INSANE Nitrite Spike???! Need Help

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Tasmainia300

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Apr 17, 2014
Messages
52
Location
California
Hey all, so I'm in the middle of fishless cycling a 10gal tank for my betta, and in the meantime I've been keeping him in a temporary 1gal tank.

On the 9th of April I setup a brand new 5.5 gallon tank to temporarily house the betta in. I did bring over the heater from the cycling 10gal and some floating anacharis from the 10gal to put in the 5gal for the betta and I used some old unused white aquarium gravel we had extra for substrate. I used tap water treated with Prime for the 5.5gallon tank.

The next day I tested the water parameters of the 5.5gal with my API master liquid test kit and got 0ppm Ammonia and 0ppm Nitrites, and the previous day the betta had been fasted. That day I fed normally with New life spectrum betta pellets (2 pellets in morning, 2 in evening) and he made a mess of the first two pellets, leaving some to fall into the gravel. I wasn't going to do a water change that day since the parameters were fine, so I thought I'd pick out the food the next day.

Around that time I also noticed two baby snails had hitchhiked on the anacharis to the 5.5gal. During that day he managed to eat one and kill the other one which was slightly bigger. Once again I thought I'd vacuum it up the next day with my water change.

So the next day I did my water tests and got .25ppm ammonia, and >5ppm nitrites!?!? I thought I messed up the test so I tested again and got the same thing... The magenta color is seemingly much more saturated than the 5ppm color on the test card!

I panicked and did a 60% water change, which then brought the nitrites down to .25ppm. Throughout all of this the fish showed absolutely no symptoms or signs of stress even, perhaps due to the prime. I did my best to vacuum the gravel and got all visible debris out (which there wasn't much of to begin with...). Also I only fed 2 pellets that day, so half of normal, and he ate both whole without making a mess.

So now that brings us to today, about 24 hours later I just tested the water again. Ammonia is at .25ppm and Nitrites are back up to this insane magenta color that must be at least 5ppm!!! I can get a picture of the color if someone would like to see it... The fish is acting totally fine and normal, swimming around, begging for food, flaring at his reflection etc. and there are no visible signs anything is wrong but I just don't understand how I could have so much nitrites so quickly!

I know the creation of some nitrites is inevitable because the tank isn't cycled and I used some material from the 10gal which would introduce a little BB, but my 10gal has been cycling for almost 2 weeks with a supply of 2ppm ammonia and my nitrites have barely just passed 2ppm in that tank.

So how the HELL could I have gone from 0 to 5 OR MORE ppm of Nitrites in 24 hours???? Any help is greatly appreciated, I know this was a pretty long and complicated post.
 
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The API tests get a bit of flack here but are normally reasonably reliable. One way to check would be to ask a fish shop to re-test. Or test your tap water.

Also check your ph - if the bacteria have increased activity (eg on water change or slightly higher temp), ph may start dropping.

1ppm of ammonia goes to ~2.7ppm nitrite goes to ~3.6ppm nitrate. So I have seen a few threads where nothing is happening, then water changes; others where the nitrites were never seen and nitrates spiked suddenly. Hope this helps. The bacterial populations can do funny things (including some unlucky threads where it seems to un-cycle back a step or two).
 
Test prime in a water mix. Fairly sure you'll get 0.25. Make sure the test sample has NOT seen any biological activity. Seems to be a common number.
Don't worry, it's ammonia in its bound form nh4 ammonium and not ammonia in its free form nh3.
I believe most test kits measure both nh3/4+ and from the test depending on pH and temperature you then extrapolate what percentage is free form nh3. (There are plenty of charts on the web.)

This is why some fish do ok when the ammonia reading eg2.0 should (but doesn't) kill.

Edit, worth noting, in the presence of free ammonia, the bacteria for handling nitrite nh2 are killed or do not reproduce.
Further, fish can handle nitrate among many other poisons. This takes place at the gill site. It stops poisons entering the body. For a short term all fish are capable of this. Tolerance is dependant on species.

(Also) I did some tests on food. Of the brands I tested catfish pellets came out worst. At 4ppm nh3/4. I think ammonia is used as a binding agent/preservative at the food factory. Ammonia hydroxide.
 
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