Increase of Nitrites in old tank?

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J

jec0995

AC Members
Nov 10, 2005
82
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Ohio
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
 
V

Vitaliy

AC Members
Dec 17, 2004
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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.
 
I

indiginess

AC Members
Nov 26, 2005
355
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0
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:
 
I

indiginess

AC Members
Nov 26, 2005
355
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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).
 
I

indiginess

AC Members
Nov 26, 2005
355
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"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
 
J

jec0995

AC Members
Nov 10, 2005
82
0
0
45
Ohio
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
 
I

indiginess

AC Members
Nov 26, 2005
355
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good to hear.
 
patoloco

patoloco

De seguro no sabes lo que dice aqu
Oct 20, 2005
1,221
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Costa Rica
wetpatoloco.tripod.com
Then, what are the needed bacteria? NITROMAX (a cycling product) states the bottle contains much-a-lot-zillion nitrosoma and nitrobacter in each bottle.
 
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