In A Panic! Nitrites Overboard And Fish-In

[This Old Spouse]

But she doesn't have access to aquarium salt, so my advice is to skip it altogether. Just keep doing those nice big water changes. You're almost there.

 

[Tizer]

yes yes, water change, measure nitrite, if under 0.25, happy days, if not, water change, keep testing. job done. less confusing factors for the win.

 

[snazy]

And nitrite at 0.25 is way more toxic than the relevant toxicity of ammonia at the same level(although nitrite is less dangerous than ammonia) so this way of keeping levels does not apply to nitrites. But never mind, you are right that big water changes every 2 hours if you can can help with the fast rising nitrites. That's providing that the Ph of the tap water is the same as the tank water, as big water changes in a row like that can kill the fish instead and stress them even more.

Why is it in general that people keep saying salt is a something to worry about with a livebearer like platy?
Platies can live all their life time in salt that level with no bother.

 

[Tizer]

To dose sodium chloride effectively you have to achieve a 5:1 or 6:1 ratio against the nitrite and with this level of nitrite flucuating, caused by the water changes, it becomes a real ball ache for someone new to the hobby to manage properly, even someone whos been in it a while has to think a little. If you dont reach the recommended ratio, the chloride does nothing and while i agree with you, it wont cause too much harm to the platies, you have to remember, all these livebearing fish are tank bred, they do not come from the wild where yes, some salt may be in the water. They are also so inbred, with extremely poor immune systems, they can simply fall dead if you look at them the wrong way.

With frequent water changes, the PH of the water should not be hugely different so it really is the best thing you can do for them.

So really, why risk it

man, i need to eat some lunch, starving

KFC !!!!

 

[This Old Spouse]

And

to KFC!

 

[balajake]

Would it be worth rinsing your filter pads in the old tank water, they might be clogged with poop or fish food, it could be a factor.

unless you already did that

 

[FishFanatic04]

I don't have to worry about Ph changes...I'm doing so many water changes that there's no way for the ph to even have a chance to be different in the tank. We are changing over 100g a water a day as my nitrites are rising so fast I can't keep up. The bad thing is my tap is 1.0 ppm ammonia so it's constantly re-feeding the bacteria. Once the nitrates start rising we will be in good shape. Except my tests for nitrates aren't doing any good right now because of the constant water changing so I have no idea if we are even close to have a drop in nitrite soon.

I haven't rinsed the filter pads. I lightly swirled them 2 weeks ago because my first week I was on a learning curve with feeding the fish. Now we have a good food ratio (slightly underfed while cycling) So I haven't wanted to mess with the filter at all. I even added some extra sponge to each side.

I think it's the ammonia in my tap water that's making this cycle so crazy. Day 8 and still off the chart nitrite! Cross your fingers for my poor fishes. good news: they will be used to water changes by the end of this.

 

[FishFanatic04]

As for the salt. Tizer made a great point. I'm figuring things out really quickly but I'm still new to the science of fishkeeping and I don't want to introduce anything to my tank that I don't know how to manage yet. I appreciate the suggestion, but the water changes on a 46g this often (with a 2 gallon bucket ) are challanging enough without adding something else.

 

[balajake]

would adding ammonia lock or something like that to the water before adding it to the tank help ? i'm not sure how it would appear on your ammonia tests after adding it though.

 

[FishFanatic04]

I'm using Prime. It doesn't affect the test though. Its supposed to lock nitrites too. I had been hoping that that would be enough, but the fish have red gills. We are just going to keep up the water changing and hope it ends soon.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Now may be a good time to google search local hole in the wall pet stores and check you chains to see if they would be willing to give you, or sell you some mature media. If you were closer to me I would send you some, but I do not know if it would survive

 

[FishFanatic04]

Its a half hour drive to the nearest one that doesn't make my skin crawl, which isnt that far.. I'll make a call later and see how it goes.

Thanks for all the replies.

 

[snazy]

Just a thought, but with ammonia of 1ppm in the water, by doing water changes you might be adding more ammonia than the 4 platies can produce. You might as well just dose the tank with Prime every 24hrs instead.

 

[Prime Ordeal]

You should be tackling this from the point of view of controlling the ammonia production (i.e. at source). Get some zeolite or clinoptolite (same thing different name) and/or some Seachem Purigen. These products will adsorb the ammonia and consequently control the nitrites meaning almost no water changes required. You would just need to keep an eye on the ammonia so that there's enough for the bacteria to feed on.

Also 4 Platys in a 46 gallon tank shouldn't be producing the quantity of ammonia you seem to be experiencing. That suggests a lot of organic material being broken down in the tank somewhere. For example, dirty filter or substrate, mulm trapped in plants, rotting plants etc.

Your overdosing of Prime is not recommended as it will inhibit the bacteria you are trying to grow.

 

[FishFanatic04]

Theres nothing breaking down. Its not a heavily decorated tank right now and I started out like a doofus and filled it with ugly fake decorations. Theres nothing in the gravel as I vacuum the gravel Every water change for that purpose, to avoid extra waste in there. The filter was brand new as of 4 weeks ago and I cleaned it off 2 weeks ago...just checked and theres barely anything on it. I got a bottle brush today so tonight I'll clean the intake tube just in case. I was worried because one of the platies dropped fry and we only ever saw 2 of them...but I would have sucked any up with the vac if they were in the gravel breaking down. I'm sticking that thing down to the bottom and letting it strip the gravel.

I'll look into getting some purigen