hi, while cycling tank with fish in it, i am doing 50% water changes when the ammonia reaches .025-.050 ppm which is about every 3 days. my question is just after about 4 weeks it started to show nitrites. at what reading should i do a water change? is 0.50 ppm to high? the nitrates are at 5.0 ppm. thanks,dan.
is nitrite to high ?
- Thread starter danny mac
- Start date
Ammonia and nitrites should be kept at zero. Even during a fishy cycle. Ammonia of .5 or nitrites of .5 both require immediate large water changes as often as necessary to keep them below.25ppm. This may be as much as 75% water changes daily, otherwise, you are at risk of fish loss.
I would like to know what test measure's ammonia at ammunts that low in the .025ppm range. If have zero ammonia and nitrites then it cannot cycle, that being said, you should keep it as low as possible, just enough so that your test shows that you have some. If you have some it means that you don't have enough bacteria, so just a little bit is needed to cycle. As said, .25 ppm is more than enough to cycle, and could be lower.
I would think adding a little salt might help untill your tank fully cycles. I read that even a little really helps the fish deal with nitrite levels.
However don't add aquarium salt regularly. I actualy found this in an article that was against salting your tank, they said something like 1 tsp per 60 gallons was enough but I don't have the exact figures.
Might want to ask someone with more experience about this.
However don't add aquarium salt regularly. I actualy found this in an article that was against salting your tank, they said something like 1 tsp per 60 gallons was enough but I don't have the exact figures.
Might want to ask someone with more experience about this.
Last edited:
echoofformless
Peat Advocate & Defender Of Snails
Here is a long post that I hope really helps you out.
First a few ranom tidbits and a story: :coffee2:
Though the water changes are good for the fish health, and must certainly be maintained for fish's sake, they will somewhat slow the growth of your bacterial colonies; this being because the numbers of bacteria are in relation to the amount of food available to them. Everytime you change the water, you remove ammonia and nitrite. So there is a slight downside to it.
I just finished my first fishless cycle, and lemmetellya I'm never going back to cycling with fish again. No worries at all about fish health, no water changes, and it was finished far sooner than any fish-in cycle I had ever done....even those that were "seeded." (I purposely didn't seed this tank just to see if fishless was faster.)
For this reason I theorize that not having to change the water and thus giving the bacterial colonies huge amounts of steady food source, makes a tank cycle faster and more efficiently.
I'm at a point where I'm practically dumping the ammonia into my tank and my colonies have it back to zero in a day or less. Since this is going to be my mbuna tank and I want all of the fish to be put in at once, I want serious bacteria. And I seem to have it; in less than a few weeks no less.
Now for some advice: :dance2:
Don't fret about the existence of a small amount of ammonia and nitrite. Now while these are still nasty and dangerous (hence my plug for a fishless cycle) the only way to make them non-existent is to do absoludicrously large water changes every day, which actually might stress your fish out even more than a little ammonia or nitrite.
Check this out: if you test your water soon after feeding in a fully cycled aquarium you will often get a very small, but still noticeable ammonia and nitrite reading. (Due to the introduction of decaying material that is in addition to the fish waste) Moral of this paragraph? It's not likely to hurt or kill your fish to have a very small amount of ammonia or nitrite in the water.
Remember what I said about there needing to be ammonia and nitrite present if the bacteria is to grow? It needs food. So as long as your levels are very small, then the bacteria has food and the fish aren't being terribly stressed. So if there's any value to the possibility that the cycle will happen more rapidly if you leave enough ammonia and nitrite in the tank, it's that the cycle completes sooner...and your fish are living in a fully cycled tank sooner than they would if you had been doing massive water changes.
Nitrite cycling often takes longer to happen than ammonia cycling. It's not always the case, but I've experienced and heard reports of experiences where the nitrites don't start going away for almost a month after the ammonia has gone away. Plus the nitrite often seems to decline slower than the ammonia. All of my cycles were like, one day I have 4ppm of ammonia and then the next day I have 0. But for nitrite they've always been one day I have around 1ppm, then a few days later I have .75, then a a few days later .5 and so forth until it's at 0.
.5 ppm is getting up there for nitrites. Keep doing the water changes...30-50%. Make sure you're testing accurately to see if the nitrite is going up or coming down. (For example test all parameters right after a water change, and then again the next day or so right before a water change...then again right after, etc. Keep a log and you'll see a pattern emerging which will indicate which way the nitrites go.)
Hope all of this copious text offers you some insights.
Echo
First a few ranom tidbits and a story: :coffee2:
Though the water changes are good for the fish health, and must certainly be maintained for fish's sake, they will somewhat slow the growth of your bacterial colonies; this being because the numbers of bacteria are in relation to the amount of food available to them. Everytime you change the water, you remove ammonia and nitrite. So there is a slight downside to it.
I just finished my first fishless cycle, and lemmetellya I'm never going back to cycling with fish again. No worries at all about fish health, no water changes, and it was finished far sooner than any fish-in cycle I had ever done....even those that were "seeded." (I purposely didn't seed this tank just to see if fishless was faster.)
For this reason I theorize that not having to change the water and thus giving the bacterial colonies huge amounts of steady food source, makes a tank cycle faster and more efficiently.
I'm at a point where I'm practically dumping the ammonia into my tank and my colonies have it back to zero in a day or less. Since this is going to be my mbuna tank and I want all of the fish to be put in at once, I want serious bacteria. And I seem to have it; in less than a few weeks no less.
Now for some advice: :dance2:
Don't fret about the existence of a small amount of ammonia and nitrite. Now while these are still nasty and dangerous (hence my plug for a fishless cycle) the only way to make them non-existent is to do absoludicrously large water changes every day, which actually might stress your fish out even more than a little ammonia or nitrite.
Check this out: if you test your water soon after feeding in a fully cycled aquarium you will often get a very small, but still noticeable ammonia and nitrite reading. (Due to the introduction of decaying material that is in addition to the fish waste) Moral of this paragraph? It's not likely to hurt or kill your fish to have a very small amount of ammonia or nitrite in the water.
Remember what I said about there needing to be ammonia and nitrite present if the bacteria is to grow? It needs food. So as long as your levels are very small, then the bacteria has food and the fish aren't being terribly stressed. So if there's any value to the possibility that the cycle will happen more rapidly if you leave enough ammonia and nitrite in the tank, it's that the cycle completes sooner...and your fish are living in a fully cycled tank sooner than they would if you had been doing massive water changes.
Nitrite cycling often takes longer to happen than ammonia cycling. It's not always the case, but I've experienced and heard reports of experiences where the nitrites don't start going away for almost a month after the ammonia has gone away. Plus the nitrite often seems to decline slower than the ammonia. All of my cycles were like, one day I have 4ppm of ammonia and then the next day I have 0. But for nitrite they've always been one day I have around 1ppm, then a few days later I have .75, then a a few days later .5 and so forth until it's at 0.
.5 ppm is getting up there for nitrites. Keep doing the water changes...30-50%. Make sure you're testing accurately to see if the nitrite is going up or coming down. (For example test all parameters right after a water change, and then again the next day or so right before a water change...then again right after, etc. Keep a log and you'll see a pattern emerging which will indicate which way the nitrites go.)
Hope all of this copious text offers you some insights.
Echo
echoofformless said:
This is not true.
Fish are always producing ammonia. Any measurable amount is more than you want in the tank. If you brought your levels to 0 there'd be new ammonia a moment later and the colonies would continue to grow: water changes do not slow cycling, not even a little bit. That said, maintaining all zeroes throughout a fishy cycle probably isn't going to happen. As low as possible.
Temperature and pH are important factors in ammonia toxicity: higher is worse for both parameters. .25 ppm ammonia could be fine in one tank and fatal in another. If you have a relatively high pH turning your heat down is probably not a bad idea. Don't crank your heat up because you think it'll be good for the bacteria: its bad for the fish.
Fish+food=ammonia. Feed half as much half as often and you'll have fewer problems.
Salt can help with Nitrite toxicity: you don't need a lot. A little. An eigth of a teaspoon per 10 gallons will do the trick. A quarter teaspoon per 10 gallons is more than enough. More than that is completely unnecessary.
it really depends on the levels. A higher concentration means that ammonia hits the bacteria more often giving it more food, and allows it to reproduce more/live longer ect., however this ammount is quite low. People who do fishless cycle usually use about 5 ppm of ammonia (way way to high for fishy cycle) and often see their cycle go faster this way.