Insane Nitrite Spikes

[dmoney22]

I have been trying to cycle my 30g tank for the last month now, and after adding enough dr tims and tetra safe for 90 GALLONS, it seemed to have been working for the past few days, as nitrite and amonia had both been getting 0 readings for the last few days. My mom put in a little too much food yestterday (tropical flake and 2 shrimp pellets) and today we didnt feed them breakfast to compensate and put in only one algae wafer at around 4 pm. about 3 hours after last feeding, we tested the water and had .25 ppm ammonia and around 1 ppm nitrite. After doing a 75% water change, we tested an hour later and had a 5 ppm reading for nitrites and still around .15 ppm ammonia. After testing again, we had 2 ppm nitrite...this all happened in a period of 3 hours. What could be causing this? We use an api master test kit and prime water conditioner, and havent changed anything around in the tank for a while. The fish in the tank are:1 silver hatchet 1 red minor tetra 1 black skirt tetra 1 micky mouse platy 1 bleeding heart tetra 1 scissor tail rasbora and 2 ghost shrimp... Please helpp!!!!!

 

[dmoney22]

Tank size:30g
pH:7.4
ammonia:.25
nitrite:see above
nitrate:not bad
tank temp:80.2

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Sounds like it is time to change almost all the water, leaving just enough to cover the fish, having turned off all electrical appliances in the tank (letting heater cool down for 15 minutes). Give the tank sand/gravel a good hoover, check the filter sponges for rotting food, give them a light rinse in water you remove from the tank.

Pretty much regardless of temperature and pH (which effect the concentration of the truely toxic ions), as soon as ammonia or nitrite reach 0.5mg/l, you need to act ASAP. I'm baffled by what is going on in my Rio240, it is holding far less fish now than it has in the past, yet I've had more ammonia spikes in the last month than I've ever had before as a fishkeeper... Its great fun loosing time replacing ~220l by 25l buckets and a gravel cleaner!

 

[balajake]

As advised above

give the filter pads a swish in the old tank water, if you over fed then the pads might be clogged with rotting food

 

[dmoney22]

Thankyou for the help, I will try all of this...When i woke up the levels were all 0 but this is probably because of the high levels of prime we added the night before!

 

[dmoney22]

Just did a deep clean, after testing earlier ammonia bacteria appear to be working well

 

[balajake]

looks like your on the right track