what to do???

my tank cycled with 2 prawns and added 2 cleaner shrimp and 2 small tankbred clownfish 3 days ago.everything was fine till today.
my skimmer was not working properley so yesterday i took it off as im going to buy a new one.
i just tested the water and the ammonia is at 0.25pmm other resuls are fine
what shall i do put the skimmer back on till the new one arrives or do a water change?
thing is my lfs is not open today so i cant buy any ro water?
the shrimp and clowns look ok atm

 

Clownfish are pretty hardy and a ammonia level of .25 is not very high.I would just wait it out,don't feed anything for a couple days and let the bacteria catch up with breaking down the ammonia.You did remove the prawns after cycling ?

 

yes i removed the bag that the prawns were in as the prawns rotted away.
so shall i need feed them for 2 days and see what happens?
will they die without food for 2 days?

is this normal to get the ammonia spike even tho it cycled?

 

Your tank will go through several "cycles" until it reaches maturity. Everytime you add a new fish, the bacteria will need to catch up with your new bioload. As said before, clownfish are pretty hardy and should be able to survive.

Fish can go for several days without feeding. With you only having 2 small fish, you probably only want to feed every other day or so anyway. Check your levels again in a day or so and you will probably find that the amonia has dropped.

 

i have 2 cleaner shrimp in there also will they be ok?

 

Yes they'll be fine. Everytime you add a new fish your going to see a mini cycle which is normal and is just your bio-filter catching up with the new load.
Hobby grade test kits detect both ionic ammonium (less harmful) and toxic ammonia. pH and water temp determine the % of toxic ammonia in our test results. I used to have the formula to figuire the percentage but have lost it apparently. I can tell you though that imo your fish and shrimp will not be harmed

 

well just tested the ammonia with my api test kit and its not 0.25pmm anymore its sort of between the result colour of 0 and 0.25pmm

the clowns and shrimp seem ok
so how long does it ususlly take for the bacteria to catch up with the 2 shrimp and 2 clowns

 

a couple of days and it'll catch up.

 

will my skimmer take away some of the ammonia?

 

I would perform a 10-15% water change for the next couple of weeks. If you have the ability to put some carbon in it will assist with bringing down your amonia levels.

Good luck!