high nitrites

Don;t add Cycle. It can actualy set your cycle back. It's a snak oil product and should be avoided. Water changes will bring down your nitrites quickly and will not harm your fish or set back your cycle. So, I suggest a 50% water change as nitrites are very toxic to fish. Then test your water again. If nitrites are still present, do another 50% water change. You can do back to back 50% changes daily if needed.

*double Thread*

Ditto what Harlock said. Water changes are the cheapest and fastest way to get your nitrites down.

Even if they don't look or act sick, any ammonia or nitrites present is stressful your fish and eventually it will get to them and make them sick or even kill them.

I agree with most of what Harlock said. Water changes are what nature uses. I would do one thing different: wait at least 1 hour between water changes. I do this for a couple of reasons:
1) to make sure temperature doesn't fluctuate too much (of coarse you could add same temp water, but not very exact) the fish are already stressed and don't need to be chilled (cause ich or other disease) or over-heated now (which causes increased respiration/lower oxygen levels).
2) your water could have a high amount of carbon dioxide (from the pipes) and needs to adjust to ambient levels. This increased CO2 could cause a pH drop which could, in turn, cause increased stress, disease, or shock.
3) with such a rapid alteration of water chemistry, your bacterial colonies (used for biological filtration) could be shocked or killed off. This would probably be to minor degrees, but at this point the cause of your problem is not having enough of these beneficial bacteria.

50% water changes sound good to me, but I wouldn't go over that! Within an hour things should stabilize a bit, then I'd do another 50%, without bothering to test. I wouldn't test because if you are having high amounts you need to get nitrites as low as possible. After the second I'd test. If it's higher than your lowest detectable amount (whichever is just above 0) I'd do a third 50% in an hour. I'd consider doing daily or every other day water changes to keep this low.

My testkit is a Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Nitrite Kit. It has increments of:
0 ppm
0.25 ppm
0.50 ppm
1.0 ppm
.....etc.....etc....
If it ever got to 0.50 ppm, I'd do a 50% water change. No mater how often! It may take 2 weeks of this Nitrite spiking (sometimes more), so just be very careful and pay attention to your fish. Be persistent and you will reap rewards! God bless!

No Double Post!!!!

Bmeasure said:

I agree with most of what Harlock said. Water changes are what nature uses. I would do one thing different: wait at least 1 hour between water changes. I do this for a couple of reasons:
1) to make sure temperature doesn't fluctuate too much (of coarse you could add same temp water, but not very exact) the fish are already stressed and don't need to be chilled (cause ich or other disease) or over-heated now (which causes increased respiration/lower oxygen levels).
2) your water could have a high amount of carbon dioxide (from the pipes) and needs to adjust to ambient levels. This increased CO2 could cause a pH drop which could, in turn, cause increased stress, disease, or shock.
3) with such a rapid alteration of water chemistry, your bacterial colonies (used for biological filtration) could be shocked or killed off. This would probably be to minor degrees, but at this point the cause of your problem is not having enough of these beneficial bacteria.

50% water changes sound good to me, but I wouldn't go over that! Within an hour things should stabilize a bit, then I'd do another 50%, without bothering to test. I wouldn't test because if you are having high amounts you need to get nitrites as low as possible. After the second I'd test. If it's higher than your lowest detectable amount (whichever is just above 0) I'd do a third 50% in an hour. I'd consider doing daily or every other day water changes to keep this low.

My testkit is a Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Nitrite Kit. It has increments of:
0 ppm
0.25 ppm
0.50 ppm
1.0 ppm
.....etc.....etc....
If it ever got to 0.50 ppm, I'd do a 50% water change. No mater how often! It may take 2 weeks of this Nitrite spiking (sometimes more), so just be very careful and pay attention to your fish. Be persistent and you will reap rewards! God bless!

Click to expand...

1) you can monitor the temperature of water going into your tank. Non-issue
2) CO2 gasses off so quickly it isn't even funny so getting water from a tap to a tank without getting atmospheric equilibrium is tough to pull off, especially given most people will aerate water as the poor it into a tank unless they are specifically trying not to.
3) This is why people should do weekly water changes to always keep their tank water as close to source as possible.

Back to back water changes are recommended to reduce stress to fish from nitrites and ammonia which I think you will find are much more damaging than back to back water changes could be so long as they are done properly.

Harlock,

In your experience, how long (days) would you think it would take for bacteria to form and begin converting Nitrite to Nitrates? Seems like when the bacteria began converting Ammonia to Nitrite it happened rather rapidly (like within 24 hours Ammonia was brough to zero and Nitrites spiked to 2ppm). Now my Nitirites have been hovering around 2ppm for 3 days? When is the next type of bacteria going to begin converting the Nitrite and will it happen as quickly as the first bactiera?

Thanks!

Kires1 said:

Harlock,

In your experience, how long (days) would you think it would take for bacteria to form and begin converting Nitrite to Nitrates? Seems like when the bacteria began converting Ammonia to Nitrite it happened rather rapidly (like within 24 hours Ammonia was brough to zero and Nitrites spiked to 2ppm). Now my Nitirites have been hovering around 2ppm for 3 days? When is the next type of bacteria going to begin converting the Nitrite and will it happen as quickly as the first bactiera?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Nope. The nitrite to nitrate stage takes longer. Some folks say twice as long. There's really so many variables it's hard to accurately guess. Tank temp, seeding, amount of nitrites, etc. can all play a part.

Harlock appears to be a very educated aquarist and I've seen some pics of tanks and they look pretty good. He has offered some good advice and obviously it works for him. My only objections about back-to-backs being a non-issue is that in my own experience I have seen a difference in test kit reading immediately after water-changes vs. 1/2 hr to 1 hr afterwards. I have had several planted tanks which I dosed ferts into and it took this long for the readings to stabilize to where I could get an accurate measurement of how much I've dosed. Also, in regards to CO2 outgassing so quickly....it may, but I've read countless times to leave tapwater on counter for "several hours" or "over-night" to get proper readings from test kits. Another variable is the actual amount of CO2 in the water. One person in Florida may have practically no CO2 in pipes, while another may have 30ppm or more (completely made-up for point) they will not both out-gas at the same time. I also wonder about whether someone doing back-to-backs adds dechlorinator after first partial? If so it would take a while for the dechlorinator to affect all the water (I'm thinking of Python users here...buckets are quicker...for once! ) This means that if you drained again immediately you would be sucking up unused dechlor. Agree or no? You would have to dose for the whole tank volume when you do the second dose, and wasting the product (minor but true). If you don't add dechlor the fish is breathing chlorine/chloramine during second partial. Yet another variable in regards to how fast you can do water changes is whether you are dosing CO2 INTO the tank. If you have my tap water and want roughly 30ppm CO2, your pH is 6.7, and you do 2x 50% back-to-back, I'd bet it's gonna jump to roughly 7.4 or greater (my tap is 7.8). Maybe in Harlock's tanks he doesn't use CO2, maybe his tap is very similar in pipe and airated. I'm giving my opinion for how to be fairly conservative with almost any tank.

Please understand that getting rid of Nitrite is of utmost concern, but I'm just trying not to add more stress while removing it. Harlock is doing the same and has some great points. I guess I'd see which one works for you.