High nitrites!

My LFS has been checking my water sample 0nce a week and does not want me to do a water change until the cycle is complete, since we had som much trouble getting it started

Click to expand...

Read the cyle sticky, find an LFS that has a better understanding about the cycle, and most imprtantly do a water change right away to get the nitrites below toxic levels and help your fish. Water changes won't hurt, slow, or stall the cycle. High nitrites will hurt your fish. Danios are cast iron fish, and don't show signs of stress readily, but the levels you listed are enoguh to be quite harmful and will have a lasting effect on those fish. It is very common for LFS people to be ignorant or oblivious of what and how things really work in a tank. Don't put a lot of faith in them until you know they are truly knowledgeable.
It would help if we had some details on what trouble you had getting the cycle started, and what if anything you LFS has "sold" you to help with starting the cycle. 4 weeks isn't a long time without a bacteria seed, and with a light tank load. Which brings up the question of how big is the tank, without knowing it's hard to guess what you might expect.

You said that your nitrates have been at 20 since the start, are they coming from your tap, or are you adding something to produce them. if you are using anything but bio spira Or a seed from an estabilished tank, to try to start your cycle you are most likely wasting money. if you are using "cycle" you are definately wasting money, and that would also explain the nitrates.
Dave

Do a water change, do enough to get the nitrites to below 0.25ppm. And buy your own nitrite test kit at this point. This will stop you from having to go the the LFS evey day.

Do you have chloramines in your tap water? If you don't know contact the municiple water people and find out. If you do have those instead of just chlorine then that is probably why the tests were showing positive for ammonia without the addition of fish to the tank. In that case Prime is a much better choice for adding to your water that Aquasafe.

Well chloramines can often throw off some test kits. And if you were just adding Aquasafe I belive it just separates the chlorine from the ammonia and then deals with the chlorine. Thus leaving the ammonia free. Prime will bind the ammonia into ammonium which is far less toxic but still useable for bacteria. This can still throw off some test kits.

Another plan with high nitrites is to add 1 tsp per gallon of NaCl to your tank for the duration of the spike. This will help the fish compete for oxygen versus the nitrites.

Water changes are still a very good way to deal with things. And with a light fish load a few large water changes initially will certianly help and things should bounce back very quickly.

As always, pretty much anything TKOS says is correct,

With fishless cycling there are only a few ways to do it without harming fish.
#1. Add a few very small fish to a large volume of water, watch parrameters, do water changes if needed, and wait it out. once the cycle is estabilished and working, add one or two more fish at a time with a week or two in between, watching levels and doing water changes if you see a spike.
#2. adde several fish, do water tests 2-4 times a day, change water 2-4 time per day to keep the levels of ammonia and nitrate low, and still wait about the same amount of time, and then slowly add fish and watch levels to make sure there are no spikes, More risk, a lot more work, same amount of time.
#3. add a few fish, add bio-spira, or a bacteria seed from another tank (Filter media, gravel, mulm etc.) watch levels, do water changes if needed, and be prepared to try a couple of times with the bio-spira or bacterai seed.
With the starter colony of bacteria, you should see results much quicker but it still usually takes a couple of weeks to be able to handle the bio-load of the fish. at which time you can slowly add a few fish at a time while watching for spikes. This method speeds things up, but unless you transfer/add enough bacteria to handle the entire bio-load, it still won't go real quickly.

With the set-up you have and TKOS's advice you should be in good shape, once you get the levels below toxic, things will be fine for your fish as well. since you are already a few weeks into things should begin progressing for you. The cycle actually hurts the start-up. It does contain a bacteria that does eat ammonia, but it is not the same type that lives in our tank long term. so it eats the ammonia, and then dies. And from all of the stories I've heard it leaves a lot of nitrate in it's wake, but doesn't leave an estabilished cycle at all. If you have chloramines and use a common or simple dechlorinator, it removes the chlorine and leaves ammonia. Prime is really good stuff in so many ways it isn't funny, bottom line is if you have chloramines it is one of only two products I would use.
It removes the chlorine and binds the ammonia into harmless ammonium which will still feed you bacteria, but won't hurt your fish. If you ammonia test kit only has one bottle, it will show ammonia and ammonium both, and it will look like your ammonia is very high when it probably isn't with prime in the water. If you ammonia test kit has two bottles, it will seperate the two and only show you toxic ammonia levels not ammonium.
HTH
Dave

Sorry for repeating waht was already clearly said, I get to ramblin when I have jet lag.
Dave