First Nitrite Reading For 2 Years?!?!

[Jimbo1984]

Hey. So I came to do a water change on boxing day and when doing my usual pre-change testing was alarmed at what I discovered. I got a nitrite reading of over 1ppm! How the...? Admittedly I hadn't done a water change for 3 weeks but i've never seen a reading before in the 2 years my tank's been cycled. Fortunately I use Seachem Prime double dosed at every water change so hopefully that has been detoxifying it as it's been produced. I did my water change and used a quadrouple dose of Prime to be sure. All the fish look oblivious which is a good sign. The only thing I can thing of is I used Octozin tablets after my last water change as I thought my Keyhole Cichlid was ill. The instructions say this will not harm filter bacteria though like most products. I also double dose Flourish Excel every other day and add Melafix for fin damage. I'm going to do another water change now as the reading has only come down to 0.5ppm. Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[Truck]

there could have been a filter bacteria die-off, where something like over dosing ferts etc has killed them off

 

[Jimbo1984]

Thanks for your reply. What, with using too much Flourish Excel?

 

[Truck]

could be the flourish excel. do you have vallis?

 

[Jimbo1984]

No I don't. Just a couple of crypts, an amazon sword and something else I don't know the name of. Why do you ask?

 

[Truck]

well vallis dont like excel, it causes it to melt so it ots in your tank and polutes it.

have you moved any crypts lately?

 

[Jimbo1984]

No, no melt there. There were quite a lot of dead leave on my amazon sword though that I hadn't got round to removing. Do they cause much ammonia when rotting?

 

[Truck]

yes leaves could have caused it but i need someone else opinion