Increase of Nitrites in old tank?

[jec0995]

Hi all,

I have a 29 gallon tank fully planted for 3 years now. I have never had any measurable nitrites (even during cycling) in the tank until today. Friday I did a 50% water change like always however, I had to replace the filter media on the fluval internal canister filter. I had no filters so I stupidly let it out over night and the filter and media dried out. I put new pads in on Saturday and today I have nitrites at 1-2ppm.

This tank also has an over the back filter which was running the whole time the other filter was out of the tank. I didn't think it would cause any problems with the bio filtration. I seems like it has though. I did another 50% water change today (sunday) as soon as I realized there was a problem.

Any suggestions would be great. I suppose the only thing I can do is keep doing water changes. I didn't change the media in the other filter so it should be ok, right? Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Jimmy

Fish:
29 gallon
4 clown loaches
1 weather loach
1 lace cat
1 pearl gourami
1 siamensis
2 gold killifish

Plants:
Crypts wentii
Crypts sp.
Water wisteria
dwarf sagitaria
cabomba

[Vitaliy]

Sounds like a bacteria bloom in the new filter. Since you already have another established filter in the tank everything should be back to normal in a couple of days. Just watch the chemistry for Nitrites – if something, water change will always help.

[indiginess]

ditto Vitaliy

youve got a bacterial orgy going on... bacteria reproduce every twenty minutes (on average) and in an older tank, you should be fine.

as mentioned, just keep an eye on it, but i suspect that in a day or two, things will return to normal.

i might suggest taking a pair of scissors and cutting the established sponge of the 'good' filter in half and splitting it between the filters. it will seed the new one and not affect the bacterial colony's effect as a whole. it doesn't have to be as much as half. any will probably speed up the regeneration process.

good luck

:cool:

[RTR]

Nitrification bacteria reproduce much more slowly than that.

[indiginess]

good to know, do you have any links that explore this further. if i'm giving out erroneous info, i would like to know the truth.

gonna google a little, but id appreciate any info you have on hand (and in head).

[indiginess]

"Nitrifying bacteria reproduce by binary division. Under optimal conditions, Nitrosomonas may double every 7 hours and Nitrobacter every 13 hours. More realistically, they will double every 15-20 hours. This is an extremely long time considering that heterotrophic bacteria can double in as short a time as 20 minutes. In the time that it takes a single Nitrosomonas cell to double in population, a single E. Coli bacterium would have produced a population exceeding 35 trillion cells."

reference: http://www.bioconlabs.com/nitribactfacts.html

thanks for the heads up RTR.

eric

[jec0995]

Hey everyone thanks for the help. You were right. I did a water change yesterday and tested the water today...everything is back to normal. Nitrites = 0ppm. Fish didn't even seem to notice. Thanks for the help.

Jimmy

[indiginess]

good to hear.

[RTR]

The bad news is that the Nitrosomas and Nitrobacter are not the FW nitrification bacteria. But the real ones have similar growth rates, i.e., painfully slow for bacteria.

[patoloco]

Then, what are the needed bacteria? NITROMAX (a cycling product) states the bottle contains much-a-lot-zillion nitrosoma and nitrobacter in each bottle.

[Roan Art]

Then, what are the needed bacteria? NITROMAX (a cycling product) states the bottle contains much-a-lot-zillion nitrosoma and nitrobacter in each bottle.Nitrobacter and nitrosoma are saltwater bacteria, not freshwater. That's the problem.

I think it's nitrospira? that does it in freshwater. Bio-Spira:Nitrospira.

Looking up the actual names. I always forget those.

"closely related to Nitrospira moscoviensis and Nitrospira marina."

Have to wait for RTR cause most of this stuff is too technical to read fast and I have to put my son down for his nap.

Roan

[RTR]

Nitrococcus and Nitrospira are the FW nitrification bacteria which actually establish in FW tank filters. The others are nitrification bacteria, granted, but they do not or cannot establish indefinite lifespan colonies in FW tanks.

In practice, we really do care what their names are, just that they establish and do the job we need to have done. But when a company advertises incorrect bacteria in their purported cycling products, it does kind of make you wonder. Do they really know? Or did they use some antique reference stating the old (and incorrect) names and produce a solution of those to sell to unsuspecting hobbyists? And is this a part of why the things do not really work? The rest of why is packaging and storage conditions.

Biospira does work, so long as it is in date, and has been properly stored.