Amonia

Question
QUESTION: Hi, remember me? I am the dummy who wrote you a couple of days ago who bought fish and did not cycle the tank? I went and got a small piece of live rock today as you suggested and the Texas holey rock came in but have not put that in yet. I also had put in the liquid bacteria yesterday if you remember. I did some tests and the results are scary:
Ammonia - exactly between 0.5 and 1.0 (do I smell dead fish?)
Nitrite - 0.05 (?)
Nitrate - 0 (yeah!!)
PH - 8.4 (good or bad?)
Alk - 3.6 (Yikes!)
I am being flippant here because I am really scared I have signed a death  sentence on these poor fish. I found something old in a bottle (my husband had 2 tanks before) that is supposed to lower the ammonia, nitrates and nitrites. I doubt it will work since it sounds too good to be true, but he is not here to help with a partial water change today so I tried this stuff.
What test levels am I looking for? I will look up in a book what all the tests mean as not to bother you with that, but for now, to save my fish, what ranges in all this am I shooting for? I know Ammonia is zero, but that is about it. Also, What do I do about the high alkalinity? Will a water change take care of that? The alk was off the charts. Since my ammonia is high and my nitrates and nitrites are low, does that mean I am close to the end of cycling? I PROMISE I will not bother you and ask you to hold my hand through this, just please help this one last time.
Thank you!

55gal, sailfin tang, 2 clowns, cleaner shrimp, sally crab, protein skimmer, 2 biowheels, two 450 powerjets, heater, holey rock, 1 8x8 piece live rock.


ANSWER: well everyone makes mistakes, just with marines it can be a seriously expensive one!

the levels your looking for is:
ammonia 0
nitrIte 0
nitrAte between 0-20 will be fine
PH 8.0-8.3
alk 2.0-2.5 meq/l to convert this to KH (kilo hardness)multiply it by 2.8 this will give you about 6-7 dkh

you should also be wary of adding things that you don't know what they are, some things contain copper and this is lethal to marine inverts.at the end of the day if everything is done right you won't need additives.

as your tank is cycling water changes will just hinder the process, you will see your ammonia and nitrItes drop and your nitrAtes rise. when amm and nitrIte is zero then you can carry out a series of small water changes to bring the nitrAtes down.

any more questions just give me a shout

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks! My clown is not looking too good. He has a long white string hanging from him and one of his fins is faded and his skin looks weird on one side. Do you know of a good book or website I should get for fish diseases? I should have soemthing on hand for reference.

Answer
that is a parasite, i dont usually recomend this but it seems your clown will not survive anyway. fill a tub with pure RO water and then dip your clown in for 5-10 seconds, this should kill the parasite and not stress the clown too much.

www.ultimatereef.com
www.tropicalfishcenter.co.uk

these are 2 forums i use for when i need to ask some questions, the guys on here are serious about their hobby so be prepaired to get some stick for not cycling your tank. they are really helpfull guys and girls on here who are willing to share their knowlege and experiance, there are thousands of threads on here with everything you could ever need to know about marine keeping