My Nitrites are nuts!

[jobusgal]

I have a 10 gal community tank set up in my son's bedroom. The fish are great (3 zebras, 2 platys, 2 mollies, 2 little cory cats and a gold skirt tetra.) The problem is twofold: First, I do 50 -60% water changes every couple of weeks, with an occasional 10% in there when it looks a little cloudy. After the water changes it looks clear and perfect, the Nitrites are really low, and the Nitrates are zero. After about 3 days the levels start to increase, and by a week or so in, the Nitrates are starting to show on the test strip and the NITRITES are off the chart. I have asked at the pet store in town, and the fish tank guy that comes to our office, and they all tell me to leave it be and not worry - but I'm concerned because I know that the Nitrites being that high isn't ideal for the fish, although they're all pretty hardy and have been with us since we set up the tank 3 months ago. What can I do to get these levels down, that doesn't require a huge water change? I do use a little aquarium salt (for the mollies) and have Whisper filter that is supposed to work with the 20 or 30 gal. tanks.
Secondly, the algae (sort of an orange color) comes back fairly quickly as well, and within a couple of weeks is all over the sides of the tank, the gravel and the fake plants. Help! I'm a novice, and don't want a bunch of dead fish in my son's room! It's too traumatic!!!

Thank you - jane

 

[SerLunchbox]

Ok as for teh algae problem, personally i would get a small algae eater. a farowella or a flying fox would be great for you, but even a chinese algae eater would be the best. Secondly, i would clean your gravel and do water changes of apx 10% once a week. i find that 50-60% every 2 weeks is too much water going and for a 10 gallon that can be a bad thing because it is so small. I personally found that it was too much water for every 2 weeks. I personally started off with a 10 gallon tank and i did the 2 week cleaning once and would never do it again. my tests for nitrites, nitrites and ammonia was off the chart when that happened. The only other reason that you may be getting really high readings is that you seem to get it at the end of a cycle. If you would like, PM me and i can try to help you out better. i HTH.

Cheers

 

[TankGirl]

Welcome to AA, jobusgal!

Don't do anything at this point - you'll have to ride it out (unless you can get some Bio-Spira at the LFS, which will solve the problem in 24 hours). Don't add any more fish until this issue has resolved, because that just puts more strain on the bioload. Lower your water level and cut the heat back a couple of degrees to help the fish get O2 better (that is the major issue with high nitrites) and the salt helps this, too, as you may already know. Hopefully in a week or 10 days you'll see a reduction or absence of nitrite.

If you have any other tanks, or have a friend with healthy tanks you can borrow some dirty filter media and put that in yours, which will boost your bacterial colonies very rapidly.

Good luck!