Low Ammonia And Ph, But High Nitrite And Nitrate!

[UK_Dave]

Ive been doing alot of testing to my tank lately (75 gallon) and 2 days ago everything was ok, just a tad high.

So, to keep my fish happy I did a 25% water change adding water with the chemical to get rid of the chlorine

I tested the water yesterday and my ammonia is on the verge of 0, my pH is about 6, but my nitrate and nitrite are still very high! How can I drop these 2 levels down?

It was looking good when I did the 2 tests for pH and and ammonia, but it then went wrong when I did the other 2 tests

I have the test kit with the chemicals, where you drop x amount of drops into 5ml of water, give it a shake, and check the colour of the water against the chart

many thanks

 

[Gr44]

What are your readings for

Ammonia
NitrIte
NitrAte

Please provide the 'ppm'.

Any Ammonia or NitrIte is very harmful to fish, if these are present in ANY quanity perform a water change of 50%, make sure you use de-chlorine products before you replace the water and match the temperture.

Have you done a fishless/fish-in cycle?
How old is your tank?
How long have you had fish for?

~Sean

 

[UK_Dave]

I changed everything over from another tank into this, but I had fish in the old tank originally which was fine

Ammonia is at the very bottom of the scale, if anything its more 0 than anything else

As for the Nitrate and Nitrite, I cant remember off the top of my head, and im at work so cant remember the scales

All I remember is 1 part the scale was up to 110 on the colour chart, and it was 50, and the other was the 2nd from the end of the scale...Basically, both were 2nd from the last on the colour scale!

I had it all written down at home, but forgot to pick it up!

Sorry im being a bit vague, had everything worked out that I was going to ask....then left it at home!

The name of the test kit was nutrafin or something...my other half picked it up, and its the liquid test kit which she was told it was the best

I cant say much as its her tank more than anything else lol!

(Reminds me of that old AA advert..."Its in the sand! Im not being very helpfull am I dad" lol!

 

[UK_Dave]

Right, update after a call to the other half (Dont have internet at home at the moment)

Nitrate is 50

Nitrite is 1.6

Hope that helps

 

[OldMan47]

It helps us understand your situation Dave but it does not help your fish. A nitrite level of 1.6 is way too high for the fish. You need to get that down below the first positive reading on your test kit. For most of us that means less than 0.25 ppm. You get there the way GR44 said by doing a large water change, but I would suggest a very large one, not a wimpy little 50% change. Assuming that there is no nitrite in the tap water supply, it would take about a 90% water change to do it in one step or several 50% water changes to get there. The first 50% would get you to 0.8, the second to 0.4 and the third to about 0.2 ppm. I prefer to do it in one change and save time, effort and water.
You said you moved the fish from an old tank to this new one. Did you move the filter over with them? It was the filter that was controlling the ammonia and nitrites in the old tank and it could still do that for you in the new one if it came along with the fish.

 

[UK_Dave]

I have used the filter that came with the tank, as I thought it would be a better one, but I have been doing some research while waiting for replies and not found that many "great" write ups about the stingray pumps, whereas my other was a fluval which was running my old smaller tank fine

Im thinking about changing this over when I get home to see if that helps the situation.

I have some of that dechlorinating chemical at home which I add to the water. 2 days ago I done a test and all the levels had shot up, so I did a 50% water change, this dropped all of the levels down more, the ammonia and pH being the most. But the nitrate and nitrite levels were still high, although alot lower than the day before!

 

[OldMan47]

Your existing filter has a feature that you will not find on any new filter. It has enough of the right bacteria in it to support the biological load of the fish you have had it taking care of. Even the best available filter, if there really is such a thing, will not have that feature for quite a while. Any established and functional filter does have that going for it.

 

[UK_Dave]

Well the filter that im using is the 1 that came with the tank. Whereas the other filter (Fluval) was the one that was running my smaller tank (which I also have another 2 that run my turtle tank well...messy creatures!)

My fluval 1 I just put to 1 side and used the stingray that came with the tank, which were housing Barbs, I just used everything that was in the tank, and just added a few decorations to it...Although maybe my mistake was cleaning alot of it!

As I said, everything was fine the other day, had all the levels really nice, just a tad high on the Ammonium mainly, the rest were within the good levels. I tried to erase the ammonium but its thrown the Nitrate and Nitrite levels off!

 

[waterdrop]

Hi there UK_Dave and Welcome to TFF!

Sounds like you are in what we like to call a Fish-In Cycling Situation! You are in good hands here in the beginner section with oldman47 and the others giving you suggestions!

A nice big 75 US gallon will make things easier in some respects because water chemistry changes will come about more slowly than in a smaller tank, so once you acheive much lower levels of nitrite(NO2) via your large water changes, it will take a little longer for them to come back on you.

It sounds like the filter media (dirty sponges etc. from your old fluval) are now gone or being used in another way, so you are starting from scratch with the new Stingray filter if I'm hearing you correctly. Stingray filters are known for having a material called Zeolite, which removes ammonia chemically. This sounds like a good thing but can make it more difficult to grow the bacteria we need to grow in the filter. Zeolite usually looks like white chips either by themselves or mixed in with the black carbon chips. The members may need to help you figure out whether your Stingray has zeolite in it.

The stingray also may be rather small to handle a 75 US gallon tank. I'm not sure about this because I don't know if there are multiple models or how big they get but this is another thing that should be determined.

As OM47 said, very large water changes are the most urgent things right now, as most species will not be able to live long with the nerve and brain damage that comes with nitrite(NO2) going above 0.25ppm. A gravel-cleaning siphon should be used to get as much debris out of the gravel as possible as the water flows out of the tank. As OM47 says, it will be faster and easier to change out lots of water such that there's just barely enough room for the fish to not be uncovered. The refill water needs to be conditioned, as you already know, to remove chlorine/chloramines and you need to figure out a way to roughly match the incoming temperature with the outgoing.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[UK_Dave]

Ive spent most of the weekend doing changes, tests, changes, test...and finally I have managed to get on top of both the Nitrite and nitrate

Ive got it so its all at the very low end of the scale, whereas ammonia is finally gone!

So im finally getting on top of it!

I tried my other filter and it just ruined the look of the water, made it look very chalky looking...so I changed it back to the other filter that I have been using and its all ok now

Cheers for the advice people...Just a quick question, when do I get access to the other boards? Its just I have an albino red finned shark im looking at parting with as he is always picking on the rest of the fish, hopefully trying to replace him with a silver fin

 

[OldMan47]

You get access to the other parts of the forum when you use the link that was mailed to you when you signed up. That e-mail was sent to you as a way of blocking wholesale spammers because the automated computer systems that do such things can't deal with the e-mail being in the loop.

 

[UK_Dave]

Ah, thought I had done that! Done now though

Hope you dont mind, I know I have a low post count (not for long though I hope) but I have put up a swap post for my albino shark, hoping to find him a better home than give him to a pet shop where he may die in their tank, or get bought by someone who may not know what they are doing with him.

I would prefer him to go to someone with knowledge as he is a nice looking shark, just a bit too bossy for me

 

[OldMan47]

The trading section of the forum is there for that purpose Dave. At one time or another many of us have fish or equipment to sell or are looking for a decent buy from someone who knows what they are doing.

 

[Rajinder]

The nitrate and nitrite are very high in my tank too, I don't have any fish in there at the moment since its a new tank. It has been running for over a week now. There was a little ammonia in the tank a few days ago and the nitrite and nitrate were also high so I did a 30% water change and tested the water again. There is no ammonia but there is still high amounts of nitrite and nitrate. what shall i do? I can't find any liquid ammonia in the shops either to do my fish less cycle.