Nitrite Spike - No Idea Why

[STEWARDSONS]

On Thursday I tested my water 0 nitrite, 0 ammonia.

On Saturday I did a 40ltr water change on my 190 ltr tank. I also cleaned the filter sponged by squeeizing them out into a bucket of the tank water, it turned it very brown. I then changed the wool and plugged it all back in and turned it on.

Sunday I noticed one of my electric blue rams at the top of the tank at the back breathing quite heavily so I tested the water and my nitrite was 0.50 . so I did a 50% water change and tested 2 hours after and its now 0.

I will test again tonight, but has anyone got an idea why?

i would be over stocked if my fish were fully grown but they are all only about 4 months old.

 

[Shaddex]

Ive found that stiring up the substrate when I do a water change can sometimes Spike Ammonia or Nitrite.
Maybe a Dead fish or old food rotting ?

 

[STEWARDSONS]

funny you should say that as on thursday i purchased a bery large bit of bogwood and moved the whole tank around, stiring up a lot of poo from under the old wood and stones.

 

[Tizer]

I had a reading of nitrite in my tiger tank a week ago after i cleaned out the sponges the night before. When i got home from work in the evening it was all zero's again. I would generally give the tank 12 hours to recover before going mad with water changes, but i also guess it depends on how high the levels are. I think mine measured 1 ppm on the test kit and i didnt have time for a water change before work.

 

[waterdrop]

This is very common. When you work in the tank you often change or stir things up such that organic debris is exposed in new ways to heterotrophic bacteria (or ammonia, nitrite, nitrate associated with debris is simply uncovered from the substrate) and a mini-spike occurs. A good biofilter will react to this fairly quickly (depending upon the maturity of the biomedia and whether or not its overall colony size is restricted by filter media volume size.) Most freshwater tanks are not big machines that can instantly take care of everything, instead they are a balance of several factors (bioload, biomedia maturity, biomedia volume) and have their own rhythm of re-balancing.

If you have enough fish that you expect to be overstocked when they reach maturity you may be surprised that they already create quite a load. It has always been my feeling that body volume presents only a poor estimate of bioload in that younger fish are also higher metabolism fish. Thus maintenance, of course, is a factor, both the weekly substrate-clean-water-change and the periodic filter cleanings. It probably just bears judging over time, with an eye toward whether your filtration volume is high enough or could use an increase or whether it's just a one-time thing or whether maintenance habits need a tweak.

~~waterdrop~~