Is My Tank Too High In Nitrite And Poss Killing Fish?

[locust267]

Before I go into one would like to say hi to everyone as I'm new here

I have a small community (54L) tank consisting of:

5 Zebra Danio's
6 Neon Tetra's
1 Black red tailed shark
2 Male guppies (previously 6 and a fry)
1 black female molly and one white female molly (purchased last thursday)
Now 4 molly fry in a breeder net!

Last thursday I bought 2 new mollies after about a period of a month 5 of my guppies died and I thought a different fish might be better for me.

On saturday morning I saw a little molly fry swimming about but later that evening he had gone, so I checked the filter - There were 5 of them - One dead.

Basically now the 4 molly fry are in a breeder net whilst another tank is maturing in the kitchen. However I am not sure what to do with the water in my old tank as ideally I would like to add some to the new tank to speed up the process.

The guy in the shop - bearing in mind I dont think much of their advice, tested my water and said that it is too high in nitrite and not to feed the fish for a week. I checked with him about 4 times that it was nitrite and not the nitrate. When I got home I changed 25% of the water as advised and have since not fed any of the fish (since monday morning).

He also advised with the new tank (never used) to straight away add some of my danio's (I added some kind of tablet to the water, tetra benozym or something like that) and I added one danio 24 hours later and another today. They seem fine at the moment so I hope they stay that way.

He said that once the nitrite has gone down in my old tank to add some water from that to the new one. Well I have been doing the tetra 5 in 1 tests and the nitrite reading is as white as white can get - The nitrate give a reading of about 25 - Could he really of got these mixed up? Has the nitrate in my tank gone down that quickly? Are the tetra 5 in 1 test strips a pile of rubbish?

I would love for someone to help me with this, I have since ordered nitrite and ammonia tests but they wont be with me til next week.

I am new to fish keeping and am still trying to learn so I have lots of other questions for other sections but thought this one goes in well here.

Forgot to mention above that I use a gravel syphon to remove about 25-30% water about every 10 days and used to feed the fish very tiny amounts twice per day (tetramin) the food was all gone within seconds. I always use aquasafe. Although saying this I am not sure of the efficiency of my filter, it's by Vita Tech and came as part of the Aldi offer late last year. The filter media has never been changed since january as I cant find anything similar to use in it but is rinsed off in dirty tank water about once per month (no more than that).

Thanks for your help.

Vicki

* I would also like to add that my algea eater also bought on thursday was found dead today

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Hi there,

it's important to give us the exact levels when you ask questions like this, it's best to get your own test kit, if you've not got one then when the fish shop test your water you should note down exactly what the results are. without this we can't always tell what's going on.

however i guess you're tank is cycling, this topic should explain more http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...eady-have-fish/

 

[locust267]

Hi Thanks for that, so would you recommend this one then [URL="http/www.charterhouse-aquatics.co.uk/cat...est-p-1091.html"]http/www.charterhouse-aquatics.co.uk/cat...est-p-1091.html[/URL]

Just wanted to make sure I order the right one.

So the test strips I have I take it are not very accurate and most probably the reason my fish are dying?

For example the reading I have just this second done gives readings of the following:

NO3 = 25
NO2 = 0 (guy in the shop told me that it was high so am assuming my reading is wrong)
GH = >16d
KH = 10d
pH = 7.6

No ammonia readings. From the above is there anything that could be killing my fish as my algea eater was found dead today and 5 guppies have died with 2 months?

The tank that these readings have come from has been up and running since January this year, fishless cycled for 6 weeks then the LFS sold me 5 danios. Then continued to maintain the 5 danio's for another 3 weeks before adding (probably too many but LFS said would be fine) 6 male guppies (also a fry which he didnt see), Panda cory (he disappeared doomed eaten) and a red tailed shark. Then I let it run for about another month before adding 6 neons and after losing the panda, and 5 guppies added 2 mollies and the algea eater (now dead).

The other tank that I have just set up on monday was given the bactozym (?) and now 2 danio's are in it but cant transfer any water from the mother tank until I know it is safe!

There is so much conflicting advice and I cant find a good LFS and am anrgy that after coming on here have already found more people willing to help

Am I doing the right thing by not feeding my fish in the mother tank and only doing the one water change on the monday (if the nitrite is high as advised in the LFS)? Anything else I should do to stop losing any more fish?

Sorry to be such a n00b just want to get it right this time...

 

[Bigpig]

The link just bring me to the menu no items.

what you want to get is the API Master freshwater test kit its on that site you linked.

Very good and simple to use

 

[Miss Wiggle]

firstly, never apologise for being a noob and not knowing this. it doesn't come naturally. you're in the right place now talking to people who know what to do and want to help you so we'll get you through this.

can't promise it'll be plain sailing but we will get you there!!

firstly, yes that's the right test kit. get one bought asap.

the test strips are massivley inaccurate, those reading's are not worth the paper they are written on unfortunatley so i wouldn't give out advice based on them.

however one thing you can do, for both tanks, which is guaranteed to be safe regardless of what your water test results are is water changes.

anytime you get a reading of ammonia or nitrite you should do minimum 30% daily water changes every day until both ammonia and nitrite are safe at 0. It's completely safe to do plenty of water changes, you won't harm you're fish and will dilute any nasties in the tank.

have the fish that died shown any symptoms of illness? describe them as best you can.

the other thing to consider is the stocking of your tank

a 54litre tank is roughly 15 gallons. you can have 1" of fish for every gallon of water (based on the adult size of the fish), you have as follows

5 Zebra Danio's - 7.5"
6 Neon Tetra's - 6"
1 Black red tailed shark - 6"
2 Male guppies (previously 6 and a fry) - 2"
1 black female molly and one white female molly (purchased last thursday) - 6"
Now 4 molly fry in a breeder net! - 12"

that's nearly 40" of fish, so massivley overstocked. the RTBS also gets way to big for your tank and is an aggressive fish (he could have killed the other fish BTW). Even with a whopping great filter on the tank you would be struggling with water quality from the sheer volume of fish, so this is most likley why you have poor water quality and why the fish are dying.

have a think about what fish you want to keep and you'll need to return some of them to the shop. The RTBS has to go.... not optional!!

 

[martyn413]

Miss wiggle is correct.

I bought a RTBS to live in a 110 litre tank yet he got too big and bullied the other fish. The other fish seamed scared and I was concerned they would develop disease or die. I called a pet shop and made a quick delivery.

Please note the RTBS grows really quickly, I’d say they need at least a 40 gal tank.

Martyn

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Vicki and welcome to the forums!

From reading your message it really sounds like you've picked up more good habits already than most newcomers to the hobby. You are seeking information, being skeptical of LFS (Local Fish Shop) info and trying to do the best for your fish -- all good things. I'm a relative newcomer here too and if it is anything for you like it has been for me, this is a really nice forum to have stumbled upon on the web. The people here are really friendly and have lots of experience and good advice to share. My own feeling is that learning this new info is the best thing that can happen to you in this hobby.

Miss Wiggle is one of the very experienced ones and her intro article she has pointed you to is one we often use for newcomers - well worth studying over! You'll notice in the article that she recommends that you get a good liquid-reagent based test kit and I agree that this will be action item number one for you. Indeed, many of us use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit she mentions and I've found it to be very good, very much the core tool a beginner needs. If you've already ordered some individual test kits, that's fine and you can take a look at the API one to see which ones you might be missing, or if you ordered a different brand, that's ok too as long as its liquid based. You're intuition is correct, the test strips are not worth the paper they are printed on.

As you already seem to be familiar with, the Ammonia and Nitrite ones are of top importance. Next down I would place the pH and Nitrate kits. There are the rare people that need the High pH test but you can wait to see about that. Further on down, you may find a KH/GH kit to be useful but that will depend on your water hardness and pH situation. Do you know anything about your pH and hardness already and if so how did you find out?

Once you have assembled your test kit, its time to test your source/tap water a couple of times to get the hang of the testing (a couple of quantity-marked syringes or, slightly less useful, a couple of glass eyedroppers will be helpful in all this.) Then post your results here in your thread, and go ahead and post test results for your tanks too if you get to that.

The reason we are focusing on the test kit is that the "unexpected" dead fish are not a surprise to any of us. When newcomers arrive and don't yet really understand the nitrogen cycle and the preparation of biofilters (which can take weeks of understanding and work and should be done prior to owning fish) they don't realize they are in for a lot of dead or damaged fish. Most are pretty horrified once they fully realize how cavalier the LFS attitude has been about the lives of fish.

Now, besides your test kit, you should set some challanging reading assignments for yourself: Besides the Miss Wiggle article, there is one by AlienAnna (you find it by looking at the top of this "New" forum in the "pinned" articles and clicking on Beginner's Resource Center, Cycling Resource Center; and there are some other ones there you might find time for) and also pinned, you'll find the fishless cycling article by rdd1952. Even though you will be doing what we call a "Fish-In" cycle, it is still good reading to learn about fishless cycling as it important for you to begin to get the complete picture. You also might want to enter a search string of "nitrogen cycle" on Wikipedia to take a look at some graphics they have that are helpful.

As Miss Wiggle says, its essential at first, and also good periodically, when posting to remind all your readers of your tank sizes and your situation and later of course, your test results of water chemistries. Its also useful to enter your location into your profile - you can see how others of us do that and there are a number of things that is helpful with when we give advice.

OK, hope this will be a good thing to store away from the "wordy guy", lol and I hope this further helps you get started.

~~waterdrop~~
ps. oh good, I see while I was typing away, you've already started receiving some of that good advice!

 

[locust267]

The Panda cory I dont know how he died as he just disappeared - Probably eaten.

The guppies have all died through some kind of weird illness that I posted about - They were ok then developed a bent back.

The algea eater showed no symptoms.

Now I have the other tank (only 35L) I was planning on moving a few fish over to it once it's ready to go, just to take the load off the old tank. We ideally want a 180l tank one day and maybe move all the fish from both tanks into that one depending on how well they would mix again (as only likely to be a max of what is listed above).

Going to PAH tonight to get water tested and buy the water kit you suggested (more money ) but would you also recc another filter to help my current tank cope with it's load for the time being?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes buying another filter could help.

firstly get the water test results, what i suspect your best plan would be is to spread the fish between both tanks, with each filter containing some of the media fom the existing tank. But I'd like confirmed test readings before you decide exactly what to do.

 

[Craster]

Going to PAH tonight to get water tested and buy the water kit you suggested (more money ) but would you also recc another filter to help my current tank cope with it's load for the time being?

When they test it, try and get them to give you the figures so you can post them here, rather than them just telling you "it's fine", or whatever.

 

[locust267]

Well you will all be pleased to hear that the water readings in his words are perfect.

The nitrite is 0mg
The Nitrate was at 0mg (is this too low)?
The ammonia was also at 0

I bought the test kit and done the pH when I got home, this was at about 8 - would this be too high for the guppies maybe explaining why I have trouble keeping them?

So when I got home I moved some of the water over to my 35l tank as I am hoping that the molly fry can move across soon I later done a test for ammonia and nitrite in the 35l and ammnia was at 0.50 and nitrite at 0mg - So I'm guessing I just have to keep taking these every day and do a water change if the ammonia is higher than this?

I think that's all from this section... Need to go post some more questions now I'm afraid.

Cheers

 

[Miss Wiggle]

moving water from one tank to another won't do anything to help

what keeps the water clean and healthy is the mature filter media. take some media from the filter in your estbalished tank and put it into the filter in the new tank otherwise your water levels in the new tank will be all over the place shortly.

the lack of nitrate is somewhat odd, you will generally always have some nitrate which leads me to distrust the readings.

did you get your own liquid test kit? can you test both tanks and your tap water and post the results

 

[locust267]

Hi again, yes sorry forgot to say above that I moved water and a little filter media across.

With regards to the readings on the mother tank though (I bought the API kit)

The readings I posted above (all of 0) are correct, the pH in my tank is 8.

I took readings from the tap water and we have no nitrate so I'm guessing that along with 4 live plants in my tank explains the 0mg/L nitrate in my tank?

Should I have nitrate in the tank and if so how would I go about getting it or will it run fine as it is?

The tap water has a pH of 7.6 so is the difference of this to my tank exceptable and if not what is causing the difference considering my other results?

Also the other tank I set up seems to be doing well, the nitrite is still at 0, ammonia reached 0.50 so I done a 20% water change and it's back to 0 again but I'm guessing it will keep rising until the filter has settled and it's then cycled?

Sorry for all the Q's

 

[waterdrop]

Miss Wiggle will still have to get back to you but I'll thow in a couple of things in case she's busy for a while:

Its good not to have nitrate, so certainly don't worry about that!
(fun to figure out where its going from an interest perspective but ultimately you are just trying to get rid of it with water changes anyway.)

pH of 7.6 is quite middle of the road and usually good - MW will have to comment, I don't know the thread.

You are right about your fish-in cycle, keep testing, amm & no2 will keep popping up at times and will require water changes. When you go two full days with them being zero morning and night then you can breathe more easily and maybe won't need water changes from then on but keep monitoring pretty closely for another week after that.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Hi again, yes sorry forgot to say above that I moved water and a little filter media across.

With regards to the readings on the mother tank though (I bought the API kit)

The readings I posted above (all of 0) are correct, the pH in my tank is 8.

I took readings from the tap water and we have no nitrate so I'm guessing that along with 4 live plants in my tank explains the 0mg/L nitrate in my tank?

Should I have nitrate in the tank and if so how would I go about getting it or will it run fine as it is?

The tap water has a pH of 7.6 so is the difference of this to my tank exceptable and if not what is causing the difference considering my other results?

Also the other tank I set up seems to be doing well, the nitrite is still at 0, ammonia reached 0.50 so I done a 20% water change and it's back to 0 again but I'm guessing it will keep rising until the filter has settled and it's then cycled?

Sorry for all the Q's

as waterdrop said don't worry over nitrate, no nitrate is a good thin (although don't expect it to last, once the filters are cycled and the tank establishes it will rise slightly)

monitor your nitrite and ammonia daily, if you see a reading other than 0 for either of them then do a 30% change, this should hopefully just be for a few days, but may take a couple of weeks, it's a bit unpredictable when you have some mature media. when it's all steady at 0, then the filter is cycled.

i wouldn't worry over pH for now, your tap water pH is good, ammonia and nitrite in the tank affect the pH in all sorts of funny ways also a pH of 8 is significantly less harmful than some ammonia. so just concentrate on getting the tanks cycled for now and when that's done see if your pH stabilises around that of your tap water.