Can't Get Rid Of The Nitrite!

[Lizzie71]

I've never heard of freshwater salt. Is it just normal table salt or something specialised?

I'll keep going with the water changes, any idea how long it will take to get rid of the nitrite?

 

[rabbut]

To make the nitrite less toxic, add some freshwater salt. Platies should have it in the tank anyway.

Althought Platies won't suffer from lack of salt, they have'nt appeared to have benifited form in in my 3 years experience breeding them either. It may be work considering aquarium, salt however, depending uppon stocking. Some fish will realy suffer if you add it. Bare that in mind, as scaleless fish, such as loaches, often have adverse reactions to salt, in my experience.

Salt may have benifits, such as reducing fungral infections, and aiding in the removal of carbon dioxide form the fishes blood stream, but I am unaware of evidence showing that nitrite is made less toxic to fish.

I've never heard of freshwater salt. Is it just normal table salt or something specialised?

I'll keep going with the water changes, any idea how long it will take to get rid of the nitrite?

Freshwater salt is a specialised salt. Regretably, the time taken for nitrite to reduce varies from tank to tank, so unfortunately you can only do as you are doing now. With a little time, and mebe some more mature media, you will eventualy cycle and be able to add more fish

HTH
rabbut

 

[Lizzie71]

Sorry, one more question. I've cranked up the temperature to 30 degrees. Is that too hot for my platys? I don't want boiled fish!

 

[scooterchick]

Yes, 30's generally too hot. When you reduce the temp do it slowly, fish can't tolerate rapid changes in temp, a 2 degree change quickly is enough to stress them out. Slowly reduce it to 28.

 

[Lizzie71]

OK, so today's tests read

Ammonia 0 or 0.1
Nitrite somewhere between 0.5 and 1.5
Nitrate 25
PH about 8-8.5

Temp 27-28

I have liquid tests but to be honest I find them a nightmare to read, it's really hard to match up the colours, hence the lack of accuracy on the nitrite test.

I have been doing 50% water changes every day and the stats are basically staying stable, so I'm still struggling to get the nitrite down. The good thing is that the fish still seem fine (fingers crossed) but I'm nowhere near being able to get the next few fish and I've nearly run out of Aqua Plus

 

[rabbut]

OK, so today's tests read

Ammonia 0 or 0.1

Within reasonable values.

Nitrite somewhere between 0.5 and 1.5

These are very high. Wherever possible, you need to keep these below 0.25ppm. Any higher and you run the risk of long-tearm damage due to nitrite poisoning. This long-tearm admage could easily lead to an early death for the fish concerned.

Nitrate 25

Assuming you water comes out of the tap close to 0, this is good. It would surgest that some nitrite processing bactiria are presant within you filters. While your tank cycles, I would surgest cutting feeding down to every 2-4days at the most. It sounds cruel, but it reduces the bioload on the tank, reducing the ammount of waterchanges involved, and Fish in the wild will often go without food for much longer.

PH about 8-8.5

Temp 27-28

Both good

I have liquid tests but to be honest I find them a nightmare to read, it's really hard to match up the colours, hence the lack of accuracy on the nitrite test.

I find liquid tests easyies to read under direct bright sunlight, with the chart held directly behing the visel, and the sun shining on the side in whch you are reading from.

I have been doing 50% water changes every day and the stats are basically staying stable, so I'm still struggling to get the nitrite down. The good thing is that the fish still seem fine (fingers crossed) but I'm nowhere near being able to get the next few fish and I've nearly run out of Aqua Plus

Although Tetra Aqua Plus is a very good tap water conditioner, it is also very dilute. I may surgest that you look at a more concerntrated brand, such as API. Levels staying stable at these levels, would surgest to me that there may be too larger ammonia source in the tank. May I ask how much and how often you are currently feeding?

HTH
rabbut

 

[Lizzie71]

They get a small pinch of flakes once a day, in the morning. I generally do water changes in the evening each day. They aren't leaving any food, the flakes disappear in seconds so there is no old food in the tank. I do have a number of plants, which seem to be surviving OK. I have been putting plant fertiliser in once a week too, but I don't think that should affect anything much.

Can't think what the ammonia source will be, as I've said there are only 3 platys in there and they aren't even very big yet.

Oh well, I'll keep soldiering on and hopefully it will come right eventually.

 

[ibbledibble]

Nitrate 25

Assuming you water comes out of the tap close to 0, this is good. It would surgest that some nitrite processing bactiria are presant within you filters. While your tank cycles, I would surgest cutting feeding down to every 2-4days at the most. It sounds cruel, but it reduces the bioload on the tank, reducing the ammount of waterchanges involved, and Fish in the wild will often go without food for much longer.

I have been putting plant fertiliser in once a week too, but I don't think that should affect anything much.

although it shouldn't affect your cycling, putting in plant fertiliser may be affecting your nitrate reading, as nitrate is often present in plant foods. so you might not have started to process nitrite yet. but thats by no means definite. just something to bear in mind.

 

[Lizzie71]

Readings this morning are

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0.5 (it's a paler pink than last night, so I think it is slightly lower)
Nitrate 25
PH 8ish
Temp 28

Looks like I might be slowly winning the battle, nitrite is getting a bit lower.

 

[rabbut]

although it shouldn't affect your cycling, putting in plant fertiliser may be affecting your nitrate reading, as nitrate is often present in plant foods. so you might not have started to process nitrite yet. but thats by no means definite. just something to bear in mind.

Although there are many fertilisers on the market that will raise nitrate, I woulden't think that it would manitain a constant value of nitrate for the full week. In fact, with the ammount of waterchanges you are doing at the moment, I would surgest that the fertiliser will not realy be doing much. Most will be removed with the waterchanges, and that which remains will be diluted by the top-up water.

Readings this morning are

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0.5 (it's a paler pink than last night, so I think it is slightly lower)
Nitrate 25
PH 8ish
Temp 28

Looks like I might be slowly winning the battle, nitrite is getting a bit lower.

Ammonia dropping to 0 from 0.1 is a definate improvement. What was the nitrite reading after the last waterchange? If the nitrite is now holding stable, I woulden't have thought that it would be long before that too drops to 0. IMO, it would be best to stop using the fertiliser untill the tank is cycled, as most will be wasted after waterchanges.

HTH
rabbut

 

[Lizzie71]

Nitrite was 0.5 this morning after a water change yesterday evening. I haven't done a water change today, I thought I'd give it a day off to see what happened. I'll test again in the morning and do a water change if necessary (it probably will be).

 

[Musho3210]

most regular plant fertilizers are just micro/trace fertilization, if you want a source of nitrogen, you need to buy a bottle of nitrate/ammonium or powdered form of KNO3 (potassium nitrate). So i doubt this regular fertilizer is loading up nitrate.

 

[fry_lover]

Well then all I have learnt here is wrong, you can have a fully cycled tank instantly...

Actually thats correct, you can have a fully cycled tank "instantly" so to speak, you "cycle" the filter basically, not the tank. If the filter is mature and you take from another tank, then you can instantly stock and not bother with cycling, depending on how much of a bio-load your mature filter can take (see below). You would need to test ammonia and nitrite daily to be sure.

Taking a mature filter from a 10 Gallon tank housing 5 small fish, would not enable you to fully stock a 50 Gallon with 20 medium fish.

The bioload from the tank where the filter is coming from needs to match farily closely the new tank (if you want to cover all your bets).

Now, a forum scientist will probably be along now to add further, but i stand by the fact that it is possible to "cycle" a tank instantly, although the term "cycle" doesnt really apply.

When you say "all i have learnt here is wrong", what have you learnt?

EDIT: as in, if you've read different on here, i would be interested in seeing it, especially if it was in a "sticky" or something

 

[fry_lover]

To make the nitrite less toxic, add some freshwater salt. Platies should have it in the tank anyway.

Althought Platies won't suffer from lack of salt, they have'nt appeared to have benifited form in in my 3 years experience breeding them either. It may be work considering aquarium, salt however, depending uppon stocking. Some fish will realy suffer if you add it. Bare that in mind, as scaleless fish, such as loaches, often have adverse reactions to salt, in my experience.

Salt may have benifits, such as reducing fungral infections, and aiding in the removal of carbon dioxide form the fishes blood stream, but I am unaware of evidence showing that nitrite is made less toxic to fish.

I've never heard of freshwater salt. Is it just normal table salt or something specialised?

I'll keep going with the water changes, any idea how long it will take to get rid of the nitrite?

Freshwater salt is a specialised salt. Regretably, the time taken for nitrite to reduce varies from tank to tank, so unfortunately you can only do as you are doing now. With a little time, and mebe some more mature media, you will eventualy cycle and be able to add more fish

HTH
rabbut

Try some Google action, its pretty common knowledge that salt reduces the toxicity of nitrite to fish. It's too late for me to start finding links, i am sure you can find them yourself.

 

[fry_lover]

Yes, 30's generally too hot. When you reduce the temp do it slowly, fish can't tolerate rapid changes in temp, a 2 degree change quickly is enough to stress them out. Slowly reduce it to 28.

Debateable, many fish sometimes begin spawning when temperature drops quite quickly, and its an acceptable method to induce/encourage spawning for some fish, i am not saying for platies, but "fish cant tolerate rapid changes in temp" is not bad advice and is playing it safe and I am not saying lets all mess about with the temp for the sake of it or not bother trying to keepo a stable temp but i would confidently suggest your platies will not get stressed by a 2-degree change, even if you do it "rapidly" although i obviously cant say for sure as i am not a platy who has experienced it LOL, its sound advice in that you should maintain stable temps in general, but if you need or want to reduce the temp by 2-degree's i say go ahead and do it, doesnt need to be that gradual at all. Not for such a small adjustment. The fact you turned the heater down a touch, will make it gradual enough anyway

To make the nitrite less toxic, add some freshwater salt. Platies should have it in the tank anyway.

Platies "should" have salt in the tank? not true, it wont kill them, but the statement above (2nd part of sentence) is in-correct, if it were correct, then no one would be advised to keep platies with many of the common tetra's or corydoras catfish, as these fish really should NOT have any added salt in the water.

The advantage sometimes of platies and guppies, is that you have the option to treat disease/illness with more prolonged exposure to salt than simply a salt bath. Many fish, you dont have this option.