Back 2 back PWCs

[Coyne]

Is there a minimum amount of time to wait between water changes? I just has a massive nitrite spike (<.25ppm this morning and 1-2ppm tonight) and I'd like to get it down ASAP. I've already did a 50% PWC about an hour ago.

 

[Amlyel]

I'm very new here, but I can tell you that on Sunday I did 3 water changes, the last 2 not even an hour apart, I had problems with ammonia and it helped me big time. By the next day my ammonia was near perfect. And now it is perfect! Good luck!

 

[spiketooth]

This is more of a opinion question. Some people will 2 hours after, some will say 6-8 hours. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. Best thing you can do( this is my opinion) look at your fish, if they seem a little stress i would wait. Biggest thing is you want to make sure is the water is cycling through the filter so the toxins can spread out. I would wait min of 6 hours

 

[Coyne]

I ended up doing a total of 4 water changes over the last 24 hrs.... so I spaced them about 6 hours apart. All reading nominal again. The Harlequin rasboras in the tank seem ok, but the mollies are less active then they were, say, 36 hours ago. They didnt even seem all that interested in the bloodworms I fed the tank for dinner, but I think two of them might have been purchased pregnant. Im sure having a giant tube suck out half there home 4 times in a day doesnt help either. I'll just have to keep an eye on them for a bit.

I dont have that much experience yet and have only cycled 2 tanks so far... but both times I never had nitrite readings above 1ppm. I was a little panicked to see what seemed like such a large increase in such a small amount of time.
I had just changed out the filter pad with one that I had seeding in the main tank's hob for a week. I guess it wasnt as seeded as I thought/hoped and it sent the QT into a mini-cycle.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[spiketooth]

You can try adding stress coat. That might help

 

[Amlyel]

Spiketooth is right and I should have mentioned that in my post. My fish (2 Black Moor's) tend to like water changes. They actually get in my way when I do them to try to get at the rocks! Also my last water change was just water removal only as I had vacuumed the gravel very thoroughly the first 2 times. That takes much less time and really didn't bother them at all. I hope your fish are doing better! Glad you got your numbers in order as well. The people here are so helpful.