chemical levels

[hisc1ay]

My tank has been up for a while...more than a month. My ammonia is 0, but my nitrite is like 1.5ppm. That's not so good, right? My nitrate is between 10 and 20. I did a 20% water change on Saturday. Maybe I need to clean my rocks better? What do y'all think?

-j

[nejsux]

Are you siphoning the gravel? What do you have in the tank? How big is it? What kind of filter? Sometimes you just have to be patient. Especially in fishkeeping. When did you add creatures or plants? Anf when is the last time you added something new to the tank?

[hisc1ay]

I didn't siphon the gravel til this last change. Right now I have a pleco, guppy, and two hunks of plants. The last add was the guppy about 3 weeks ago. It's a 10 with a whisper filter w/ carbon bag thingie (the cheap one at walmart). The last time I tested was 2 weeks ago, and the nitrite was high. The ammonia went down since then, but the nitrite and nitrate stayed the same.

I also have some of this brown stuff showing on my rocks. I think it's algae.

-j

[loganj]

You're almost there. Keep changing the water to keep the nitrite levels in check. Vacum the gravel when you change water. Since the ammonia has peaked and the nitrites are showing lower levels, your tank is almost cycled. You might want to check your water supply for nitrate...sometimes tap water will have nitrates in it. The bacteria that converts nitrite to nitrate (nitrobacter) grows more slowly than the nitrosomas (ammonia to nitrite), so it takes a little longer for the nitrite to go away. Hang in there.
Logan J

[CRaZeeeBiTcHisH]

when you say clean your rocks, i hope you mean siphoning......

[Grant R]

I think it's normal to have a fluctuating nitrite level at this stage with the tank. It will go down, but slowly and with time & patients. As Logan J said, the regular water changes are important. Just keep testing and you should see improved readings soon.

[hisc1ay]

Okeydokey. Yes, CRaZeee*****isHeRe, I mean siphon. I know better (now) than to sterilize them like I used to Oye, the fish I could have saved if I had known then what I know now.

This time I am trying to do things the right way. Unfortunately, almost immediately after I started, I lost 5 guppies to TB. The medication only healed one, but I'm glad to have him. He's good times. I try to do a 20% water change every weekend, and now I will be vaccuuming my gravel. Maybe I can get up some of those worms that no one knows the cause of.

-j

[Thaiboxer]

Similar question... I have a ~1 gallon bowl at work with a betta, and it doesn't seem to need cleaning even after 10 days. I'm going to do it after two weeks total, but my question is this: I want to clean it, I want to keep bacteria... I'm going to move the fishy out with a bunch of his water (50%), then maybe rinse the rocks lightly to get debris out but not sterilize. Is that a good plan? Thanks...