How To Stabilise These Levels?

[Melava87]

So iv been buying like mad and have finally got myself a master test kit as well as additional treatments for the tank should I need them (after yesterday's loss I don't want to be caught out on a public holiday with no fishy medicine again )

So anyway - my ammonia is at 0
However.... My nitrites are at 2 - I know this is high and plan to do a water change tonight plus clean out the gravel and also add some nutrafin cycle and dechlorinate the water before adding it to the tank.

I have also purchased something called 'Health Guard' by love fish.

Can anyone advise me if it is ok to add this at the sand time as the nutrafin cycle and aqua plus?

Hopefully this will get my water levels to stabilise.

My dalmation Molly looks great very active and feeding well but also plan to starve him for a day or too also to try to get the best results.

Is everything I'm doing here right?

My nitrates are at 20 - what should they be? I know ammonia and nitrites should be 0 but am I right in saying there will always be nitrates in my tank?

Thanks in advance

M

 

[Blubble37]

nutrafin cycle really doesnt do anything, it's a bottle of water pretty much, you mght have limited success with it.
 
nitrates are fine up to about 80 ppm when they can start irritating fish, however, i've known healthy tanks at 100 ppm

 

[Melava87]

I also recieved a donor filter squeeze from
A friend with an established aquarium on Tuesday - think this has perhaps helped in removing all ammonia which has gone from 0.25 Monday to 0 today

So is there no point adding nutrafin cycle then or?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

You can add a small ampunt of salt for the nitrite. Yhis will nlock it from doing the damage inside the fish but leave it there for the bacteria. Whether one adds cloride to the water or does a water change, neither will reduce the nitrite already in the fish- this will work its way out in 24-72 hours. But the salt (or waterchange) will prevent more from building up inside the fish.
 
You need to add plain old salt to the tank to make the equivalent of 10 x the ppm of nitrite of chloride. That would be 20 mg/l of chloride in your case. Since salt is about 1/3 sodium and 2/3 chloride, you need to add 1.5 times the salt or 30 mg/l. Don't forget once you get the mg/l to divide it by 1,000 for weighing it. Its easier to weigh grams then miligrams. This amount of salt for the short term should not harm fish.
 
Throw out the nutrafin cycle- its a waste imo. No clue what the other product is- if you can post the ingredients that would help. The odds are it too is a waste.
 
Do not over clean the gravel- some of your desired bacteria lives there. if you want to suck debris off the surface, that should be fine.