Help Am I Doing Right

[Dibbs123]

Doing a fish in cycle. didnt know better and advice from LFS. My Nitrite has been high for over two weeks now. I am doing 50% water 3 times a day to try and keep it at 0.25ppm but I feel I am fighting a loosing battle and my life is consumed with water changes!!

I have a 43 gallon tank 6 black widow tetras 1 dwarf goramni. lost one dwarf goramni this week. Tank been set up since the 21st Dec.

ammonia been 0 for over three weeks between 40-80 Nitrates, Nitrite at .25ppm through water changes only. I if I dont over night they shoot back up to 5ppm.

Any Advice??

UPDATE
I have just noticed green algae which is quite stringy on one of my ornaments. is this normal??

 

[Miah002]

Nitrates are meant to be zero. Your tank has not fully cycled.

Don't do 50% changes as this will stress the fish and you'll lose the good bacteria.

Do either a 20 or 25% water change.

 

[OldMan47]

You are doing exactly what you should do Dibbs. Another thing that will help is to limit how much you feed. The less you feed, the less waste to decay into ammonia and ultimately become nitrites. You need to be careful to feed enough but be very careful not to feed more than is needed immediately. A 46 gallon with such a light load in it should never be seeing a 5 ppm nitrite reading with frequent water changes. I am assuming that you do a good gravel vacuuming with each water change so there is no food buildup on the bottom.

If I may ask, how do you test for nitrites?

 

[Truck]

Nitrates are meant to be zero. Your tank has not fully cycled.

Don't do 50% changes as this will stress the fish and you'll lose the good bacteria. will it? ive done 100% WC's before 50% is perfectly safe

Do either a 20 or 25% water change.

 

[Dibbs123]

You are doing exactly what you should do Dibbs. Another thing that will help is to limit how much you feed. The less you feed, the less waste to decay into ammonia and ultimately become nitrites. You need to be careful to feed enough but be very careful not to feed more than is needed immediately. A 46 gallon with such a light load in it should never be seeing a 5 ppm nitrite reading with frequent water changes. I am assuming that you do a good gravel vacuuming with each water change so there is no food buildup on the bottom.

If I may ask, how do you test for nitrites?

I do do gravel vac as well and do get a small amount of fish food that had been left over. Again This is very small. I am using the test kit with the test tubes and liquid test

 

[OldMan47]

A dwarf gourami and 6 tetras should not be enough bioload to keep your nitrites that high with absolutely no biofilter working. Try cutting back on feeding so that you never find any excess food to vacuum up. You really should only find fish waste on the bottom. This is going to sound real stupid but you did remove the dead gourami and you do have filter media in the filter right? And, of course, you are not adding any ammonia on purpose.

 

[Dibbs123]

A dwarf gourami and 6 tetras should not be enough bioload to keep your nitrites that high with absolutely no biofilter working. Try cutting back on feeding so that you never find any excess food to vacuum up. You really should only find fish waste on the bottom. This is going to sound real stupid but you did remove the dead gourami and you do have filter media in the filter right? And, of course, you are not adding any ammonia on purpose.

Removed the dead fish staright away. I have a fluval filter. two foam pads. carbon on bottom tray, ceramic bead things on the next two trays.

I added three plants last week to try and get Nitrites and nitrate down. Two of them had started to go brown so I have removed them today. They werent rotten and just had brown patches but this may have added more ammonia. I watched the feeding today and added as I went. stopped when fish stopped feeding after approx 3 mins. due to no bottom feeders some food has ended up on the gravel. I have not touched the filter since I connected approx 6 weeks ago. The flow is still very good.

Thanks for the replies by the way

 

[Dibbs123]

A dwarf gourami and 6 tetras should not be enough bioload to keep your nitrites that high with absolutely no biofilter working. Try cutting back on feeding so that you never find any excess food to vacuum up. You really should only find fish waste on the bottom. This is going to sound real stupid but you did remove the dead gourami and you do have filter media in the filter right? And, of course, you are not adding any ammonia on purpose.

Removed the dead fish staright away. I have a fluval filter. two foam pads. carbon on bottom tray, ceramic bead things on the next two trays.

I added three plants last week to try and get Nitrites and nitrate down. Two of them had started to go brown so I have removed them today. They werent rotten and just had brown patches but this may have added more ammonia. I watched the feeding today and added as I went. stopped when fish stopped feeding after approx 3 mins. due to no bottom feeders some food has ended up on the gravel. I have not touched the filter since I connected approx 6 weeks ago. The flow is still very good.

Thanks for the replies by the way

 

[OldMan47]

Removing plants that are decaying was a good idea. I usually just trim dead leaves from mine. The green plants will help some with ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. I use duckweed as a nitrogen sponge because it always does so well under good light. Many people consider it a weed but that just means it grows fast and soaks up nutrients from the water.

 

[Dave Spencer]

I added three plants last week to try and get Nitrites and nitrate down. Two of them had started to go brown so I have removed them today. They werent rotten and just had brown patches but this may have added more ammonia.

Don`t over estimate the ability of plants to reduce nitrates. With one or two exceptions, they will not touch nitrites as a source of N. Only add plants to a tank if you want them for aesthetic reasons, and no other.

You were right to remove them if they were struggling, as your observation with the increased ammonia was spot on. This situation will only make the algae worse.

I run high light, high CO2, high nutrient, heavily planted tanks full of fast growing stems, and my plants only use circa 5ppm of nitrates per day, although they will also be acquiring N from waste ammonia.

Are you sure you have nitrites, and are not just chasing ghosts with an inaccurate test kit?

Dave.

 

[Dibbs123]

I added three plants last week to try and get Nitrites and nitrate down. Two of them had started to go brown so I have removed them today. They werent rotten and just had brown patches but this may have added more ammonia.

Don`t over estimate the ability of plants to reduce nitrates. With one or two exceptions, they will not touch nitrites as a source of N. Only add plants to a tank if you want them for aesthetic reasons, and no other.

You were right to remove them if they were struggling, as your observation with the increased ammonia was spot on. This situation will only make the algae worse.

I run high light, high CO2, high nutrient, heavily planted tanks full of fast growing stems, and my plants only use circa 5ppm of nitrates per day, although they will also be acquiring N from waste ammonia.

Are you sure you have nitrites, and are not just chasing ghosts with an inaccurate test kit?

Dave.

Hi Dave

I assume the kit is working as when I change the water the levels are showing as dropping. done lwater change last night reading 0.25ppm. This morning they are back up to 1ppm.