Serious about Nitrites (NO2)

B

bobandfiona

AC Members
Dec 13, 2005
114
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Dallas, TX
Ok, I need help from all of you wonderful fish gurus. I've posted on newbie forum last week. I am STILL not able to get my nitrites down. If you would like to see my parameters, I would love if you could quickly view the thread:
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64566

I did another 75% water change last night and these are my numbers right now - 24 hrs. later:

pH 7.0 (lowest its ever been, usually approx 7.8)
ammonia .10 (very low also compared to usual)
NO2 5 or greater (only measures up to 5)
NO3 15

What is going on? I have cleaned all gravel and decorations, all fish are accounted for so noone died without being removed..

Help, I don't want to lose anymore fish!!!!!!!!! :sad:
 
Cycling a tank takes a few weeks. Some tanks can take upwards of 2 months to completely cycle so all it takes is patience and keeping on top of things. Eventually the magic of ammonia and nitrites crashing will happen.
 
Thanks, rrkss...I know you've been wonderful help through this - but how do I keep from killing anymore fish? Should I add more salt? I would say after these latest water changes we are at 0 on salt again.

Again, I appreciate all of your help.
 
If you can keep Nitrites below 0.50 ppm, salt addition should not be neccessary as salt does slow down freshwater bacteria division by osmotic shock. If your fish do start gasping then add 1 teaspoon per gallon salt to treat the brown blood sydrome as the fish are more important than your bacteria. Good luck with your tank.

PS: For your next tank look into doing the fishless cycle. Gets rid of lots of stress. My first few tanks were fishie cycles and always stressful. When I learned about the fishless method, I never turned back.
 
No, I know about the fishless cycle - that's how I set it up. This was caused by me replacing my filtration system and not realizing that would create a new cycle. I thought the water and gravel had enough bacteria to just replace the whole system. Aaaarrrggghhh ...now I know to keep the old filter going. I hate that my fish are going through this.

So, do more water changes then you think? Add salt and wait?
 
Right now heater (100watt) set at 84, keeps constant tank temperature reading of 80. I had it up to 90 to get my tank to 82 for that ich treatment 2 weeks ago. Just lowered it to keep tank at 80 two days ago. Too high? Could that be creating my Nitrite problem? ***Also, I did a thread on the newbie forum a couple of weeks ago asking if keeping my heater in the housing unit of my filter was a problem. The answers I got seemed to lead to no - that if anything that would help the bacteria grow. Its nestled right up against the carbon filter. The biowheel isn't touching anything and is running and even has gone darker with bacteria colonies. But, where are the bacteria to get the nitrites out?
 
Omega said:
Not adding them to begin with would have been good.
Click to expand...


Why don't you try reading a post before making some wise *** comment...

He already explained:

bobandfiona"This was caused by me replacing my filtration system and not realizing that would create a new cycle. I thought the water and gravel had enough bacteria to just replace the whole system."

Someone thats made 20 posts has no credence to attack another poster.
 
I was going to reccomend that you raise the temperature to speed up bacteria division but your tank happens to be at a warm enough temperature for Nitrifying bacteria to divide every 16-24 hours which sounds slow but for this specific species is actually quite fast.
 
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