KimAnnKitz
Aquarium Advice Regular
Let me start with the tank info first to get that out of the way.... Fluval Spec V (5 gallon) I betta, 2 mollies, 1 mystery snail. Tank has been set up since February 11 and stock was added one at a time. The LFS told me I could keep 2 mollies in a 5 gal with my betta so I really don't need to hear lectures about that. The tank is also heavily planted. Right now my EMERGENCY issue is the NITRITES... please just give me info on the NITRITES for now... Nitrites were slightly high on Monday and I did a 50% water change....here's today's story:
Woke up this morning to see one of my Mollies had died. I had been having trouble with this tank spiking ammonia every single day, now the Nitrites have gone crazy. Of course I removed the fish and tested the water. The NITRITES were off the charts purple. Did over a 75% water change immediately and then retested Nitrites. They are still reading off the charts after the water change! HELP!!! Do I do another water change immediately?????? I use Prime and Cycle. My other Mollie is not acting herself either. I have to stress that they were both fine and begging for food last night when I went to bed. I have had one of them for 3 weeks and the one that died for almost two weeks. The were very active up until today and came to the glass to see if I was going to feed them whenever I stopped to "talk" to them. So I believe the fish were happy and healthy in the tank. I test the tank almost daily....and until Monday was getting ZERO readings on both Nitrites and Nitrates, but the ammonia was high. Today the Nitrite was off the charts purple and the Ammonia was 0 ppm.
Some background: I added a Seachem Ammonia Alert a couple of weeks ago because of the constant high ammonia readings and that allowed me to relax a little with the DAILY water changes I was doing. Switched to every other day. I began to suspect that I was overdosing PRIME and that might be causing my weird ammonia readings. I had read that it is not a problem to OVERDOSE PRIME, but I realized that I WAS overdosing greatly by guessing at the amount to put in my 5 gallon. I honestly think the PRIME was causing the ammonia but perhaps keeping the Nitrites and Nitrates at 0. This is just my opinion, but the ammonia has went down drastically since I corrected the dosing of the PRIME. The Ammonia today was ZERO after 3-4 weeks of spiking to 1-2 ppm every single day. So I caution everyone to use the correct dose of Prime in their tanks. For a 10 gallon tank the dosing is 1 ml (if I am converting correctly), so for a 5 gallon I assume the dosing is .5 ml. I did some more research though and for small tanks Prime should be added at the rate of 2 drops per gallon, but I do not have a small dropper bottle. I am using a medication dosing syringe now to dose the tank. Right now though, I would appreciate all the NITRITE help I can get! Why didn't it drop after I did the 75% water change? And again, should I do another immediately? Or are my readings off because I just added the PRIME and CYCLE.... I don't want to lose the other Mollie or my Betta. I have had the betta for 2 months..... I do have other tanks and have been keeping Bettas for almost a year. The oldest tanks is, of course, perfectly cycled. The other 4 were set up within a few weeks of each other and are doing much better than this one. Am beginning to think I should have stayed with the Jungle Right Start instead of switching to Prime for these small tanks.
Woke up this morning to see one of my Mollies had died. I had been having trouble with this tank spiking ammonia every single day, now the Nitrites have gone crazy. Of course I removed the fish and tested the water. The NITRITES were off the charts purple. Did over a 75% water change immediately and then retested Nitrites. They are still reading off the charts after the water change! HELP!!! Do I do another water change immediately?????? I use Prime and Cycle. My other Mollie is not acting herself either. I have to stress that they were both fine and begging for food last night when I went to bed. I have had one of them for 3 weeks and the one that died for almost two weeks. The were very active up until today and came to the glass to see if I was going to feed them whenever I stopped to "talk" to them. So I believe the fish were happy and healthy in the tank. I test the tank almost daily....and until Monday was getting ZERO readings on both Nitrites and Nitrates, but the ammonia was high. Today the Nitrite was off the charts purple and the Ammonia was 0 ppm.
Some background: I added a Seachem Ammonia Alert a couple of weeks ago because of the constant high ammonia readings and that allowed me to relax a little with the DAILY water changes I was doing. Switched to every other day. I began to suspect that I was overdosing PRIME and that might be causing my weird ammonia readings. I had read that it is not a problem to OVERDOSE PRIME, but I realized that I WAS overdosing greatly by guessing at the amount to put in my 5 gallon. I honestly think the PRIME was causing the ammonia but perhaps keeping the Nitrites and Nitrates at 0. This is just my opinion, but the ammonia has went down drastically since I corrected the dosing of the PRIME. The Ammonia today was ZERO after 3-4 weeks of spiking to 1-2 ppm every single day. So I caution everyone to use the correct dose of Prime in their tanks. For a 10 gallon tank the dosing is 1 ml (if I am converting correctly), so for a 5 gallon I assume the dosing is .5 ml. I did some more research though and for small tanks Prime should be added at the rate of 2 drops per gallon, but I do not have a small dropper bottle. I am using a medication dosing syringe now to dose the tank. Right now though, I would appreciate all the NITRITE help I can get! Why didn't it drop after I did the 75% water change? And again, should I do another immediately? Or are my readings off because I just added the PRIME and CYCLE.... I don't want to lose the other Mollie or my Betta. I have had the betta for 2 months..... I do have other tanks and have been keeping Bettas for almost a year. The oldest tanks is, of course, perfectly cycled. The other 4 were set up within a few weeks of each other and are doing much better than this one. Am beginning to think I should have stayed with the Jungle Right Start instead of switching to Prime for these small tanks.