Newbie needs diagnosis

[Navykop]

Ok, first of all - thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to respond. I am so glad I found what seems to be a fun fish loving community here!

This is my first tank. From my reading and belated experience, I now realize that I was impatient, ridiculous and down right ignorant when I got my tank off the ground (on 5/23/23 to be exact). Not two weeks later….I dropped in some fish like an eager idiot. I’m happy to say I haven’t lost anyone to date but it’s been a water changing/chemistry battle!

I hoping someone might clue me in as to where I am, what I might be looking at in the near future and and advice tips to get there more smoothly.

So to start, I will say I have NEVER had so much as a drop of detectable ammonia in my tank except for the first few days. Ammonia dropped to nothing and nitrites grew. No ammonia has ever showed up again….

I did have a cloudy algae/bacterial bloom at the end of May/begining of June for a couple days but it seemed to clear up on its own.

Nitrites have remained at 0.5ppm to 1ppm (per the tetra app - based on it’s dip strip interpretation) ever since until the last couple days or so here. Oh and no measurable nitrates ever showed up until the last couple days here as well.

So present situation. Still no ammonia. Nitrites are climbing to 3-4ppm but are able to knocked back down to 2-3ppm with a 25% water change. Next day right back up though. Nitrates have appeared and seem to be holding steady at 20ppm for some reason. All other parameters are dead center in the preferred “green” zone and have mostly always been so. Occasional downward drift of PH occurs but is rectified with a little PH + to get it back to 7-7.2 range.

Here’s the rub. Tank looks beautiful and everybody looks happy. The fish and the inverts are actively mating. Everybody eats good and acts “normal”. Gourami’s building his bubble nest. Everyone swimming in their proper “zones”…. It sure doesn’t look like a tank with a nitrite problem….

Anyway, I could use anyone’s thoughts on my tank. Am I overthinking this? Is my tank nitro cycle moving in the right direction do you think? I’m a bit nervous because I have a trip planned where I leave on June 23rd… I want to be a good fish parent but I think my early stupidity might have doomed them all…

Thanks in advance!

 

[Navykop]

20 gal tall
20 gal tetra IQ whisper filter
Planted tank (floating frogbit/ pothos with roots in the tank)
Lava rock gravel bottom
2 air stones
Coconut shell hide outs a couple ceramic pleco caves
2 Cholla wood tubes
1 drift wood “tree”
—
3 dwarf gourami
3 dwarf rainbow fish
4 red pencil fish
1 pleco
A few tiny colored shrimp
5 CPO crayfish

 

[Navykop]

Currently:

80 degrees temp
Zero ammonia
4ppm nitrite
20 ppm nitrate
25ppm hardness
Zero chlorine
120 ppm alkalinity
7.2 ph

 

[Aiken Drum]

You are moving in the right direction, but not doing enough to keep your water quality good. Nitrite is far too high and will be doing long term harm to your fish. Your target should be to do water changes sufficient to keep nitrite no higher than 0.5ppm. Based on it being 4ppm you need to do 3 x 50% water changes. Once you get it below 0.5ppm test daily. If its above 0.5ppm then do water changes until its below 0.5ppm.

To give you some comfort, nitrite is less toxic at pH above 7. This is probably whats keeping everything alive. I would still want to get it much lower as although you arent seeing short term issues you could be causing long term harm. If you get seemingly unexplained deaths a few months from now it could be down to the conditions they are living in now.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi John and welcome to the forum

As Aiken mentioned, bigger water changes are better at diluting things. The best way to dilute anything in an aquarium is with a 75% (or more) water change. One big water change will dilute things faster than several small water changes.

Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

If you do a 25% water change, you leave behind 75% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 50% water change, you leave behind 50% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 75% water change, you leave behind 25% of the bad stuff in the water.

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Don't bother testing for nitrates until the ammonia and nitrite have both gone up and come back down to 0ppm, then start testing for nitrate. Nitrate test kits read nitrite as nitrate and give you a false reading if there is nitrite in the water.

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If the pH drops between water changes, add some shells, limestone or dead coral rubble to the tank or filter to help stop the pH dropping. Add a small amount and monitor the pH over 2 weeks. If it continues to drop, add some more shells to the tank. Continue adding some every few weeks until the pH stabilises on 7.0 or whatever you want it on.

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Rainbowfish need lots of plant matter in their diet. You can offer them vege flakes (from pet shops) or dry/ fresh/ frozen marine algae (available from Asian supermarkets or the Asian food section of a normal supermarket). They will also eat small aquatic plants and soft leaf plants like Ambulia and Duckweed.

I'm not sure which species of rainbowfish you have, I'm guessing Melanotaenia praecox (neon blue rainbow). If so, the males have red fins and the females have yellow/ orange fins. These fish do best in groups of 6 or more. The following link has information on different rainbowfishes and might interest you.
Melanotaeniidae and Pseudomugilidae

What colour are the dwarf gouramis?
If you have 3 male dwarf gouramis (Colisa lalius) in a 20 gallon tall tank, they might fight over territory. Male dwarf gouramis are colourful (red & blue striped, red all over, blue all over). Female dwarf gouramis are silver.

Your dwarf crayfish could end up fighting over territory when they mature, and they can eat fish. Watch them carefully because they are nocturnal scavengers that will catch and eat small fish at night when the fish sleep. I don't recommend having crayfish in tanks with anything else due to their predatory nature.

 

[Navykop]

Thank you Aiken!

 

[Navykop]

Hi John and welcome to the forum

As Aiken mentioned, bigger water changes are better at diluting things. The best way …

Thank you Colin!

 

[Navykop]

You are moving in the right direction, but not doing enough …..

Would such a large water change (75%+) ruin my bacterial progress? I’m going to do it for the fish’s sake…but just curious

 

[Colin_T]

Big water changes do nothing to the filter bacteria because the good bacteria is living in the filter media. As long as the new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine and you don't wash the filter media for the first 6-8 weeks, you can do a 90% water change every day and not affect the filter bacteria.

 

[Navykop]

Big water changes do nothing to the filter bacteria because the good ….

Awesome… that sounds like the plan then - thank you again!

 

[Andy Sager]

I would also add that you should have your readings confirmed by another source (i.e. a local fish shop ) as sometimes strips are not reliable.
Just so you know, the microbes that control the nitrogen cycle in your tank are found on the surfaces of things that are in the higher oxygenated areas of your tank, like your filter, and not in the water column alone which is why large water changes will have little effect on them as long as that water contains no harmful chemicals that will kill them.

 

[Navykop]

I would also add that you should have your readings ….

Thank you Andy!

 

[Navykop]

Completed 2 back to back 50% water changes this morning (1hr in between each)

Ran out of time this morning but plan on doing another this evening

Current readings 30 min after last change:

Nitrate 20ppm (still not budging)
Nitrite 1ppm
Hard 150ppm
Chlorine zero
Alkalinity 120ppm
PH 7.0

 

[Aiken Drum]

Another 50% change should get you to a safe level of nitrite.

As colin said its pointless testing for nitrate while there is nitrite in the water. The nitrate test detects both nitrate and nitrite, so as long as there is nitrite in the water your nitrate test will give falsely high test readings. Its possible you have zero nitrate and all you are detecting is a false reading due to the nitrite.

 

[Navykop]

Another 50% change should get you to a safe level of nitrite.

As colin said its pointless testing for ...

That makes sense- thank you Aiken.

 

[Navykop]

Ok - I did ANOTHER 50% water change about two hours ago (that make it 3 total changes of 50% today) and here are my numbers from the strip:

Nitrite 1ppm (still!)
Hard 75 ppm
Chlorine zero
Alkalinity 120 ppm
PH 6.8

 

[Navykop]

Should I do another 50% change???? Why didn’t the last 50% change drop the nitrites from 1ppm to 0.5ppm?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Test kits arent all that accurate. They are home test kits not laboratory testing. Lets say your nitrite was 1.5ppm and your last water change dropped it to 0.75ppm. Can you really tell the difference between 1.5ppm or 1ppm or 0.75ppm? They are all going to look very similar colours, and unless you are looking at all the results sat next to each other its difficult to tell them apart.

You are in a better position than you were before all the water changes. See where things are tomorrow.

 

[Navykop]

Test kits arent all .

Thank you Aiken - I feel much better having your thoughts on that!

 

[Navykop]

Upgraded - no more strips…Going to do a 50%water change.

Any thoughts on these readings?

https://ibb.co/c29NjsC