i just bought another guppie today and another crab and the nitrite shot up fast including the alkalinity ..why is this?? its a 5 gallon. i clean it normally it was FINE before i left
Answers:
First of all, as the others have said, you are massively overstocked. If you want to take the inch of adult slim-bodied fish per gallon of water rule of thumb, you're looking at about 25 inches of fish:
5 guppies@2 inches each = 10 inches
1 pleco@12 inches+ each = 12 inches (minimum size for most adult plecos)
1 cory cat@2.5 inches each = 2.5 inches
Ghost shrimp are free on the biosystem, though should be kept in groups
Fiddler crabs will tear up any fish it gets its claws into - not a good idea for community tank
Plecos don't belong in anything less than a 55-gallon tank, not only because of size, but because of waste output and aggression issues. Another thing - cory cats are schooling fish (they do best in small groups of at least four). And if you have a mix of sexes within the guppies, you're going to have too many babies (assuming the parents and other fish don't eat them all) and your tank will be even more overcrowded. So, to make a long story short, you need a larger tank. If you choose the keep your pleco, you're going to need a *much* larger tank.
Your ammonia should have shot up before the nitrite did - that kinda stumps me a bit. At any rate, since the tank is so small, you should really only be adding fish in one at a time - more than one, and you're adding a heck of a strain onto the biological cycle, and your nitrifying bacteria aren't able to keep up with the waste production.
When you say you clean your tank normally, how do you define "normally"? Weekly? Monthly? Bi-yearly? And how much water do you take out at every change? Ideally, on a tank that small (assuming it has a filter), because it's so overcrowded, you should really be doing 25% water changes twice a week. If you weren't so overcrowded, you could get away with 25% changes only once a week.
waaay to many fish. you overloaded your biological filter. a 5 gallon should only have about 3 fish in it, maybe 4 if you have excelent filtration. the plec gets 2 ft long so get him out of there and get a snail if you want something for algae controll. the snail will also scavenge off the bottem so there goes the reason for the cory as well. the ghost shrimp is going to get eaten by the crab if not the guppys, and the crabs are going to go after your fish no matter what you do, they also really need a tank where they can get up out of the water. so that leaves you with 6 guppys and a snail, it'd be best to take it down to 4 guppys but try rehoming the others and see how your levels even out. as for the alkalinity, did you do a water change right before you added the other fish, or did you add the water from the bag to the tank, those are the only things i can think of that would effect that
you need a 10-20 gallon tank
Way too many fish! Your fish would be much happier in a 20-30 gallon tank and you will be able to control the environment better. Good Luck!
definetly need a bigger tank
Not only are you way overcrowded, you don't have a good combo of fish at all. Your crab shouldn't be with the fish at all since they'll go after your fish. Corys should be kept in schools. A pleco can get up to two feet in length, therefore should not be in such a small tank. Guppies need about 2g each.
I'm glad you are taking the time to worry abou nitrites (meaning you sort of care about the condition of your fish), however, I really want you to reconsider the tank situation.
Holy.. that fish tank holds a max of 5 fish, if they are one inch..the rule is 1gal per inch of fish. There is no filter in the world that can handle that ammonia..
You should only keep the five guppies and get rid of the rest.
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