Nitrites too high

[qquake2k]

I have a 16 gallon freshwater aquarium that I set up on June 6. I'm currently running an AC50 HOB filter, and a Fluval 206 canister filter on it. I have Nitra-Zorb in both filters. I put the coarse foam from an Eheim Liberty 200 HOB filter in the Fluval to help seed it. The Fluval has been running for a little over a week. I've been seeding with Stability. The nitrites have been high for a few weeks now. I'm using test strips, and I recently got an API master test kit just to make sure. I've been doing weekly 50% water changes, but it doesn't seem to be helping. In the last two weeks, I've lost a red wag platy, a black molly, a cory, and two plecos. I'm down to one red wag platy, one black molly, and one cory. The fish that are left seem very healthy and active. I don't think I'm over feeding. Any ideas?

 

[Andy Sager]

Sounds like the "Stability" is not working. I'd suggest using Seachem's PRIME to detoxify the Nitrites until the bacteria bed gets more stable.
There are 2 schools of thought when it comes to cycling an aquarium. With a 'fish in" cycle, when the ammonia and nitrites subside, you have visual proof that there are enough nitrifying bacteria to sustain the bioload present in the tank at that moment. By doing water changes before you have this end result, you reduce the level of bacteria needed to consume the ammonia and nitrites present but you make the water less toxic for the fish. By using the PRIME, you get the same detoxification while the bacteria bed becomes stronger so it's an "aquarist's choice" as to which way to proceed. In either case, do not add any more fish until the ammonia and nitrites have returned to 0ppm.
The second school is the "fishless" cycle. This method uses an ammonia source not created by living animals in the tank and the process still happens. The concern with this method is that you have no idea how large a bed you are creating. Use too little ammonia and it's possible the tank will re-cycle when the fish are added. The good part to this style is that there are no fish to have to worry about. The bad, you have to look at an empty tank for a while.

At this point, if you can get some filter material or gravel from an established aquarium to put into your tank, you will help speed up the process. If you can't, PRIME is said to detoxify nitrites for up to 48 hours so you would need to repeat the treatment every other day until the Nitrites are converted to Nitrates. Continue to do your weekly water changes adding the PRIME to maintain the reduced toxicity. If you want to let it all happen naturally, I would do smaller daily water changes than the one larger weekly one until the levels have stabilized. Then you can go back to the weekly water change. As always, do not add a lot of new fish to a newly cycled tank at one time. The bed needs to grow to the ammonia level present and overloading will cause another re-cycling.

Hope this helps

 

[Mama Karoti]

In addition to using Prime, I would do more frequent water changes until the tank is cycled. Then you can go back to 50% per week after it's cycled.


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[BBradbury]

Cycling a Tank With Fish

Hello q...

Cycling a tank with fish, requires daily testing of the tank water and smaller water changes so you can properly grow the bacteria colony. Floating plants should be added to help steady the water chemistry during the nitrogen cycle.

Adding chemicals to the tank water to artificially cycle the tank doesn't work very well as you've probably noticed.

If you'd like a reliable procedure, just ask someone on this forum or research the subject on line.

B

 

[qquake2k]

Well, the level hasn't been this low since I started testing a few weeks ago. I did get some Prime, I'll see if that helps. I'll also do smaller, more frequent water changes.

Thank you everyone for the replies!

 

[schoeplein]

Your tank hasn't cycled until nitrites have zeroed out. Keep on top of the daily water changes until your nitrites bottom out and your nitrates spike. PWC until nitrates are low, then keep up the weekly change regime. Reduced nitrites and zero nitrates seems like you're adding too many chemicals. Let it run its course and watch it closely. I was checking twice a day when nitrites started to spike.

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[qquake2k]

The only "chemicals" I've been using is Stability, which is a beneficial bacteria supplement, I thought. Unless you consider Nitra-Zorb a chemical. Should I remove the Nitra-Zorb?

 

[qquake2k]

Big difference in just three days.

 

[qquake2k]

Okay, I'm going to call this zero. This is without a water change. I'll keep checking it everyday, though.

 

[Andy Sager]

Reduction of nitrites does happen rather quickly as the bacteria bed grows rapidly once established. At this point, you should be seeing nitrates in your water. If your tests are showing 0 nitrate, you are getting a false reading and the tank has not cycled. If you are getting nitrates, you are on target The key now would be to not add a lot of fish at one time and to keep tabs on the nitrates that they don't get higher than 40 ppm. ( The lower the better.) Not overloading the tank and doing the smaller weekly water changes should keep your nitrate level in check. If it doesn't I would seriously search out the cause ( usually too many fish or too much fish food being fed) and adjust.

Keep us posted.
Hope this helps

 

[schoeplein]

Stability isn't necessary.

It is also possible to have zero nitrates if your tank is planted. Mine jumped to 80, so I did a couple PWC. The next day they were zero, and plants had grown a bit.

Your nitrates appear to be in the 5 to 10 range. Nitra-Zorb is probably helping to keep that low, but it won't last for long. It's still useful since the media itself can hold beneficial bacteria.

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[Andy Sager]

Stability isn't necessary.

It is also possible to have zero nitrates if your tank is planted. Mine jumped to 80, so I did a couple PWC. The next day they were zero, and plants had grown a bit.

Your nitrates appear to be in the 5 to 10 range. Nitra-Zorb is probably helping to keep that low, but it won't last for long. It's still useful since the media itself can hold beneficial bacteria.

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Why do the water change? Why not just let plants use the available nitrogen?

For what it's worth, you build a stronger bacteria bed by NOT changing water during the cycle. The more food available in the way of ammonia/nitrites, the bigger and stronger the bed you create. Just sayin

 

[schoeplein]

I had fish in the tank and wasn't aware of plant's capacity to absorb nitrate at the time.

For the same reason, I did water changes during the nitrite spike - with fish in, the nitrite is hazardous and this reduces the impact to them.

The nitrite to nitrate portion of the cycle lasted less than three days for me anyway.

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[qquake2k]

Today's test results. Looks like between 0 and 5ppm of nitrates.

 

[Andy Sager]

I had fish in the tank and wasn't aware of plant's capacity to absorb nitrate at the time.

For the same reason, I did water changes during the nitrite spike - with fish in, the nitrite is hazardous and this reduces the impact to them.

The nitrite to nitrate portion of the cycle lasted less than three days for me anyway.

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I understand. For what it's worth, PRIME is said to detoxify the nitrites for up to 48 hours which, in some cases like yours, is most of the higher nitrite period. It also helps allow for a stronger bacteria bed without being hazardous to the fish. The more food available for the bacteria to consume, the more bacteria will grow and multiply. By diluting the food source through water changes, the weaker the bed.
(BTW, back when I first started keeping fish, in the 60s, we just did our weekly water changes with new tanks and many fish survived the cycling period this way. It made the next fish to go into the tanks less of a stress on the system. It's more about the toxicity than the level of nitrites and ammonia. )

 

[katiekelsey]

High nitrites is mostly caused by rotting food. Feed only once a day for the first six months.

 

[schoeplein]

Or a cycling tank, as is the case here. If you have high nitrites in a cycled tank, you've added too many fish at once or don't have enough surface area for bacteria colonies to grow to compensate (aka, too little filtration).

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[Andy Sager]

High nitrites is mostly caused by rotting food. Feed only once a day for the first six months.

Or a cycling tank, as is the case here. If you have high nitrites in a cycled tank, you've added too many fish at once or don't have enough surface area for bacteria colonies to grow to compensate (aka, too little filtration).

Hate to disagree but high nitrites is caused by a high ammonia level first and more than just rotting food can cause that and usually does. One example of this is too many fish in an aquarium coupled with improper aeration/filtration can cause a high ammonia level just through the fish's respiration. In today's hobby, the frequency of overstocked tanks is very high and the lack of knowledgeable sales people in stores to properly guide a new hobbyist is sadly, even higher.
In a properly set up and maintained aquarium, the fish can ( and should) be fed 2-3 times per day and even more depending on the specie and type of food. Smaller, frequent feedings is what's recommended or the guideline of what the fish can eat in 1-2 minutes per feeding can be used. Withholding food for "biological" reasons is on par with poor husbandry and animal cruelty. You are mostly not dealing with wild fish so the excuse that wild fish don;t eat everyday is not valid. These fish are raised in farms and fed frequently and in some places, continuously. You then want to stop them from feeding and expect them to thrive in your aquarium? That's not gonna happen.

As for high nitrites in a cycled tank, if you have this, the tank was not properly cycled for the fish load present. There are posts and articles about cycling an aquarium all over the internet and this site but the short version is simply: When a tank goes through the "cycling" process, bacteria are produced to consume the ammonia & subsequent nitrites present in the water. Once these levels have risen and subsided, there are now enough bacteria present to match the bioload present at the time the nitrites went back down to 0. So if this happened with say 2 small fish in the tank, the tank is "cycled" for those 2 small fish. If you had 100 small fish in the tank, the tank is "cycled" for those 100 small fish. Being "cycled" is not the end of the equation. How many fish the tank is cycled for IS. The good news is that these nitrifying bacteria reproduce rather quickly and can grow to match a new load of ammonia when more fish are added. When you add too many fish however, and they produce ammonia levels that exceed the growth rate of the bacteria bed, you will in essence be cycling the tank again. You also need to be aware that the bacteria bed shrinks when the ammonia level is reduced. So if you had a tank that was "cycled" with 50 fish and you then removed 40 of those fish, there will be bacterial die off and 6 months down the line ( for example), you can not add back those 40 fish at one time without putting a tremendous strain on your bacteria bed. This is why you always want to add small amounts of fish at a time no matter how many fish you "cycled" the tank with or when using a fishless method.

Hope this explains things