I Have A One Month Tank And My Nitrite Levels Are High

[graemespence1]

Hello there this is quite an emergency and i need advice and help.
My tank has being cycled for a month and it's all being fine but the last 3 days I being getting very high nitrite and nitrte levels top of the scales for my measuring kit.
I have had a molly die today and my fighting fish dont look good. I have a 28 litre tank and all i had was a fighting fish, molly, 5 neons.
When i first detected the high levels i right away did a 25% water change and cleaned the filter and then the next day it was still high i did a 40% as suggested by a friend at work still no change and finally today when my molly i changed the water 40% again and the levels have dropped a small amount there still dangerously high. I think it may be casued when i got one of those bottom fish that eats algae and i use algae wafers to feed him.
I'm new and it's quite upsetting to see my fish die and any help would be grateful.

 

[HayzH]

firstly..you say you cycled your tank for a month?
This sounds not quite right..it takes months to cycle a tank...believe me!
what do you clean your filter with?? you shouldnt need to clean it at all as thats where the good bacteria live and breed.
My guess is..your filter isnt cycled and the fish are dying of ammonia poisioning.
Head for the Resourse centre and read up on fish-in cycle's...looks like you are in for the long haul....
25% isnt enough....you need to do a 75% and test..if Nitrites are still present you need to repeat until they say 0...ANY Nitrite is toxic to fish.
What are your water test readings???
are you using strips or Liquid??? I mention this only as you say nothing about readings?! x

 

[graemespence1]

firstly..you say you cycled your tank for a month?
This sounds not quite right..it takes months to cycle a tank...believe me!
what do you clean your filter with?? you shouldnt need to clean it at all as thats where the good bacteria live and breed.
My guess is..your filter isnt cycled and the fish are dying of ammonia poisioning.
Head for the Resourse centre and read up on fish-in cycle's...looks like you are in for the long haul....
25% isnt enough....you need to do a 75% and test..if Nitrites are still present you need to repeat until they say 0...ANY Nitrite is toxic to fish.
What are your water test readings???
are you using strips or Liquid??? I mention this only as you say nothing about readings?! x

Sorry for late reply i'm just bewildered cause up until a few days ago i have being doing tests at home and the nitrites have being showing clear till the spike and 2 weeks ago i took a sample in to the local fish store and they said that all my levels were prefect and the filter sponge all i did was wringe it out in teh water that i had remove and had in the bucket as advised by the person in the pet store my nitrite readings which i did with strips once i'm paid i'm buying the liquid testers. the No3 was between 50 and 100 and No2 was 10 i'm going to take a sample to the pet store. I being told as well when i change my water to add API stress zyme which should help. I dont have anything that can test for ammonia.
I know that i'm making mistakes but i thought everything was ok the only thing in which i could see that caused the spike as they were zero till the spike happened is that i got a small sucker fish that needs algae wafers and i might have left the wafers in too long could those cause it.

 

[CezzaXV]

The fish won't be causing it (while fish do produce ammonia, it won't be at such a drastic rate adding just one fish), but if you're overfeeding and food is being left to rot at the bottom of the tank, that could very well be the cause. With most fish, you only need to feed as much as they can eat in around 2 minutes.

 

[graemespence1]

The fish won't be causing it (while fish do produce ammonia, it won't be at such a drastic rate adding just one fish), but if you're overfeeding and food is being left to rot at the bottom of the tank, that could very well be the cause. With most fish, you only need to feed as much as they can eat in around 2 minutes.

what should i do at the current minute keep water changiong 75% every day till the level drops to nothing

 

[the_lock_man]

It also sounds to me like an uncycled filter. Your best bit of reading is going to be this article here. It will explain what's been happening in your tank for the last month - and it's nothing to do with the sucker fish or its food.

The reason that you saw no change when you did the water change was that you didn't change enough to see a difference on the strip.

What you need to do now is to keep the ammonia and nitrite levels down as close to 0 as you possibly can. Initially, that will mean a lot of water changes in a short space of time. If you think about it mathematically, if you have nitrite at a level of 10ppm, if you change 40% of the water, you will reduce the ammonia to 6ppm. This is still highly, highly toxic. If you change 75%, you will reduce the ammonia to 2.5ppm. Unfortunately, this is also still highly, highly toxic. So you need to change again. If you change another 75%, you'll end up with about 0.6ppm. This is still highly toxic. If you then do another 75% change, you'll end up at about 0.15ppm. Which is better, but not perfect.

The accepted target maximum level of both ammonia and nitrite in a tank is 0.25ppm - it is still harmful to the fish at that level, but that is the level at which you need to change water again to prevent too much further damage. Therefore, you need to give yourself some leeway, to allow levels to rise while you have to be elsewhere (eg work, eating, sleeping), so that when you are available to change water again, the levels are no higher than 0.25ppm.

Over the next few weeks, as your bacteria colonies grow, you will see that levels rise more slowly. At one point, you will find when you test water that levels haven't reached 0.25ppm, so you won't need to change. At that point, you'll find that water changes are only necessary every two days. And then every three days, and so on.

When you get to a stage where you are able to go a week, without changing water, you filter can be considered cycled. From thereon, you do a weekly water change of a percentage to prevent nitrAte from going over say 50-100ppm (note that this is nitrate, not nitrite).

Part of your problem is that you have quite a high level of stocking for the size of tank - this means that ammonia and nitrite will build up quickly, so you may well find you need to test at least twice-daily initially. But the silver-lining is that large water changes are not so onerous as they would be in a 280litre tank.

Good luck, and if you need any further questions answering, post away!

 

[Far2lively]

Have you tested the water that your putting in the tank after dechlorinating it?

 

[graemespence1]

I did i full 75% water change and after giving it an hour to settle down my nitrite readings are way lower and will do another 75% tomorrow morning to get it to zero also ordered a liquid testing kit to ensure i get better readings.
my readings are No2 was around 10
and my No3 reading is around 1 i know they need to be zero i',m just relieved that one 75% change has made a huge difference

 

[the_lock_man]

I did i full 75% water change and after giving it an hour to settle down my nitrite readings are way lower and will do another 75% tomorrow morning to get it to zero also ordered a liquid testing kit to ensure i get better readings.
my readings are No2 was around 10
and my No3 reading is around 1 i know they need to be zero i',m just relieved that one 75% change has made a huge difference

That's good progress, but as you just said, it's still too high. If you did that change this morning, try testing again now, and see what it says. It won't be any lower than 1, and I wouldn't mind betting it's up to 1.25, maybe 1.5 by now - you have quite a high load in there.

 

[graemespence1]

i did the water change an hour and a half ago but i'll do another reading before i go to bed and will complete another change tomorrow morning i think the level spike was due to waste food cause when i was cleaning the gravel today loads of stuff was shaken loose in the cleaning and i being focusing my efforts to clean the gravel.
I didnt think i had a high load as i was told by someone in the shop that the tank is enough for the fish i have which is 5 neons, was one molly but it died a small algae eater and a bretta. I'm not going to replace the molly i really just took the stores advice in that my tank was more than big enough.
Should i try and find a home for some of my fish or should i try and wait till after xmas which is when i want to upgrade to a 100 litre.

 

[the_lock_man]

i think the level spike was due to waste food cause when i was cleaning the gravel today loads of stuff was shaken loose in the cleaning and i being focusing my efforts to clean the gravel.

I don't think that. Food will decompose into ammonia - that ammonia has been converted into nitrite by one colony of bacteria in the filter. In a mature filter, it would also have been converted into nitrate by another colony of bacteria. The fact that you've seen a nitrite spike indicates to me that your filter is not yet matured. That stage of development of the filter sounds about right for a fish-in cycle at 1 month.

I didnt think i had a high load as i was told by someone in the shop that the tank is enough for the fish i have which is 5 neons, was one molly but it died a small algae eater and a bretta.

Let me clarify. The point I'm not making very well is that the toxin levels will build up much quicker with what you've got, than if you had half that amount of fish, simply because there's more fish producing the ammonia. Hope that makes more sense. That said, I would also disagree with the stocking advice anyway.

Should i try and find a home for some of my fish or should i try and wait till after xmas which is when i want to upgrade to a 100 litre.

If you are able to keep on top of those ammonia and nitrite levels, as per my previous posts, then I'd say you'll be fine to keep the fish, with one caveat. Do you know exactly what type of algae eater fish you have? There may be further issues with this, dependant upon the species.

 

[graemespence1]

i'm not 100% sure i can take a picture of him and post it if that will help i'm looking to upgrade to a 100 litre in january and from what i being told appratnly the bigger the tank capacity the easier it is to maintain is that true

 

[the_lock_man]

i'm not 100% sure i can take a picture of him and post it if that will help i'm looking to upgrade to a 100 litre in january and from what i being told appratnly the bigger the tank capacity the easier it is to maintain is that true

Yes, that will definitely help - I would suggest starting a separate thread in the Tropical Discussion section, it'll just keep this thread clear for the problem at hand.

Bigger tanks are easier for novices, because the toxins are more diluted. And on that subject, what are your levels like today?

 

[graemespence1]

My No3 is 0 and my No2 is around 1 so another change is in order

 

[the_lock_man]

My No3 is 0 and my No2 is around 1 so another change is in order

Yep, sure is - give it about 90% change, that should take your level down to about 0.1ppm, which will give you some leeway. Test again this evening, and be prepared to change again at that point.

When's that test kit coming? It'll be interesting to see an ammonia (NH3) result as well.