Help major nitrite spike won't go down

[Colton]

My roommate severely overfed my fish while I was out of town, and when I got back, I tested the tank, and my nitrite was at 15 ppm! I've been doing 25% partial water changes everyday, and they won't go down! Please help!

 

[Sniperhank]

How many water changes have you done? It is hard to believe that they haven't gone down unless there is still a ton of food or other build up around the rocks or in the sandbed that is still decomposing and causing the continued rise of parameters into danger zones.

 

[Colton]

I've done 6 since I tested it. There's a lot of maroonish algae growing in the sand that's dying off. I'm not feeding at all. I'm afraid to.

 

[Sniperhank]

Well that is cyano bacteria. Are you using ro/di in your tank?

 

[Colton]

No.. theres no one in my area that sells it. And I can't afford an ro unit. The algae stuff is long and stringy.

 

[Reeffanman]

Are you getting a false reading? Test water do a 50%. Pwc and then test again. I doubt the cyano is producing nitrate. Maybe lost a few snails hermit fish. ??

 

[Colton]

I have lost 2 hermits. I had a huge scarlet hermit that vanished. I haven't lost anything big. The tank is a 20 gallon long. It has 1 ocellaris clown, 2 pajama cardinals, and a blue damsel. I have.one more ocellaris clown in quarantine. He was showing major distress.

 

[Colton]

Are you getting a false reading? Test water do a 50%. Pwc and then test again. I doubt the cyano is producing nitrate. Maybe lost a few snails hermit fish. ??

You mean nitrite, right? Btw, my nitrate us insanely high too. Like 240 ppm.

 

[HovaRockz]

Wow dats od high

 

[donker]

Is the nitrite so high that it's going off the test kit's scale? Maybe try diluting some tank water by 90% and testing it to see what you get. Anyway if those readings are accurate I'm amazed stuff is still alive.

 

[Reeffanman]

Yes of course I meant nitrite

 

[chiclidlover81]

thats alot of fish in a very small tank your bio-load is more then likely to much did you put them in at the same time?hope everything works out good luck

 

[Beengirl]

You should test your source water and see what the levels are in there. There's no way your levels will go down if you're adding more in with the water.
Nitrates above 40ppm are toxic and nitrites above 0.25 ppm are toxic. You might need to buy some bottled distilled water to get the levels down if your source water has high levels.

 

[HovaRockz]

I agree with beengirl I always test my water source even if coming from Lfs or even if coming right out of ro/di system always good to be safe then sorry

 

[Colton]

You should test your source water and see what the levels are in there. There's no way your levels will go down if you're adding more in with the water.
Nitrates above 40ppm are toxic and nitrites above 0.25 ppm are toxic. You might need to buy some bottled distilled water to get the levels down if your source water has high levels.

My source water is fine.
0 ammonia
0 nitrite

 

[Phranque]

My source water is fine.
0 ammonia
0 nitrite

What about nitrates & phosphates?

 

[ktomminello]

Did you stall a cycle?

What a conundrum!! Lol, anyways- if your water is that messed up maybe you cleaned a little too well Did you change or wash your filter/ substrate? You could have knocked out some bb in that case. Nite out, quick start, stability(seachem), stress zyme+, if you have a sand substrate make sure your substrate is still sand and not hardened in a carbon bonded state. Purified ocean water 5g boxes are only $11, if all else fails you can spend $22 and cycle out half your tank using that and add trace minerals and nitrifying bacteria and start again. To me it sounds as though your bioload is very high for tank size and your substrate combined with bioload and substrate degradation has made your tank toxic enough to kill off the bb. I hope this helps... Oh and the reason I know this is that I stalled my cycle on my nano reef tank by removing the live rock to fix a phosphate issue in my puffer tank and did some research, so don't feel bad, crap happens

 

[Colton]

What a conundrum!! Lol, anyways- if your water is that messed up maybe you cleaned a little too well Did you change or wash your filter/ substrate? You could have knocked out some bb in that case. Nite out, quick start, stability(seachem), stress zyme+, if you have a sand substrate make sure your substrate is still sand and not hardened in a carbon bonded state. Purified ocean water 5g boxes are only $11, if all else fails you can spend $22 and cycle out half your tank using that and add trace minerals and nitrifying bacteria and start again. To me it sounds as though your bioload is very high for tank size and your substrate combined with bioload and substrate degradation has made your tank toxic enough to kill off the bb. I hope this helps... Oh and the reason I know this is that I stalled my cycle on my nano reef tank by removing the live rock to fix a phosphate issue in my puffer tank and did some research, so don't feel bad, crap happens

The sand clumps, if that helps.

 

[ktomminello]

Sounds like you need to circulate your sand/ add new sand. You should do this in small sections of your tank, just break up and remove sand that has hardened like a rock (they contain a calcium carbonate byproduct, not sure what kind off the top of my head, but you definitely sound like you have a stalled cycle and are a little bit on the unstable parameters. Change water every time that you mix up your substrate, honestly I would suggest not doing it everyday, give it about 2 or 3 days. Remember to monitor parameters closely, other than just nites, and top off with processed FRESHWATER to avoid over salinity. Evaporation causes the salt content to raise.

Here's what I did with my stalled tank-
started in front, sectioned off 6 parts, stirred up each section every other day, removed clumps larger than a quarter or black (in black sand it turns white) and added new live sand to keep my substrate at 2-3 inches, did a 10% water change and added purified real ocean water, added my coralline encrusted live rock from my someday to be nano reef tank, and used biozyme marine and stress zyme+ at a half dose and cheated a bit by getting some filter media from my sw lfs and water from their reef tank, but the process is the same- There's a biofloss filter type that contains nitrifying bacteria and cultured bb that is very similar to "cultured" filter media. Just kept an eye on my water parameters and my CUC and puffer, my tank is now fine but it took me a while to get it under control... Free particles, calcium depletion and lack of bb= ammonia byproduct= nitrite= nitrate= phosphate= saltwater crash.... Did any of that help?

 

[Colton]

Sounds like you need to circulate your sand/ add new sand. You should do this in small sections of your tank, just break up and remove sand that has hardened like a rock (they contain a calcium carbonate byproduct, not sure what kind off the top of my head, but you definitely sound like you have a stalled cycle and are a little bit on the unstable parameters. Change water every time that you mix up your substrate, honestly I would suggest not doing it everyday, give it about 2 or 3 days. Remember to monitor parameters closely, other than just nites, and top off with processed FRESHWATER to avoid over salinity. Evaporation causes the salt content to raise.

Here's what I did with my stalled tank-
started in front, sectioned off 6 parts, stirred up each section every other day, removed clumps larger than a quarter or black (in black sand it turns white) and added new live sand to keep my substrate at 2-3 inches, did a 10% water change and added purified real ocean water, added my coralline encrusted live rock from my someday to be nano reef tank, and used biozyme marine and stress zyme+ at a half dose and cheated a bit by getting some filter media from my sw lfs and water from their reef tank, but the process is the same- There's a biofloss filter type that contains nitrifying bacteria and cultured bb that is very similar to "cultured" filter media. Just kept an eye on my water parameters and my CUC and puffer, my tank is now fine but it took me a while to get it under control... Free particles, calcium depletion and lack of bb= ammonia byproduct= nitrite= nitrate= phosphate= saltwater crash.... Did any of that help?

Yes, it did. The tank just has so much wrong with it, I didn't know where to start. The sand is called "marine sand" from my lfs. Im going to thin out my fish, too. Would 2 ocellaris clowns, and 1 blue damsel be too much?