Hello All,
I posted here a few days ago about my consistently high nitrite levels on my month old 24 gallon tank. It ran for about 3 weeks before I added 6 Zebra danios just over a week ago. I've been following everybody's advice and doing large daily water changes and feeding every other day. The fish seem to be doing okay.
But no mater what, my nitrite levels go through the roof - off the scale on the API master test kit! Strong magenta color - 5ppm plus. (It's worth noting that my ammonia is consistently at 0 and Nitrate around 10-20ppm)
Yesterday I finally got frustrated and did back water changes - three 50% in a row over the course of a couple hours. This finally got my level down to the 0ppm on the API test. I figured at least this way it might have a chance to catch up.
I tested again a couple hours later just to see what was up, it had gone slightly purple - circa .25ppm. I figured this was just the normal cycle trying to catch up.
I tested again just now, less than 24 hours since the massive change, and it's back into the magenta range!! I only have 6 fish, and my tank is well planted. It seems impossible that they could have provided so much ammonia to produce that insane spike.
Is there something else that could be causing these readings??? My only thought is that I'm using PPS-pro fertilizers from Green Leaf, but I've searched a ton of places and found no mention of them affecting nitrite levels.
I'm going to keep doing daily 50% water changes, but there's no way I'll be able to keep up with any more massive changes than that if this is going to happen every day. The fish seem perfectly fine, and I've been overdosing on prime as a precautionary measure.
This seems highly unusual based on everything I've researched, and I've found nothing online quite like my situation.
I'm curious if anybody has any thoughts.
I posted here a few days ago about my consistently high nitrite levels on my month old 24 gallon tank. It ran for about 3 weeks before I added 6 Zebra danios just over a week ago. I've been following everybody's advice and doing large daily water changes and feeding every other day. The fish seem to be doing okay.
But no mater what, my nitrite levels go through the roof - off the scale on the API master test kit! Strong magenta color - 5ppm plus. (It's worth noting that my ammonia is consistently at 0 and Nitrate around 10-20ppm)
Yesterday I finally got frustrated and did back water changes - three 50% in a row over the course of a couple hours. This finally got my level down to the 0ppm on the API test. I figured at least this way it might have a chance to catch up.
I tested again a couple hours later just to see what was up, it had gone slightly purple - circa .25ppm. I figured this was just the normal cycle trying to catch up.
I tested again just now, less than 24 hours since the massive change, and it's back into the magenta range!! I only have 6 fish, and my tank is well planted. It seems impossible that they could have provided so much ammonia to produce that insane spike.
Is there something else that could be causing these readings??? My only thought is that I'm using PPS-pro fertilizers from Green Leaf, but I've searched a ton of places and found no mention of them affecting nitrite levels.
I'm going to keep doing daily 50% water changes, but there's no way I'll be able to keep up with any more massive changes than that if this is going to happen every day. The fish seem perfectly fine, and I've been overdosing on prime as a precautionary measure.
This seems highly unusual based on everything I've researched, and I've found nothing online quite like my situation.
I'm curious if anybody has any thoughts. 
