Nitrite Spike, Help please

Staggie

Staggie

Go Da O
Sep 30, 2005
46
0
0
42
Adelaide, South Australia
Hi Guys,

Both of my tanks are reading Nitrite levels today... They are both well established (one 18 months, the other 10 months) and never have they shown any level's after they cycled

I think it is due to me being a little slack on my water change's the past couple of weeks but not sure, can someone please confirm.

The only thing that has been added to both tanks is live brine shrimp & blood worms in the past month.

Readings on both tanks

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0.25ppm
Nitrate 20ppm (oscar tank) 10ppm (community tank)
pH 7.2 & 6.8

I've also tested the tap water (RO filter on that tap) and the nitrite is 0ppm.

I'm also using Aquarium Pharm. test kits.

Thanks in advance.
Kym
 
It's doubtful that it's due to slack water changes. That should result in high nitrate (NO3), not measurable nitrite. Has anything changed in the past few days?

I hate to be so uninsightful, but all I can say is do a 50% water change and wait, if the tanks are established and there's nothing out of the norm that would cause your colonies to die off, the problem should fix itself.
 
Thanks for the fast reply. I've just done a 50% change on both tanks so i guess i'll see what happens. I'll test again tomorrow when i get home from work and post results then. There is nothing that i'm aware of that has changed over the past coupe of days, well apart from about 50 guppy fry on friday.
 
my thoughts exactly. the only thing i can think of in the oscar tank is that i have changed to the next size up on his pellet food and maybe he's spitting out a lot more of it... I dunno just a thought
 
Just tested both tanks then, community tank didnt register anything... 0ppm on both ammonia and nitrite, oscar tank, 0ppm on ammonia, and i'm guessing 0.1ppm nitrite (somewhere between the two colours on the card)

EDIT: Just found out the power was out for about 6 hrs the other night, so my guess is thats what caused it... would explain both tanks doin the same thing....
 
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To get a nitrite spike, you would either have to have had a sudden increase in the bioload of the tank, or have lost some nitrifying bacteria.

A power outage with the resultant loss of water flow and oxygenation might have been the problem.

I recently got a battery-powered air pump just to keep some water motion in the event of a power outage. (Of course, it doesn't help if you were not aware of the outage.) I live in a hurricane-prone area, and had the power out for a couple of days on a couple of occasions last year, and some friends in the area were out for almost two weeks.
 
Are nitrite bacteria more sensitive than ammonia eating bacteria? If so a power outage of that length could have lead to a small spike like that. Just a guess though.
 
I've got no idea really, just seemed like a strange thing to happen all of a sudden, but atleast everything is getting back to normal on the tanks. I'll post again tomorrow with the results and with any luck the oscar tank should be at 0ppm aswell.
 
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