Betta Tank Has High Nitrites

[oz_jay]

Hi All,

I'm a complete fish keeping newbie although I've been reading and researching as much as I can over the last few weeks.

I was given a 20 litre (5-ish gallon) tank that I cycled (or so I thought) and added a Betta. 24 hours later the nitrites were up slightly at about 0.25ppm. A day after that, the nitrites were off the charts high - 5ppm plus.

I've been dosing the tank with Seachem Srime and Stability and the fish isn't showing any signs of being affected by the nitrite levels so I'm assuming the Prime is helping detoxify the nitrites as Seachem claim it will.

I decided to do some 50% water changes to bring the levels down but three days and eight 50% changes later the nitrites are still at 5ppm and showing no signs of dropping.

This mornings readings were; pH 6.8, Ammonia 0, nitrites 5+, nitrates 20.

Is this the point where I move the fish to a temporary new home, clean the tank and start the tank again? I'm not keen in him going through a fish-in cycle but I'm not so sure hanging out in high nitrite levels is doing him much good either.

Any advice appreciated...

 

[tunagirll]

It sounds like something is creating a lot of ammonia and the nitrifying bacteria are trying to populate the tank enough to break it down. I would just keep up the water changes daily or even twice daily to keep the nitrites down for your fish and see if it settles in a few days. If you are very concerned, you can put your betta in a container and clip it to the side of the tank so he is quarantined but still at stable temperature from the tank water while your tank settles.

 

[kiwi210]

How often do you feed your fish and how much? If you feed you fish too much food, the excess food will sink to the bottom, breakdown and create ammonias, hence the increase in nitrites. If you feed your fish too often, it will create extra feces which will also breakdown in the water, release ammonias, and increase the nitrites. It is obviously healthy for your fish to poop but when he poops too much, it's really bad for the water. Only feed your fish once a day and only the amount he can eat in a minute. Remember that in the wild, he may only eat once a week.