Update on my fish in cycle!

[Mrs.h2012]

My tank is about to complete week 5 of a fish in cycle on a 10g with two platys. I've been having my nitrite spike for the past 8 days now, before wc's my nitrite levels have been around 1-2ppm and after one sometimes two WC's a day I do my night tests and levels will be between 0-.25 or right at .25 and by the time morning test time rolls around its back up to 1-2ppm :/ nitrates are usually around 5ppm, some days its in between 0-5 and some days its clearly 5, one day they got up to 10 but that only happened once. Good news is my ammonia has been testing either a visible 0 or barely above zero, it's been a yellow color that's obviously not the light green of the .25 level for a week now. Getting a little worried that my platys have suffered their gills being burned by the nitrite levels, I can't tell it on my red wag but on my Micky mouse who is silver her gills are looking a little pinkish red

 

[RussellC]

Getting a little worried that my platys have suffered their gills being burned by the nitrite levels, I can't tell it on my red wag but on my Micky mouse who is silver her gills are looking a little pinkish red

Aquarium salt reduces nitrite toxicity. I do not, however, know how well the type of fish you have tolerate aquarium salt, so I'd wait for someone who knows more about them than I do to weigh in before using it.

Good luck!

 

[birdma]

I'm pretty sure platies, like most of live bearers, do ok w/ aquarium salt. Interesting to know about salts effect on nitrite toxicity.

 

[clearancepuppy]

Careful that cories don't get into the salt directly. It can kill them, I have read.

 

[librarygirl]

The nitrite phase is a bugger; I think it's worse than the ammonia phase sometimes. Nitrites can rise fast as you're seeing. The phase also lasts about 3 weeks on average. Some aquarium salt can help the fish but not sure how much; I guess whatever the carton says. Also dissolve it before you put it in and add it slowly to acclimate the fish to it. What dechlorinator are you using? Maybe add some stress coat to the tank before bed to try to protect the fish a bit more during the night if nitrites are rising that much.

 

[jetajockey]

Salt reduces nitrite toxicity really well, that's why it's not typically an issue in a sw tank. I usually go for around 1 tsp/5gal but if the tank has salt-friendly fish like platys in it I might even step up to 1tbsp/5g. Either way it doesn't take a ton of salt to get the job done, so just maintain a low level in the tank until the tank is done cycling. I use regular table salt and have never had an issue because of it, but there's a mixed opinion on this, so I usually just recommend kosher or aquarium salt.

http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/salt