Its all good !...or is it ?

[kingcrab]

my 75g has had high nitrites for 2 weeks now....everything else is great..ph,am,na..etc.....i was doing 20 % water changes every week for a few weeks...but i slacked off this past 3 weeks...my water is crystal clear !!!!!...my fish are showing no signs of anything bad.....

reason being was that a few weeks back i put a carbon /ammo mixture in my filter...to drop my ammo..and make my water CRYSTAL CLEAR... i dont really like adding drops/ chemicals.. in my tank...anyway my nitrites spiked out of nowhere...so i did water changes..20% of a 75g tank..for 2 weeks striaght...figured the pwcs would lower the nitrite over a course of a week or two..so i dont have to add chems to the tank....i wont do that....that did not help...
and i didnt want to take out the carb/ammo mixture i just put in and replace it with nitrizorb.....so its been 3 weeks now and my nitrites are still very high but my fish are doing great !!!!...i will put the nitrozorb in this week though..seeing that my ammo is basically down to zero...

I GUESS WHAT IM SAYING IS THAT FROM MY EXPERIENCE IS THAT AQUARIUMS ARE A SLOW PROCESS WHEN YOUR DEALING WITH YOUR WATER..AND ITS BEST NOT TO EXPECT CHANGES OVER NIGHT !!!AND DONT FREAK OUT AND START DUMPING ALL KINDS OF CHEMS. IN YOUR WATER..OR DO A HUGE WATER CHANGE AND EXPECT RESULTS RIGHT OUT OF THE GATE....ITS A SLOW PROCESS .......JUST MY 2 CENTS...

 

[patola_l]

hmmm when you say almost no ammonia, what does that mean? how are you measuring(with what testing kit)? and what are the actual values fro ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. If you have a nitrite, or ammonia spike, i would recommend doing DAILY water changes of about 30%. at this point i would not change any of the filter media for sure. Your spike is being cause by something, and the only way it will clear up is the filter media to build up beneficial bacteria to bring things back to equilibrium. By change the media, you start the process all over again and it will re-cause a mini-cycle. Thankfully your fish look great, but "still very high nitrites" are very poisonous and deadly to your fish. I would be doing larger PWC every day in order to bring those down. And definitely do not touch the filter media, you need to build up that bacteria to fight the nitrite and ammonia.