Wacky readings

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

cginflorida

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
May 14, 2004
Messages
708
Location
Orlando, Florida
On Friday, before I went out and got my betta and 2 otos, my readings were: ammonia 0, nitrite 1, nitrate 10.

I've tested yesterday and today, and the nitrites seem to be going up and the nitrates down! Ammonia is still at 0, nitrites at 3-4, nitrate at about 7.

Can someone explain why this might be happening? Do I maybe need a new test kit? It's Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, two years old.

I've done 20-25% water changes yesterday and today. I haven't taken another reading yet since I did today's water change, I'm hoping the nitrites will come down.

I used fish food for fishless cycling, and there's quite a bit of it in the gravel. I'm gradually vacuuming it up as I'm doing these water changes. I just don't understand why I'm not seeing ammonia and the nitrites are going up. :|
 
My guess is that you have plenty of ammonia eating bacteria, but the nitrIte eating bacteria aren't as populous. You're probably getting the nitrIte spike as a response to having the fish in the tank giving off more ammonia (which is being taken care of) in turn making more nitrItes (which isn't being taken care of yet).

I would continue monitoring the levels and go ahead and vac the rest of the food out of the tank. The fish will put enough ammonia in the water to make up for it. Just try not to disturb your substrate when you do so. Try to hover your vac above the gravel just close enough to affect the food but not close enough to disturb the gravel.

I don't know if test kits have expiration dates or not.
 
Okay, thanks. I think I've come to the conclusion that 5 gal tanks are too stressful. :lol:

I think I'll set up my old 10 gal on a temporary basis for these fish, transferring everything into it, until I can get a much larger tank going in the near future.

I have some questions about cleaning the 10 gal, which I'm going to post in the General Discussion forum.
 
Back
Top Bottom