Even with two 45% water changes, nitrites 5.00+ ppm

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Graybeard

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jan 17, 2006
Messages
49
Location
The Bayou City
20 gl with plastic plants before substrate change.

Tank001.jpg


I changed the gravel to playsand today after removing about 50% of the water. I changed the sand and refilled the tank and brought ammonia to 1.0 ppm. When I checked nitrites, they were 2.0-5.0 ppm.

So I did a 40% PWC and checked nitrites again and they are somewhere between 2.0-5.0 ppm, it's hard to tell on the chart.

I checked nitrates and they are 10.0 ppm.

Should I do another PWC?

I feel like I'm pouring the beneficial bacteria down the drain :(
 
I agree - don't buy any new fish yet, especially the rams. How are the old fish doing? Keep doing water changes. You're not throwing away any good bacteria by doing water changes. The bacteria don't live in the water column. They live in the filter and on solid surfaces in the tank like the gravel and plastic plants.

It may be a bit too late, but where is your old gravel? It has some good bacteria on it. If it is still wet, put it in a few mesh bags, or some new, clean pantyhose. Put this pantyhose or mesh back into your tank on top of the sand. This will help the good bacteria migrate to the sand. After a few weeks, or maybe sooner (keep checking your parameters) remove one bag at a time. Judging from your post time, it may not be too late. As long as the gravel is still sufficiently wet, you can try to salvage some bacteria from the gravel. Don't rinse your filter out until your parameters stabilize. There should still be plenty of good bacteria in the filter.
 
I was being a smart aleck...I am not buying fish yet but need guideance on the nitrites. With almost a 100% water change you would think I would have dropped the nitrites significantly.

When I changed the substrate I stirred up the gravel and let the HOB run for about 15 minutes. I captured a few gallons of water and put the plants and semi-cycled filter in the water.

I washed the sand and once it was in the tank I used a new filter clean up the dust. I poured the old water back in the tank, put the plants in and put the semi-cycled filter back in the HOB. So I've taken as many step as possible to save the bacteria.

Yes, it's a fishless cycle; however, there is a *tiny* creature swimming in the tank, maybe 1/8"-3/16" long and does appear to be a fish. Probably a stowaway from the single live plant I bought.
 
Graybeard, check my thread near the end (its 20pages long right now). Here's the problem:

You have high nitrItes. The test kit you are using (regardless of the make) is not meant to properly diagnose high nitrIte levels. You have two options. 1 you do a serial dilution which is described in my thread. This will let you know approximately how much nitrIte you have present.

2 you do a 90% PWC and check levels again. If you have been dosing with continuous ammonia (which I suggest), you might have a really high level of nitrIte in the tank (like 20ppm). Even if you cycle is completed, you might still never know due to the HUGE amount of nitrIte present. I would do a very large PWC and then measure again, if the nitrIte is still off the chart, do another HUGE PWC. Here's the math behind it:

You did not do almost a 100% water change. You actually did about a 70% water change. This is why during fishless cycling (or when fish are not present in the tank) you get as much tank water out as possible during a change. You cannot add %'s up during successive water changes. So when you did a 50% PWC, you decreased the number in half (lets say it was 10ppm originally, you decreased it to 5ppm). Now you do a 40% water change (that 5ppm gets decreased to 3ppm).

Had you done a 90% PWC all at once (and not added water back in between drainings) you would have had 1ppm left. So when doing PWC's, the % you actually remove at one time is a HUGE factor in how many PWC's you need to do. With fish its a different story due to stress and territories, but with no fish present its an easy decision, always take as much water out as possible when doing a PWC as you will remove the LEAST amount of bacteria, and do the LEAST amount of work.

EDIT: Oh and watch out for that "creature" that was in with the plant, if it dies it could skyrocket your ammonia levels and thus nitrIte and nitrAte. Personally I would fish it out and humanely kill it, or put it in another container and change the water every day or so until your main tank is at acceptable levels. Right now, your essentially torturing the creature.

justin :cry:
 
Good thread Justin...I will check the water tonight and do another PWC tomorrow. I will have to hunt for the stowaway, and it is SMALL and fast.
 
Graybeard said:
OK, 75% PWC and this is the result:

ammonia - 1.0 ppm
nitrite - .50 ppm

That's a perfect level to keep your tank at. Try to maintain the nitrIte level below 5 so you can always tell when the amount of nitrIte is being reduced. If the level every goes above the 5, give it a day or so, and then do a big PWC to get it back down to readable levels. Remember, these bacteria basically have exponential growth, so it starts REALLY slow watching the test results change. But once you have a lot, you can have a TON really fast. 2-->4-->8-->16-->32-->64-->128-->256-->512-->1024-->2048-->4k-->8k-->16k-->32k-->64k-->128k-->256k-->512k-->1million

So that first couple of days, you might only have a couple hundred bacteria and they will not make a noticeable difference to the tank levels, but that couple hundred quickly become a couple million, and then your starting to take off.
 
7Enigma,

Good post, great advice nice simple explanaition.

Follow what he wrote and you will be succesfull.

Brian
 
Nitrites were off the chart again today, apparently the greedy little nitrosomas are poopin' fools!

I did about a 90% change tonight and nitrites are .5 ppm. I added 10 drops of ammonia and will check it later after it's circulated.
 
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