New Plastic Plant's Causing Nitrite Spike Or Overfeeding...?

[DannyBlackbourn]

Hey everyone!

I had assumed my tank was cycled as it has been showing zero's for over a week now!

However I added quite a lot of plastic plants that were to be thrown away by a family member...

I washed them thoroughly with cold water and placed them in my tank.

I woke up this morning to find my Nitrite had risen to 0.25ppm... O.k not a seriously big spike but I don't get why it would rise if I had cycled my tank.

Anyway If it isn't the plant's then I think it may have been because I put more food in the tank than I am supposed to have...

Anyway I have changed 25% of my water and will keep a closer eye on my water parameters the next few days.

Any help would be appreciated

 

[doggiebag]

oh no, the curse continues lol
Mine were made from a rubber silicone type material, they were neon corals. I know of at least one more person who had the exact same issue as me with the same corals, their nitrite never went below 0.25 until I told them about the plants, they removed and overnight the nitrite dropped to zero.
All I can say is see if it goes back up, if it does remove them and see if it drops again, if it does then its your plants, though I would think plastic ones were fine, but you never know......

Having said that, my betta tank was cycled, had zeros for 10 days, now I am getting traces of ammonia for the past week, out of nowhere, so it may just be a blip.

Have also started my fishless cycle, I know, Im a sucker for punishment, but have started a thread on that if you want to follow Danny, as I think you were going to do one too, we can continue to be cycle buddies

 

[rdd1952]

Plastic plants should not have any effect on ammonia or nitrite unless they have a lot of gunk/debris on them that starts to break down and rot but that process should be slow enough that you wouldn't get any type build up of toxins.

 

[OldMan47]

The plastic plants will not be affecting the water chemistry but if you stirred the gravel trying to anchor them, you may have stirred things from the bottom into the water column. Anything that got into the water column could have an effect on the water chemistry of a newly established cycle. In a day or two, everything should settle right back to where it was.

 

[DannyBlackbourn]

Hey guys!

Will be checking my water parameters again soon!

Hopefully they have dropped