Nitrite And Nitrate Spike!

[Spanerman]

Right today has been eventful!

My external filter arived and i plumbed it up, placed my media from my internal and some new media into the canister and powerd up, all ways ok. Then i go back into my room and the pipe has come loose and there appeard to be a small puddle, istarted moping it up with towels.

After i went downstairs to see a horror story! there was water under the wall paper and it was dripping all down the walls and from the cieling!

I swiftly removed the filter and placed it in the bath and pumped from my sink to diagnose the leak, but in my haste i didnt de-clorinate the water!

I fixed the leak and all was good.

Later on today i did a water test and my Nitrite levels are at around 4ppm and Nitrate are at around 60ppm

Ive done a 50% water change and it brought them down but my all that much!

What should i do? lots of water changes to get the levels back down?

Is this a mini cycle? should the bacteria recolonise?

But, all the way through this my ammonia is 0ppm, this has confused me, any idea?


Regards, Sam.

 

[yvez9]

it's possible you killed off part of the bacterial culture but there was enough left to process ammonia but not nitrites.

I'd do daily water changes and verify tomorrow. I'm guessing mini-cycle that will fix itself within a few days.
Do you have another filter from which you could harvest filter media? even a little will help colonize your "new" media. Otherwise, if your tank is mature (running for at least a year), put gravel in a stocking and stick that in your filter.

 

[Spanerman]

No the internal filter was mature from a previous tank but the tank was newly set up a fortnight ago, with new substrate ect.

How much water should i change daily?

 

[Spanerman]

Right, after doing some research, it seems the chlorine and chloramine dont realy pose a danger to the filter bacteria, could it just be the fact that ive just added 2 new fish to the tank and the bioload is just to much for the small amount of media i had in the internal and i just have to wait for the bacteria to re-colonise, doesnt the presence of nitrates that were not there wednesday indicate that there are some of the bacteria present?

Sam.