Nitrite spike.

[rbcxpeter]

I bought a test kit for my 60g community tank, and everything's good except that I got a major problem with nitrite. It measured out to 5.0 ppm when ideally it's supposed to be at 0 ppm. I was told that because I don't have a carbon filter, my tank has a lot of nitrite. Should I just get a cheap filter that has carbon to filter the nitrite? I want to avoid putting chemicals in my tank as much as possible. Currently, I have Fluval 3, 1 and another small filter that has carbon but obviously isn't doing well enough. The Fulvals have no carbon, just sponges. I recently put in aqua salt and Kordon's Rid Ich+. Now I know why 5 fish died in the past week. Help please.

 

[mrV]

You have nitrite in your tank, because there is something wrong with benefial bacteria. How old is your tank? If it's new, did you cycly it at first?

What is aquasalt? Rid ich+ is probably malachite green.. I just read that malachite green may destroy beneficial bacteria in certain concentration.

But because you have nitrite (which is toxic to fishes), you need to get rid of it: change water, prepare water first if you haven't good tap-water. If you live near some fishstore, buy some bacteria supplies (e.g. Sera Nitrivec - it should contain beneficial bacteria, check the date, when it has been made). You can also add benefial bacteria from you flower pot. Put water in a container and add soil from your flower-pot. Pour that clear water to your tank.

Change water enough, few times a day to keep nitrite level down. Don't feed your fishes either.

 

[thecichlidaddict]

I agree, the medication most likely did damage to your bio-filter. Waterchanges are the key, as often as it takes to get the nitrites down. Adding established media from another tank is the best boost you can give, most of those products in the store don't work. If you have bio-spira in your location, that's the only one that really works so far.

Carbon has nothing to do with nitrite directly, but I hope you did run some to get the medication out of the water?

 

[rbcxpeter]

so instead of buying a filter, just change the water? I meant aquarium salt when i said aqua salt. It's just salt to get rid of parasites. Thanks for the advice. I'm gonna go change the water now, bye~!