My Nitrite was high, one of my glo fish died.

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pettygil

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Jul 17, 2010
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My Nitrite was really very high, one of my glo fish died. So I did a 25 percent water change, and now I have no Nitrite. My question is, should I check every day, or every few days, or every week? I do not want anymore dead fish. My betta fish tanks, there is no Nitrite I was talking about my 40 gallon tank, but after the water change it fixed the problem. :thanks:(y)
 
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You should test as often as you are comfortble doing. If you are worried about water quality then do daily testing. If daily testing is showing you there is an issue then continue testing daily. If they dont show anything of concern over an extended period then cut back. Do your testing in a consistent manner. If you are doing a daily test, do it at the same time. For example before you feed your fish. If you are doing a weekly test, do it for example before your weekly water change. This way you can compare one test with another in a like for like manner.

I dont remember the last time i did a water test. Certainly not in 2023.

Did you test for nitrite, found it was high and then the fish died? Or did find a dead fish and then do the test which highlighted high nitrite? It could be the dead fish caused the nitrite spike and rather than the nitrite spike caused the fish death.

How high was the nitrite? A 25% water change will only remove 25% of the nitrite. It would take a 100% water change to completely remove all the nitrite. Its more likely the 25% water change reduced it a little, but the bulk was cycled out in the time between the high test and the zero test.
 
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You should test as often as you are comfortble doing. If you are worried about water quality then do daily testing. If daily testing is showing you there is an issue then continue testing daily. If they dont show anything of concern over an extended period then cut back. Do your testing in a consistent manner. If you are doing a daily test, do it at the same time. For example before you feed your fish. If you are doing a weekly test, do it for example before your weekly water change. This way you can compare one test with another in a like for like manner.

I dont remember the last time i did a water test. Certainly not in 2023.

Did you test for nitrite, found it was high and then the fish died? Or did find a dead fish and then do the test which highlighted high nitrite? It could be the dead fish caused the nitrite spike and rather than the nitrite spike caused the fish death.

How high was the nitrite? A 25% water change will only remove 25% of the nitrite. It would take a 100% water change to completely remove all the nitrite. Its more likely the 25% water change reduced it a little, but the bulk was cycled out in the time between the high test and the zero test.

The nitrite. was 1.0 ppm. I found the dead fish, then I checked my water. Yes, the fish dying could have caused the nitrite spike. I did a 25 percent water change, then I checked my water. And i have no more Nitrite. I will check my water every day and see if I need to do a water change. I used to have 9 glo fish but they keep dying on me. I now have 3 glo fish. I do not think I will buy anymore Glo fish they all died on me. My Cory fish are still alive and doing well and so are my Betta fish. They are hardy fish and great for a beginner like myself. The only time my Cory fish died is when my tank was cycling. Now that my tank is cycled no cory fish die on me, not yet anyways. I used to have 8 guppy fish and they died on me to, all of them. Maybe it was my water quality I'm not for sure why.
 
Any time a fish goes through a cycling process there is always a chance that they will have a shortened lifespan due to the stress. As I've said before, you can't count the deaths of these fish as a tank problem but as an individual fish issue. Some fish are better at handling the cycling process than others. Tetras in general are not really one of those kinds of fish. It's pretty amazing that any of them survived with all you went through. The real sign of tank health is from the fish you added AFTER the cycling process was over. So far, those seem to be doing fine, right?

Just so you know, bad water usually effects all the fish in the tank, not a single fish. Doing water changes is never a bad thing but not always the answer to the question why. It sounds like the fish died which caused an ammonia spike then nitrite spike but your biological filter was able to convert the ammonia produced by the dead fish faster than it could the nitrite and you tested just at the right time to see it in the test results. If you had a probe in the tank that was monitoring and recording the water quality 24/7, you'd see the rises and falls in the graph. It's the same as when you first add new fish to a cycled tank. The biological filter needs some time to grow to the new bioload. It doesn't take long in a cycled aquarium for all this to happen so you have to time it just right in order to see it happening in the tests. As stated, doing a 25% water change alone would not wipe out 100% of the nitrites. The biological filter took care of the other 75% from the time you tested to the the time you tested again after the water change.

Part of the fish keeping experience is accepting the fact that these are living things that can and do die for a number of reasons. Our job as hobbyists is the create an environment that maximizes their chances of survival while minimizing the things that cause unnatural deaths. Unfortunately, you can't look at a fish and see how old it is. There are no grey scales to give their ages away ( like human hair does. ;) ) So you don't know if you are keeping a fish in the beginning of it's life, mid life or in the end stages of it's life. This is why you shouldn't get too upset when you lose a fish when you've done everything else right. It just happens. As my Vet once told me when I was bringing in my dog to be put out of her pain, " Sadly, we humans keep pets that do not have a lifespan as long as our own so we are going to be experiencing deaths for every pet we keep. The best we can do is keep them as healthy as possible while we have them."
 
I forgot to mention

I forgot to mention I added 2 more Cory fish and they are big. That was yesterday. Most of the cory's are the same size, but I do have some smaller Cory's like the panda cory fish. I just bought a Corydoras Julii catfish and is really small, do they get bigger? I can hardly see the fish, it's that small. I order fish from Ebay. Since I am adding fish I will keep an eye on my fish tank. I have another Corydoras Julii catfish coming tomorrow. After that no more fish, unless they die. Since my tank has cycled I still have my fish, none of them have died so far.
 
I also added water to my tank, with the fish bag contents.

I also added water to my tank, along, with the fish bag, water contents.
It's the only way I can get the fish out of the bag and into the water. Is that ok to do, or should do water check right away to make sure I do not have ammonia, or nitrate spike?
 
Water from another tank cant add ammonia or nitrate. Even if it did it would be very small amounts and not worth worrying about. Your tank is much larger than the bag of water so anything gets diluted down.

The reason you dont simply tip all the water from the bag into your tank is because anything infectious, parasitic etc that was in the water from wherever you bought your fish is now in your tank. If your tank is now infected a water change wont do very to help, it will remove some of whatever may be in there but it wont remove everything.

In future get a fish net and set it over a bucket. After floating the bag for a while to equalise the temperature, open the bag and empty the contents into the net. The bucket will capture the water from the bag, the net will catch the fish. Hold the net in your tank and wait for the fish to swim out. Or after you have temperature matched the bag, empty the water and fish into a small container, slowly fill the container with water from your tank to acclimate the fish to your tanks water, net the fish from the container and transfer them to your tank.
 
I forgot to mention I added 2 more Cory fish and they are big. That was yesterday. Most of the cory's are the same size, but I do have some smaller Cory's like the panda cory fish. I just bought a Corydoras Julii catfish and is really small, do they get bigger? I can hardly see the fish, it's that small. I order fish from Ebay. Since I am adding fish I will keep an eye on my fish tank. I have another Corydoras Julii catfish coming tomorrow. After that no more fish, unless they die. Since my tank has cycled I still have my fish, none of them have died so far.
There is a distinct size difference between male and female cories of any species so not all small ones will get really large. You need to be careful about adding fish to your tank when you don't see them beforehand. That's the easiest way to introduce diseases into your system. This is why you use a quarantine tank for an extended period. Cory cats are best purchased in schools and not as individuals as the singles can freak out being alone and not all cory species get along together. In schools there is safety in numbers. (y)
 
This is my new fish up dates

This is my new fish up dates
I now have a 40 gallon high tank.

I just ordered.
Glow fish (Tetras) 6 plus I have in my tank Total Number 9

9 Red Eyed Tetra

7 Blue spotted Cory

I ordered 4 panda cory,

Plus the 4 I have now. Total 8 panda cories.

And I ordered 4 Julii Cory. plus I have 2 baby Julii corys, they are really tiny. I will have 6 Julii

If I am over stocked.. I will have to give some fish to the pet store

:hide: I hope I am not overstocked, not again. I hope. :whistle::fish2::fish1:
 
I went to this site, and I put in all fishes I have and this is what I got.

Recommended temperature range: 77 - 78.8 F. [Display in Celsius]
Recommended pH range: 5.5 - 7.5.
Recommended hardness range: 1 - 15 dH.

You have plenty of aquarium filtration capacity.

Your aquarium filtration capacity for above selected species is 150%.Help on Filtration capacity
Recommended water change schedule: 36% per week.
Your aquarium stocking level is 117%.
 
I went to this site, and I put in all fishes I have and this is what I got.

Recommended temperature range: 77 - 78.8 F. [Display in Celsius]
Recommended pH range: 5.5 - 7.5.
Recommended hardness range: 1 - 15 dH.

You have plenty of aquarium filtration capacity.

Your aquarium filtration capacity for above selected species is 150%.Help on Filtration capacity
Recommended water change schedule: 36% per week.
Your aquarium stocking level is 117%.
You have to be careful with sites like that. A lot of their information for the fish is based on wild fish and you more than likely DO NOT have wild caught fish. It's more important to match the water your fish are coming from and not what the internet says. As for capacity, again, you have to take into consideration where in the tank the fish are swimming. You could be under stocked in total fish but if they all are swimming in the same area, that's not good. 21 cory cats in a 40 high is a lot of cories. They don't care about any water above 6" +/- from the bottom. If it were me, I'd cancel the Julii and give the tinys to the pet shop or back to the pet shop.

You said you weren't going to get anymore of the glo tetras and yet you did it. What's wrong with that picture? ;) ;) :whistle:
 
You have to be careful with sites like that. A lot of their information for the fish is based on wild fish and you more than likely DO NOT have wild caught fish. It's more important to match the water your fish are coming from and not what the internet says. As for capacity, again, you have to take into consideration where in the tank the fish are swimming. You could be under stocked in total fish but if they all are swimming in the same area, that's not good. 21 cory cats in a 40 high is a lot of cories. They don't care about any water above 6" +/- from the bottom. If it were me, I'd cancel the Julii and give the tinys to the pet shop or back to the pet shop.

You said you weren't going to get anymore of the glo tetras and yet you did it. What's wrong with that picture? ;) ;) :whistle:

I know I said I did not want anymore Glo Tetras. but I changed my mind. :whistle: :blink: I really love my Glo tetras. It should work this time. but if not. then I'm done. I really loved my guppies, but I can not have them because of the tank mates I have, that would not be good. I already ordered the Julii fish and their medium seized. I also ordered my Glo Tetras. They are on their way. I would like to keep these fish, so I dare to ask how much water changes would I have to do to keep all these fish? :thanks::whistle:(y)
 
I know I said I did not want anymore Glo Tetras. but I changed my mind. :whistle: :blink: I really love my Glo tetras. It should work this time. but if not. then I'm done. I really loved my guppies, but I can not have them because of the tank mates I have, that would not be good. I already ordered the Julii fish and their medium seized. I also ordered my Glo Tetras. They are on their way. I would like to keep these fish, so I dare to ask how much water changes would I have to do to keep all these fish? :thanks::whistle:(y)
It's going to be more how often than how much. You are really going to have to keep testing your water to see how quickly your nitrates are rising and adjust your water changes accordingly. There is no formula that says "If I have this many fish I need to change that much water." I foresee you are really going to need to adjust your water for the changes so that you are not continually adding ammonia/ammonium when you do the water changes. That will reduce the amount of conversion that goes on during your current water changes. This is going to need to be done in another container with ammonia removers not ammonia detoxifiers. ( This is the price you pay for overloading an aquarium. :whistle: )
 
I foresee you are really going to need to adjust your water for the changes so that you are not continually adding ammonia/ammonium when you do the water changes. That will reduce the amount of conversion that goes on during your current water changes. This is going to need to be done in another container with ammonia removers not ammonia detoxifiers.

The maximum level of chloramine allowed in the US is 4ppm, and thats 4x higher than is typically used. The ratio of chlorine to ammonia in chloramine is about 5:1. So even if OP has a very high level of chloramine there will be less than 1ppm ammonia in the tapwater. But lets say its 1ppm.

Assuming the tank is cycled a 50% water change will leave you with 0.5ppm ammonia. That matches up with OPs water test after a water change.

An additional 0.5ppm ammonia over what any fish produce before your next water change. 1ppm of ammonia converts to 3.6ppm of nitrate, so that 0.5ppm of ammonia will result in in additional nitrate of less than 2ppm. Thats not worth going to the effort of pretreating water to remove the ammonia prior to water changes.

People all over the planet have chloramine treated tap water and manage just fine. The ammonia levels are so low and result in such tiny amounts of nitrate its not worth considering. Chloramine is only going to become more common because its a much more effective water treatment method.
 
The maximum level of chloramine allowed in the US is 4ppm, and thats 4x higher than is typically used. The ratio of chlorine to ammonia in chloramine is about 5:1. So even if OP has a very high level of chloramine there will be less than 1ppm ammonia in the tapwater. But lets say its 1ppm.

Assuming the tank is cycled a 50% water change will leave you with 0.5ppm ammonia. That matches up with OPs water test after a water change.

An additional 0.5ppm ammonia over what any fish produce before your next water change. 1ppm of ammonia converts to 3.6ppm of nitrate, so that 0.5ppm of ammonia will result in in additional nitrate of less than 2ppm. Thats not worth going to the effort of pretreating water to remove the ammonia prior to water changes.

People all over the planet have chloramine treated tap water and manage just fine. The ammonia levels are so low and result in such tiny amounts of nitrate its not worth considering. Chloramine is only going to become more common because its a much more effective water treatment method.
If you recall, the OP was doing frequent water changes to combat nitrate rise which was not reducing her nitrates for long because she was constantly adding ammonia ( via the neutralized chloramine). Now with too many fish in the tank, more frequent water changes are going to become more likely necessary which will start the whole circle starting again. By adding water with 0 ammonia/ammonium, it extends the time between water changes.
Chloramines may be the way of the world but we hobbyists have to adapt how we do things to work with it. There are a number of options to remove ammonia instead of the more common detoxifiers. Detoxifiers do not remove, they just convert it to ammonium so no help with nitrate control. There was a time when detoxifiers didn't exist in the marketplace. ( I was there for them ;) :brows: ) When chloramine was first used, we hobbyists had to adjust to using new methods to make the water safe for the fish. In this case, another change needs to be done to make the water safer for her overloaded tank. Yes, it's more work but not an insurmountable task. :whistle: ;)
 
Thats just not true though.

A 50% water change will remove half the nitrate. The chloramine will add no more than 2ppm nitrate once the ammonia has cycled out. Unless the water has less than 2ppm nitrate, a water change will always result in less nitrate.

The difference in nitrate between ammonia free water and chloramine treated is so small its not worth considering.
 
Thats just not true though.

A 50% water change will remove half the nitrate. The chloramine will add no more than 2ppm nitrate once the ammonia has cycled out. Unless the water has less than 2ppm nitrate, a water change will always result in less nitrate.

The difference in nitrate between ammonia free water and chloramine treated is so small its not worth considering.
You're only adding the level from the water change. What about the amount of ammonia all the fish and foods will be adding? :whistle:
 
Yes i am only adding the level for the water change. The difference is 2ppm of nitrate. If the fish produce 5ppm nitrate between one water change and the next, the extra from the chloramine would take it to 7ppm. If the fish produce 20ppm of nitrate over the course of one water change and the next, the extra from the chloramine would take it to 22ppm. This difference is always going to be about 2ppm no matter how much or how often water is changed. It isnt worth the effort of pretreating the water to remove the ammonia for such a small difference of nitrate.
 
Yes i am only adding the level for the water change. The difference is 2ppm of nitrate. If the fish produce 5ppm nitrate between one water change and the next, the extra from the chloramine would take it to 7ppm. If the fish produce 20ppm of nitrate over the course of one water change and the next, the extra from the chloramine would take it to 22ppm. This difference is always going to be about 2ppm no matter how much or how often water is changed. It isnt worth the effort of pretreating the water to remove the ammonia for such a small difference of nitrate.
Okay, you go by the numbers, I'm going by experience. :whistle: ;)
 
All these numbers are confusing to me.

All these numbers are confusing to me. All I know is when i see ammonia, or Nitrates rise I do a water change, which is I do, water changes every other day. My 40 gallon tank tested 0 for ammonia, which is were I like to keep ammonia. Also my Nitrates were low, but by tomorrow who knows what the number will be, But everything is fine for today, in all three of my tanks. It takes a lot of work to keep good water quality. But I do what I can to keep everything safe in my fish tanks. I am always testing my tank water every day, to make sure I have no Ammonia, No Nitrates, and no Nitrites. I have spent a lot in test kits for my tank water. I spend close to 60 dollars for the liquid test kits a month cause the vile for ammonia does not last long. I test 3 of my fish tanks daily. I just wounder when i can sit back and enjoy my fish. Keeping my fish a live is a hard task. I wounder why my fish die, when I make sure the water is safe for my fish. :fish2::fish1:(y):fish1::fish1::fish2::fish2::whistle:
 
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