Nitrate too HIGH!!

[MarkF]

Brand new to the game and set up my wifes birthday pressie 3 weeks ago - a 45l Tank with Tetra Aquasafe & Bacterlife - added plants 10 days ago and then purchased 2 Mollies and 4 Guppies . Thought I would just check the Nitrite levels, expecting them to be zero and nearly had a coronary when the kit (Tetratest ) went red and gave a reading of 1.6mg/l.

I immediately carried out a 25% water change and it reduced slightly to about 0.8mg/l and whilst not happy thought best not to change anymore.

I thought the cycle only started when fish were added ??

 

[impur]

Your topic is nitrAte but you talk about nitrIte. Need to clarify what we are talking about. The cycle goes, fish create ammonia, bacteria grow eat ammonia turn it into nitrite. Nitrite bacteria eat nitrites and turn them into nitrates, nitrates are removed by regular water changes.

Read this article on cycling, it will help

Cycling your tank info

 

[Tanked]

mark, there may be ammonia in your water which could kickstart a cycle even with out adding fish, food, or ammonia to start the cycle. have you tested the tank and your tap water for ammonia? there also could be nitrites and nitrates in the tap water as well.

 

[semper fi]

sounds like you set up the tank and there was nothing to get the ammonia levels up and start the cycle. i bet if you checked the ammonia levels they are slightly elevated also. the best thing to do is to do water changes of about 10% to let the tank cycle and the bacteria build. you may experience some fish loss due to the stress of cycling.

generally it takes about 6 weeks to properly cycle a tank. maybe cut off a week or two with using fish to build up the ammonia.

semper fi

 

[wetwetwet]

Sounds like you're well into the cycle

Keep testing and let us know how you get on....


btw HiYa and welcome MarkF

 

[MarkF]

Thanks for the advice..... My title should be Nitrite (Not Nitrate)

It sounds like i am well into the cycle as when i set up the tank 3 wks ago i added a few flakes of food to kickstart the cycle. I will get a test kit for ammonia levels in the next few days and fingers crossed