Desperate

[Valelostalo]

Hello everyone and thank you for having me.

I am in desperate need of help here.
Back story, my kids won two goldfish in a school fair and went to the store to get them a better home, the fish died the next day and now I have a 10 gal tank with filter (recently) a heater (getting different fishes this time) have been treating the water with the quick starter, and several water treatment liquids but nothing get my Nitrites down! It has been 2 months !!! I bought the kit for fresh water to test the water and everything is fine but the nitrites that are very high. I have changed about 50% of the water and nothing.
Is there any obvious item I am forgetting? (Like the air pumps you add or something?) I have no fish yet and loosing my hopes by now.
Thank you so much for your help

 

[coralbandit]

The % of water you change is how much the nutrient is reduced.
So if your nitirtes at super high a 50% change will leave them high?
Are you sure it is your nitrItes and not nitrAtes that are high after two months?

 

[Valelostalo]

Here is a pic

I don’t know what else to do. Here is a pic of how it looks my nitrites (and have been like this for a long time)

 

[coralbandit]

They say the bacteria that convert nitrites to nitrate take longer to reproduce but ths seems extreme ?
Have you tested for nitrAtes even though you have nitrites?
Did you use a de chlorinator when you set tank up?

 

[Autumnsky]

What is your temp and pH?

 

[54seaweed]

do you know anyone local to you who has a established tank that you can get a piece of media to give your tank a bump start

 

[fishkeeper90]

we had high nitrates (or nitrites) at one point in our tropical tank and we got some live plants and retested a week later and it went down to the right level with no water change

 

[Angellove78]

What do you have in the tank? And did you wash the tank with anything before you started everything? Does the filter have a pad with carbon in it? What fish are you gonna be getting?