high nitrites!

wilson004

AC Members
Jun 29, 2005
84
0
0
my nitrites are at 5 ppm and i have 4 fish as of now,1 electric yellow(other died),and 3 electric blues.i use an aquarium pharmaceutials test kit.what should i do to lower the nitrites because they've been at 5 ppl for about a week now.
 
wilson004 said:
my nitrites are at 5 ppm and i have 4 fish as of now,1 electric yellow(other died),and 3 electric blues.i use an aquarium pharmaceutials test kit.what should i do to lower the nitrites because they've been at 5 ppl for about a week now.

Do water changes to bring the level down to 0.5 or lower.
 
Any details on the tank? What caused the spike, or is this a new tank?

In a word--water changes. Daily. Back to back 50% until you get nitrites down, if needed.
 
Try useing some Prime
 
Nitrites are remarkably easy to deal with if you have a short-term problem. Water changes will decrease them through dilution, and chloride ions (through the addition of table salt) will nullify the effects of the nitrite on fish.

Right now, do large volume partial water changes to bring the nitrites down to <.5ppm; preferably 0ppm. Then add about 1tsp of table salt per 20gallons of water. It doesn't take much. You'll want to keep nitrite in check with water changes, but the salt will pick up the slack while you're at work or school (and thus cannot be performing PWCs).

More importantly, you need to address the reason for these high nitrite levels. We'll need to know if this tank is "cycled" or not, and any recent changes made to it to figure that out.
 
AquariaCentral.com