Nitrate And Nitrite

[yujisaurus]

About two weeks ago I set up a 5 gallon with sand, water from my 5-year established 20 gallon, drift wood, and a media cartridge from my old tank. I was told that the cycling process would take a shorter amount of time if I added those stuff from my old tank. I took three hengeli rasboras from my old tank with some ghost shrimp and stuck them in the five 5 gallon as well. I'd say it's been about two weeks, and just recently I noticed the shrimp going nuts, and the fish a tad hyper (but look very healthy). I was really shocked to see the parameters:
0 ammonia
~150ppm nitrates
~10ppm nitrites

The parameters were similar about a week ago, (actually nowhere near as worse) and panicking, I called my local fish store. They said that because it was cycling I could only remove a small portion of the water, around 10%. I don't want to disturb the cycling process, but I'm worried about my fishes health. HELP!

 

[Tolak]

150 nitrates is high, as is 10 with the nitrites. A 50% water change will lower these to 75ppm nitrates & 5ppm nitrites, provided your replacement water has no nitrites or nitrates. This shouldn't affect your cycling at all, and will help with the health of your fish. Nitrites inhibit a fish's ability to process oxygen, increasing aeration will help them.

A 10% water change will hardly make a dent in the levels.

 

[yujisaurus]

Should I run out and buy a water stone?

I don't understand why the nitrates and nitrites are so high and the ammonia is 0.

 

[Tolak]

You can see by the chart that as ammonia drops nitrite starts to appear. The nitrifying bacteria that deal with ammonia are established, the ones that deal with nitrite are still growing back. From what I've experienced the ones that process nitrite to nitrate are more fragile than the ones that process ammonia to nitrite.

Anything that causes more surface motion will increase O2 transfer, an air supply works by causing surface motion, the actual bubbles in the water transfer little O2 in comparison. If your filter splashes into the surface of the tank dropping the water level an inch will help create more surface movement.

O2 tranfer is all about the friction between the water surface & the air above it. Disturbing the surface creates more friction & more O2 transfer.

 

[yujisaurus]

So...because I added the existing media from the old tank, the ammonia has been dealt with? Is it towards the end of the cycle?

It's down to about 40ppm nitrate and 3-5 ppm nitrite.

 

[Tolak]

If it's processing ammonia it's getting towards the end of the cycle. Nitrite levels should drop soon, and the tank will be cycled.