Fish cycling nitrite sky high

[symplexx]

I have a fresh water 120 gallon tank been up about a month now. I had my ammonia spike. Now Im i have nitrite spike and about 20ppm of nitrate. Wondering if i should do a water change?

 

[symplexx]

Current readings

 

[jsmith21]

I have a fresh water 120 gallon tank been up about a month now. I had my ammonia spike. Now Im i have nitrite spike and about 20ppm of nitrate. Wondering if i should do a water change?

You should be water changing atleast 30% bi-weekly if not weekly.. that is not an ammonia spike that's an ammonia build up. It happens in new tanks a lot when the beneficial bacteria hasn't gotten a chance to grow to fight ammonia/nitrates. You've got to be watching these levels if you throw fish into a new tank because the only thing cleaning that water is you. The filters do not have the power to do it yet.

 

[Ironworker161]

Hi simplexx,
I would change half of the water at this point, keep checking your levels each day. You didn't mention if you have any fish in this tank. If you do, keep doing daily water changes until your readings are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and less than 20 ppm nitrates .

 

[symplexx]

I have 3 feeder gold fish in the tank. I didnt want to disturb the cycle and not to worried about loosing the ?. They seem healthy. The ammonia did spike and then I had nitrite spike ammonia dropped instantly and nitrates are beginning to rise but nitrites are not dropping...

 

[coralbandit]

It is common to 'sacrifice ' a goldfish or two to promote the bacteria.
Maybe just starting with a clean dead fish would better?
It seem so counter productive if one of those 'living' goldfish caught a disease from stress, ammonia poisoning or who know what and you had to sterilize your tank[kill the bacteria],use a boat load of meds[120g!] or suffer a hobby with fish that keep getting mysteriously sick.
There are better ways to safely cycle IMO .
I have a 180 DT, you should already embrace water changes...
Just my take ...