall75 wouldnt put you wrong

IMO whats happened is
you used a shrimp or prawn to cycle the tank- bacteria developed in order to cope with that

then you removed the shrimp or prawn and a bit later added fish
in the mean time the bacteria QTY reduced slightly as there was nothing for it to process (no food)
adding the clowns meant that the bacteria needed a bit of time to catch up
there was bacteria present, but not enough to initially process the wastes of the new fishes - thus you experience a secondary ammonia and nitrite spike

this can and does happen several times, each time you add a new specimen in fact, but the bacteria increases so quickly to compensate that most people that test weekly may not even record the fact that it did happen


Steve

 

That's exactly what I think happened.