nitrite HELP

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Stacie3972 said:
Well all the excitement was for nothing. Just tested my water and right back up to 5.0 nitrite :-( I want to cry! I wonder if I should wash my filter its so stopped up it running back out from where the intake tube is?
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Im not sure whether you should clean it while cycling :-/ if you have too clean it always clean it in tank water to help.preserve Bacteria,and clean gently not too vigorous
 
tropicalfishlady said:
Im not sure whether you should clean it while cycling :-/ if you have too clean it always clean it in tank water to help.preserve Bacteria,and clean gently not too vigorous
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Its hard cycling but you will get there it takes time and patience i think fish in cycles take longest and you have to.keep.doing many water changes to help your fish while doing so,fishless is better aside from looking at a fishless tank i found it more worth it it end.
With my 1st tank.on bad advice saying wait.a.week.before adding fish then nightmare i lost loads of fish and didn't no what was happening,it did cycle eventually but i lost fish and it took foreverso good luck and hope you get there its a lot of work !!!
 
Stacie3972 said:
Well all the excitement was for nothing. Just tested my water and right back up to 5.0 nitrite :-( I want to cry! I wonder if I should wash my filter its so stopped up it running back out from where the intake tube is?
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If your ammonia ia dropping,ive been reading through your posts,nitrites will rise so now its to.wait for them falling which they will when the nxt phase of bacteria build up,just keep up with regular water changes.cos nitrite not good for your fish !!! It will drop at sum point sumtimes it happens all of a sudden mine did lol like down to 1 then 0.50 then 0 just what mine did
 
I am fish less cycling my 30 gallon. It's been going almost a week and all I've done is test daily and added ammonia once. So most def go fish less!! And NEVER trust fish store employees. I was told the week thing to and sold 25 bucks worth of "beneficial bacteria" and told I would be fine. I've been lucky I've only lost two due to water conditions but I have worked my rear off on this tank! The other two I lost was due to the fish store employee telling me it was okay to put a puffer in with my all my other fish and it ate my two beautiful moon golbys. I learned my lesson. I now always always research what I'm going to buy before I go to the fish store! My lfs is awful they will tell you anything I was standing in line one day and listened to the girl tell a customer with a new tank that angel fish and Oscars would live together just fine in a 10 gallon tank!!! Thank god the employee had to answer the phone and I spoke to the girl and told her the truth. I would rather look at an empty tank for a month than be doing this. It's not only a ton of work its also hard on my fish.
 
I guess I need to learn patients lol. I'll keep up my water changes and just hope it drops soon.
 
Stacie3972 said:
I am fish less cycling my 30 gallon. It's been going almost a week and all I've done is test daily and added ammonia once. So most def go fish less!! And NEVER trust fish store employees. I was told the week thing to and sold 25 bucks worth of "beneficial bacteria" and told I would be fine. I've been lucky I've only lost two due to water conditions but I have worked my rear off on this tank! The other two I lost was due to the fish store employee telling me it was okay to put a puffer in with my all my other fish and it ate my two beautiful moon golbys. I learned my lesson. I now always always research what I'm going to buy before I go to the fish store! My lfs is awful they will tell you anything I was standing in line one day and listened to the girl tell a customer with a new tank that angel fish and Oscars would live together just fine in a 10 gallon tank!!! Thank god the employee had to answer the phone and I spoke to the girl and told her the truth. I would rather look at an empty tank for a month than be doing this. It's not only a ton of work its also hard on my fish.
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Yeah i know what you mean l learnt the hard way on my 1st tank !!!
Now i fishless cycle :)
 
Hang in there, Stacie!! I know it seems like forever but zero ammonia means half the battle is already over! Keep up the great job your doing to keep your fish healthy in the process! :)
 
Thanks for the positive help from everyone! I'm bound and determined to get this tank cycled.
 
I'm looking at putting in a large piece of driftwood. My big fake stumps paint is starting to flake and I'm worried it will hurt my fishes if I don't get it out. What are yall thoughts on driftwood?
 
Stacie3972 said:
I'm looking at putting in a large piece of driftwood. My big fake stumps paint is starting to flake and I'm worried it will hurt my fishes if I don't get it out. What are yall thoughts on driftwood?
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It's a great look to add. It will sometimes lower your ph but not horribly Any wood you get needs to be boiled to remove tannins. Which is good for fish but makes your water brown. Most don't like it. I say go for it! And good job sticking with it!! It will pay off in the end we promise!
 
CoryFan said:
Stacie, I am very impressed with your hard work!!! Kudos to you. :D
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Yeah you are doing great !!!
It is hard and you never think you going to get there,i was the same and when you see them all important zeros and they stay like that for a couple of weeks you get so excited,i never knew i would ever get that excited about water ha ha !!!! Well done
 
phishfriend said:
It's a great look to add. It will sometimes lower your ph but not horribly Any wood you get needs to be boiled to remove tannins. Which is good for fish but makes your water brown. Most don't like it. I say go for it! And good job sticking with it!! It will pay off in the end we promise!
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I have a piece of Mopani Wood as i used to have tetras and cory's,south american fish which like tannins,but i boiled my wood for abput 16 to 18 hours then soaked it in cold water for a time,got a lot of brown water tannins out,its been pretty good in water,of course it still leaks tannins a bit but not a lot :)
 
Why do people insist on lowering nitrites in a fish-in cycle? It's a process that is reactionary. You chose to put fish in before the biological filter was in place, which is fine, but you're now accepting DAILY water changes regardless of whether you think you need them or not. The fishes health is dependent on it.

With that said, if you're doing daily PWC's, then you're making the water conditioned to be safe in that process for a full day, so it's irrelevant as to what the nitrite levels are.

The nitrite levels are directly correlating to the amount of ammonia that exists. Why lower nitrites? Leave it alone and stick to the PWC's until you see nitrates and then you expect the ammonia and nitrites to be zero at that point. You are not doing daily water changes to lower nitrites, you're doing them to condition the water that has poison in it to be safe strictly due to the water conditioner.

And plants don't do anything to noticeably lower values unless they are fast growing. Too many people throw around the idea that a heavily planted tank will lower nitrates considerably. That's patently false. They need to be growing at a very fast rate for that to even occur, which is not possible with a typical low-tech setup.

Sounds like you're on the right track though; keep up those daily PWC's!
 
Oh I am religious with the pwc! I of course had a terrible bout with ich when I brought the fish home of course I know why. my tank was no where near ready and it was completely my fault. I almost lost my beautiful golden severum because of it he lost almost all of his fins and looked terrible I felt terrible of course because I did it. But because of the pcws his fins are growing more and more every day there all back except for his tail and it's growing beautifuly probably 2 more weeks and he will be in better shape than when I got him from the pet store. And the color in my blue and honey gromies is amazing! That right there is prof positive waterchangeapaloza is worth it.
 
So I just checked all my levels before my pwc and this is what I got
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 5.0
Nitrate 20
Ph 7.8
My ammonia has never been 0 before always. 25 or a little above. And I've never had this much nitrate in a test. This has to be a good sign. Right?
 
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